THE HISTORY OF FOURTH WALL PRODUCTIONS

Fourth Wall Productions is the brain-child of Edward Brown (E.B.) Smith and Justin Tatum. Mr. Smith is an Eastside Cleveland resident, born and raised, and asked Justin (his college friend) upon a trip to Cleveland if Tatum was interested in starting a theatre company in Northeast Ohio. Justin immediately agreed and the two acting majors starting collecting a group of people- mainly actors. Knowing royalty fees, and acquiring the trust of playwrights when you're a young, new, under-funded theatre company, would be difficult to obtain- Justin and E.B. took aside a member of Ohio University's Playwriting program, Matthew A. Sprosty, and asked Sprosty (who was a Westside Cleveland resident) if he would be their Resident Playwright. Having worked with Justin Tatum in two of his productions at Ohio University, and being good friends with Smith- Sprosty, without delay, agreed. But, Sprosty had one request- that Rudy Frias, an actor in Ohio University's program, and Sprosty's preferred comedic relief actor, join them.

In 2004, Smith, Tatum, Frias, and Sprosty graduated Ohio University, and moved to Cleveland to begin the set up process of Fourth Wall Productions. Immediately, Smith and Tatum introduced themselves to the Cleveland Play House's new Artistic Director, Michael Bloom, and secured a connection with a member of Cleveland's Theatre Community. Frias became an actor-teacher for Great Lakes Theatre, while E.B. and Justin attended as many different auditions with different theatre companies as they could.

Matthew A. Sprosty started to write a play for Fourth Wall dealing with characters in the age range of Smith, Tatum, and Frias (and, also of the actors still left to graduate at Ohio University who wanted to be apart of Fourth Wall.) Holding auditions in Cleveland and Athens, Ohio- Fourth Wall casted their first show penned by Sprosty entitled Plans Change. An ensemble play about seven characters (four guys, and three girls) who, after just graduating college, found out they really didn't know what to do with the rest of their lives. After a condom breaks for two characters, and a pregnancy test comes back positive, the characters feel the next logical step in the real world is marriage.

Plans Change opened on The Brooks Theater stage at the Cleveland Play House in the summer of 2005, and was Rebecca Cole and Dash Combs' official inclusion into Fourth Wall. Not understanding the world of media releases, no media showed up for Plans Change. But, an aspiring journalist in the audience wrote a review for WestLife that also appeared in CoolCleveland.com. Vanessa Lange wrote: "This is definitely a group full of young, fresh talent that is worth keeping an eye on. You can be sure to see good things from them in the future."

After Plans Change, Tatum started to work with Kalliope Stage (as did Combs), and The Bang and the Clatter, E.B. Smith had huge success on the stage, and turned Equity (minimizing what he could do for Fourth Wall's performances), Frias continued his work as an actor-teacher, Cole assistant directed A Christmas Story for The Cleveland Play House, and Sprosty went back to writing short stories to bide his time.

It wasn't until January 2006 that Fourth Wall came back together to start work on Sprosty's second World Premiere of Schism. A play he began to write off of experiences behind-the-scenes of Plans Change where two leads fell in love with each other in front of an audience (Rudy Frias started to date his Plans Change on-stage wife Libby Ewing, and are now living together in New York City.)

Schism opened on The Brooks Theater stage at The Cleveland Play House in the Summer of 2006. After a preview in The Plain Dealer by Tony Brown, Fourth Wall saw their puny profits from Plans Change triple, and was now able to open a bank account, and afford the fees for their official Articles of Incorporation paperwork. Schism also had Fourth Wall finding an audience member writing a review saying: "It truly was one of the best cast, best acted, best directed, best written shows I've seen [in Cleveland] (second only to CPH's I am My Own Wife)." –Lincoln King-Cliby on NeoPal.

Taking submissions for their first season, Fourth Wall also started shopping out for scripts. Under the guidance of Matthew A. Sprosty, they chose their first season of Babes in America by Carole Clement (a Mentor, Ohio playwright), All the Way from China by Barry Levey (a script Seth Gordon of the Cleveland Play House passed on to them), Stained Glass Ugly by Qui Nguyen (an OU playwright that Sprosty claims as a mentor), and Malicious Bunny (a World Premiere dark comedy by Matthew A. Sprosty).

Fourth Wall, until this point, has used its profits mainly to pay its non-Fourth Wall help (actors, designers, managers, etc.). Their top two supporters (and donors), are two people who have followed Fourth Wall from the beginning. One is in his early twenties, and the other is in her sixties- a fact Fourth Wall feels shows they are on the right track to fulfill their mission statement to engage a younger audience, but entertain people of all ages.

(E.B. Smith, while being in Chicago, helps Fourth Wall out by being in workshop readings for soon-to-be-produced plays when he's in Cleveland, and offering his input in business activities.)