CLEVELAND, OHIO – August 2024). Songs Without Words (or, The Mendelssohn Play), an award winning solo play from Chicago-based actor/playwright Jennifer Vosters, will perform three shows through convergence-continuum’s “Tweener Series” this August.
Songs Without Words is the humorous, heartbreaking story of one artistic soul inhabiting two very different artists. Featuring Vosters’s tour-de-force performance as sibling composers Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, Songs Without Words wrestles with gender and genius, family and fame, siblinghood and the power of art.
The play won the 2024 M. Elizabeth Osborn Award from the American Theatre Critics Association, a national award recognizing outstanding new plays from emerging playwrights. Songs Without Words also won Critics’ Pick of the Fringe at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival.
Alan Jozwiak of the League of Cincinnati Theatres called Songs Without Words “a rich and beautiful tapestry of two composers’ lives that is well told and wonderfully acted.” Fellow critic Katrina Reynolds lauded its “incredible writing, exciting direction, and what can only be described as a flawless performance.” Kirk Sheppard of The Sappy Critic gave it “a must-see recommendation,” and Milwaukee’s Russ Bickerstaff described it as “a remarkable piece…[that] speaks to universals in art, life, and familial love, making it a one-hour journey anyone can take.”
Fanny Mendelssohn was a 19th -century composer who, like most women of the time, was not permitted to be a professional artist. Her younger brother Felix, famous for masterpieces like “The Wedding March” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” soared to stardom while she remained relatively obscure, until recent interest in her music has propelled her into the spotlight.
While lovers of history and classical music will find much to enjoy, Vosters stresses that Songs Without Words is a story for everybody. “It’s about sibling love and sibling rivalry, it’s about family, it’s about trying and failing and trying again to live up to your potential,” she says. It’s fast-paced—only 60 minutes—and from Ohio to Saskatchewan, it’s been striking a chord with audiences from all walks of life.
Songs without Words opens Thursday, August 29 and runs Thu-Sat at 8 p.m, through August 31 at convergence-continuum’s Liminis Theater, 2438 Scranton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113 in the historic Tremont neighborhood. Tickets are $20 general admission. Tickets and information are available at www.convergence-continuum.org and 216-687-0074.
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