Fort Worth Weekly - News, Entertainment, Restaurants, Music

The little groups of women in the lobby of Theatre Arlington were spending their intermission comparing notes on the leading man in that afternoon's matinee production.

"B.J. looks adorable in that suit!" said one. And another, "Has he ever played Elwood before?" The production in question was Harvey, Mary Chase's 1944 comedy about an invisible six-foot rabbit and the human who could see him - Elwood P. Dowd, played at this performance by B. J. Cleveland, 46, the theater's departing artistic director.

The show was a sell-out, the seats filled by age groups from young adults to seniors. But Cleveland's admirers were dominated by the small army of grandmother-age groupies hanging on his every word. Maybe it was the artificial gray in his slicked-back hair or just the generous helpings of hammy charm he was dishing out. Or maybe his senior fans feel as though they've watched him grow up, literally - from local child stage star to host of a long-running kids' TV show to resident artist at Casa Mañana to artistic director of Theatre Arlington.

Though he has yet to turn 50, Cleveland has been acting, directing, moving scenery, running theaters - well, doing just about every job available in the Tarrant County theatrical world (except the business side) for 39 years. He got his Actors' Equity card before he was old enough to drive. And except for the trace of a middle-age paunch, he exudes much of the same sly, youthful energy as when he appeared in his first Casa Mañana musical in 1970. By his rough estimation, he has acted in or directed 350 local, regional, and national shows since then.

But Cleveland is more than just an experienced theatrical hand. Professionally speaking, he's the child of two seminal local stage entities, Casa Mañana and Fort Worth Theatre. Having witnessed - and in some cases, participated in - the creation and development of companies like Theatre Arlington, Hip Pocket Theatre, Stage West, Circle Theatre, and Onstage in Bedford during his relatively brief lifetime thus far, he jokingly refers to himself as "the old man historian." He has been the face and soul of Theatre Arlington for more than 20 years, as artistic associate and, since 1994, as artistic director.

Boy wonder or historian, it's time for him to move on. Cleveland himself suggested to the Theatre Arlington board that they get rid of his position. The board earlier this summer announced it would eliminate four of its eight staff positions in response to the continuing recession. But it was the news about Cleveland that shocked local theater fans.

Todd Hart has been Cleveland's friend for 16 years; now he's the man who's assuming the role of Theatre Arlington's executive producer in Cleveland's wake and fielding the calls about his departure. "Some patrons have come to me and, to say the least, expressed their displeasure about B.J. 'leaving,' " he said. "I tried to tell them that he's coming back to do three shows next season." Cleveland will act and direct on a show-by-show contract basis.

Still, a new chapter in Cleveland's professional life has undeniably begun - one that in some ways has been delayed by his own local success. He plans to branch out into new styles of theater and explore the TV and film work that he skipped as a young man.

In the meantime, at the theater he led for so long, the show will go on without Cleveland's name recognition and hands-on quality control.

Elizabeth Conly, a 26-year-old actor who co-starred with Cleveland in Harvey and who began theater studies with him when she was eight, credits him with inspiring her to pursue a stage degree at Baylor. "I won't say the quality of productions will go down" after Cleveland exits as artistic director, she said, "but an important dynamic has changed forever. This will be a learning experience and an adventure - both for B.J. and for Theatre Arlington."

At Harvey's curtain call, Cleveland got the expected standing ovation and explosive applause from the whole house, not just from the granny contingent. With a wide grin for which the adjective "puckish" was invented, Cleveland reached into his suit, pulled out a large handful of business cards, and flung them out into the audience. It's an inside joke: While Elwood P. Dowd introduces himself with cards throughout the play, B.J. Cleveland needs no introduction to the Arlington fan base that has been like his extended family.

A Fort Worth native, he was christened Bobby Joe by his mother, who was 16, and his father, who was 18. With parents so young, Cleveland grew up more like their little brother than their child: There was a lot of pop music, dancing, movies, and TV in their home, but no connection to theater. When he entered second grade in 1969, Cleveland's teachers noticed that he not only read at a fifth-grade level but could memorize long passages from books.

"They said, 'You need to find a creative outlet for this child,' and the Casa Mañana professional school for children was the only game in town," he said. "It was an instant fit. By the time I was seven, I had played an urchin in my first professional musical [at Casa], Mr. Scrooge."

Cleveland's early teachers included Hip Pocket's Johnny Simons and the late Bill Garber, co-founder of Fort Worth Theatre, as well as acclaimed, still-active Fort Worth actor-director-playwrights like Debra Jung and Linda Lee. Classes at Casa were held twice a week after school, and the teachers often required their child protégés to memorize and perform a scene a week. Students were expected to participate in all aspects of a production, including set building and painting. The program functioned more like a prep school than the high-falutin' babysitting services that sometimes pass for youth theater classes today.

Sharon Benge is currently director of the drama department at Texas Women's University. Among her many credits, she was founding director of Fort Worth's Shakespeare in the Park and has directed shows across Texas and in Ireland, Scotland, and Czechoslovakia. Cleveland was a student in her youth classes at Casa Mañana in the 1970s.

"At one point we had almost 500 students at Casa, and it was necessary for someone to rise above the pack for me to notice them," she said. Cleveland did that - but not physically. "It helped that he was short for his age, which is what you look for in child actors - the ability to play roles younger than they are and bring a maturity to them. He quickly became a mainstay around the theater."

Cleveland counted as childhood friends and classmates Janine Turner (Northern Exposure) and The Facts of Life's Lisa Whelchel. They took field trips to New York City with Casa instructors to see Broadway shows that later became legendary, including A Chorus Line with the original cast.

By age 10, Cleveland was playing notable roles on the Casa main stage opposite visiting artists like 1940s MGM musical star and dramatic leading man Van Johnson. ("My grandparents thought I'd arrived," he said.) He'd eventually work with Debbie Reynolds, Lainie Kazan, Kristin Chenoweth, and, of course, the grande dame of Casa Mañana, Ruta Lee.