With less than two weeks to opening night, get the scoop first hand from Henry Saunders, manager of the Cleveland Grand Opera Company (Marc Ruffino), and Julia, Grand Dame of Cleveland Socitey who is also Chair of the Opera Guild (Tara Potzler) about the famous Italian tenor coming to the Cleveland Grand Opera Company stage! 🎶 Lend Me a Tenor 📅 June 6-22 ⏰ Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 2:30pm 🎥 Videographer: Tim Musial, Editor: Jeff Wick 🎟️: AuroraPlayers.org (fb)

Meet the Cast of Lend Me a Tenor! First up is Marc Ruffino, who plays Henry Saunders. AP: Tell us about your character: Marc: As impresario of the Cleveland Grand Opera Company in 1934, Saunders anxiously awaits the arrival of the greatest tenor of our generation - Signore Tito Merelli. Saunders is wound very tightly; he’s bombastic and sarcastic and feels his employees are a bunch of idiots and nitwits. AP: What is your favorite thing about working on this production? Marc: The cast is very close and working with them has been great fun. AP: Lend Me a Tenor is about the hilarity that ensues when an opera singer goes missing. Do you have a funny story about losing something and the great lengths you went to find it? Marc: In 9th grade, I “lost” a pen. By “lost,” I mean a classmate—whom I barely knew beyond sitting next to him in biology class—borrowed it and never gave it back. When I asked for it a few days later, he loudly scoffed at me, like I was absurd for wanting my own pen. Clearly, he lost it—and masked his shame with teenage machismo. Flash forward about 15 years. I’m dating the woman who’d become my wife of now nearly 25 years, when I discover: her first boyfriend? That same pen thief. They might’ve even been a thing during the Great Pen Heist of 1985. Honestly, it’s probably for the best I didn’t know her back then… for multiple reasons. AP: Why should someone come see Lend Me a Tenor? Marc: If you like mistaken identities, slamming doors, physical comedy, naughty double entendres, and having a great night of entertainment, this farce is for you! 🎶 Lend Me a Tenor 📅 June 6-22 ⏰ Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm, Sunday at 2:30pm 📸: Dori Shear-McGowan 🎟️: AuroraPlayers.org (fb)