Chagrin Valley Little Theatre

Underneath the Lintel by Glen Berger

Performance Dates & Tickets

About the Play

This curiously funny drama of life's most curious stuff is not to be missed.
-- New York Times

Directed by Susan Soltis
Sound Design by Richard B. Ingraham

Starring Robert Hawkes as 'The Librarian'

One morning in 1986, a Dutch librarian discovers in the return slot a book checked out in 1873 and only just returned. His sense of library decorum outraged, the librarian determines to find the party responsible, and to collect the appropriate fine. His quest takes him not only all over the physical world, but on a journey of remarkable spiritual discovery. A tale of seemingly petty bureaucratic procedure becomes the stuff of profound revelation about our relationship to responsibility, fate, humanity, and God.

Underneath the Lintel ran for over 450 performances Off-Broadway. It won a 2001 Ovation Award (Los Angeles), the 2003 Sterling Award (Edmonton) for Best Play, and was selected as one of Time Out New York's Ten Best Plays of 2001. CVLT's presentation joins a long list of productions in over 55 cities in 8 countries.

Full of both pathos and humor, Glen Berger's play both entertains and illuminates.

Robert Hawkes

Robert Hawkes returns to the River Street Playhouse after an absence of twenty years. In the 80's and early 90's he appeared here in If God Had Wanted Women..., Baby With the Bathwater, Faith Healer, American Buffalo, Silent Music, and A Walk in the Woods. He has been seen in the past year as 'Harpagon' in The Miser at Clague Playhouse, 'Gloucester' in King Lear at the Ohio Shakespeare Festival, a doctor in Wings at the Beck Center, 'Lewis' in Dividing the Estate at Ensemble Theatre, 'Richard Crain' in Scenery at the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, 'Dr. Sloper' in The Heiress at the Chagrin Falls Performing Arts Academy, and 'Bill Basil' in Fever/Dream at Cleveland Public Theatre.