Chagrin arts presents
PLAYHOUSE SQUARE
OUTCALT THEATRE
July 11, 2025: 7:30pm
July 12, 2025: 7:30pm
July 13, 2025: 3:00pm
Performance Length: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Recommended for adult audiences
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Ticket sales on playhousesquare.org coming soon!
CREATIVE TEAM
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Scott Davenport Richards, composer
David Cote, librettist
Based on the book Blind Injustice by Mark Godsey
Eric van Baars, director
Andrew Grams, conductor
Our Mission
To enrich life by presenting inspiring arts programming and stimulating conversations.
Our vision
We aim to end the tragedy of wrongful convictions in
Ohio through the power of the arts. Chagrin Arts will present the nationally acclaimed musical drama, BLIND INJUSTICE, at Cleveland’s Playhouse Square.
Our aim
We aim to educate...to challenge current thinking...to inspire community engagement...to reverse, transform, and eradicate wrongful convictions in Ohio.
Our method
BLIND INJUSTICE, based on Mark Godsey’s book of the same title, tells the true stories of six
Ohioans wrongfully convicted of crimes they did not commit. Eventually they had their convictions overturned through the work of the Ohio Innocence Project. Originally commissioned by Cincinnati
Opera, it premiered in 2019. Chagrin Arts’ production of BLIND INJUSTICE will be the Northeast Ohio
premiere on July 11-13, 2025.
Our hope
Chagrin Arts is asking you to join us as an integral supporter of this project, to become a part of our unified voice reflecting the powerful impact of the arts in the community and the transformative impact of community collaboration.
about
You’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. A child’s words are twisted. You might look like someone who committed a crime. Suddenly, your world is taken away. You’re in prison for a crime you did not commit, and no one is helping you get out. This was reality for Rickey Jackson, Nancy Smith, Clarence Elkins, and the East Cleveland 3.
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This inspiring new opera follows the Ohio Innocence Project’s efforts to overturn the convictions of six men, women, and teens who were wrongly imprisoned for violent crimes they did not commit:
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Nancy Smith, a school bus driver wrongly convicted of molesting children at the height of “nursery school hysteria” sweeping the nation. Imprisoned for 15 years.
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Laurese Glover, Derrick Wheatt, and Eugene Johnson – The “East Cleveland 3” – teenage boys wrongly convicted of murder, based on the testimony of a girl who was coerced by police. Imprisoned for 20 years.
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Clarence Elkins, wrongly convicted of the murder and rape of his mother-in-law and the rape of his wife’s niece. Imprisoned for 7.5 years. The actual perpetrator ultimately confessed.
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Rickey Jackson, wrongly convicted of murder and robbery, based on the coerced testimony of a child who later played a key role in his release. Imprisoned for 39 years, sent to Death Row.
BLIND INJUSTICE is not an ordinary opera. It recounts the journey through the power of jazz, hip-hop, blues and gospel. Forty percent of the words sung and spoken come directly from interviews with the exonerees about surviving this injustice. This timely and riveting production asks “What makes a person strong enough to endure injustice?”
Cincinnati Opera premiered BLIND INJUSTICE in July 2019 to five sold-out audiences.
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Photos by Philip Groshong at the The world premiere opera Blind Injustice
Reviews
WALL STREET JOURNAL:
“Seamless, hard-hitting and affecting. The music is masterly, adroit, tuneful. A powerful piece of music theater.”
OPERA NEWS:
"Blind Injustice is a powerful and moving work, as evident from the audience’s enthusiastic response.”
JUSTICE MICHAEL P. DONNELLY, Ohio Supreme Court:
“I ardently support the Board’s efforts to bring the opera Blind Injustice to Northeast Ohio. The opera is a powerful work of art, which conveys the human suffering that takes place when innocent people are convicted, and highlights and illuminates the systemic causes that allow these injustices to take place.”
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Read More​:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/arts/music/blind-injustice-ohio-innocence-project.html
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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/04/an-opera-for-the-wrongfully-convicted
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Who are we?
Incorporated in 2007, Chagrin Arts has been focused on ARTS WITH A PURPOSE. Over the past five years, Chagrin Arts has dedicated its programming to bringing awareness to wrongful convictions. In 2021, the Garden of Hope in downtown Chagrin Falls opened with the Imaginal Cell as its centerpiece. The artist is Dean Gillispie, an exoneree who spent 20 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. Today, the sculpture has 42 butterflies representing those Ohioans who have been exonerated by the Ohio Innocence Project.
Sponsorship support
Blind Injustice is sponsored by
Prospera, Friedman, Gilbert + Gerhardstein, Community West Foundation, Tucker Ellis LLP, The Char and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation, Wenk Foundation, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, Kent State University Hugh A. Glauser School of Music.