By far the most exciting news in performance groups this year was the arrival of The Bang and the Clatter Theatre Company, the adventurous theater group that performs at Summit Artspace, a block east of the Akron Art Museum downtown.

Its founders, known as the Two Seans (Sean Derry and Sean McConaha) take their company's name from a U2 song, and they model themselves after Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, though that company didn't offer free beer and wine!

Every show I've seen by this company has been innovative -- each in a different way -- and the quality has been very high.So far, the group has made things work by operating on a shoestring, with lots of adrenaline and talent. Its challenge this year will be to line up the funding to keep going forward so it can start to pay its two artistic directors.

For established groups, this was a year for facing reality.

The Cleveland Opera, which operated during the school year, and Lyric Opera Cleveland, which ran during the summers, merged into one entity, Opera Cleveland. So far, the group has been making plans, and we won't hear from them until next April.

It'll be a winter without opera in Northeast Ohio, but we can hope the merger will bring financial stability for those two groups.The Cleveland Orchestra has been implementing a turnaround plan to get out of debt. At its annual meeting in October, it announced a $5 million gift that will help support the group while the plan is carried out.

Part of it involves a new way of doing business. The crux is for the orchestra to earn its money from donors and tickets in cities it visits, instead of at home.In January, we'll see how its first two-week residency goes at the new Carnival Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, where the orchestra will play concerts and work with college music students. A board of directors is in place there, along with a charitable foundation.

This is the first year of a 10-year contract in Miami, so it's fair to say the orchestra has pinned a lot of hopes on this venture.

Akron Symphony
Let's hope 2006-07 is the year that the Akron Symphony comes back. After struggling several years with a music director who wasn't up to the job, then running a search for a new music director and an executive director, it finally has two leaders in place: conductor/music director Christopher Wilkins, and executive director Margo Snider.

This group counted on its strong board to carry it through the hard times. Now it needs to come up with not only good concerts -- which it had this fall -- but also some new, interesting initiatives to put it in the public eye and increase its audience. It has been a little sleepy, and I have high hopes that exciting new projects are in the works.

The Canton Symphony has come up with new programs to appeal to new audience members, thanks to its energetic chief executive officer, Marie-Helene Bernard.

Tuesday Musical
One outstanding example of a group that kept its standards high and its vision on course this year was Tuesday Musical. This chamber music presenter keeps on bringing in top talent, and its audience is loyal and large. What's more, it continues to develop its audiences by giving students vouchers for free tickets and student companion tickets for $10.

There are hints of its doing programs at the Akron Art Museum when it reopens, which is something else positive on the horizon.

Loss of Ohio Ballet
Ohio Ballet finally accepted that years of slipping attendance and severely diminished board support left no option but to close, several months after the death of its founding artistic director, Heinz Poll

.All over the country, people were staying home from classical ballet. Playhouse Square Foundation had for four years brought in world-class companies, from the Kirov Ballet to American Ballet Theatre and Miami City Ballet.

Without seeing steady growth in audiences, or enough corporate and foundation support, it had to pull the plug on a wonderful series. Somewhat puzzlingly, though audiences didn't want to pay to see professional companies perform classical story ballets, they did support the excellent performances by local pre-professional organizations.

Children's Ballet Theatre's artistic director, Christine Meneer, had been a member of Ohio Ballet when it began. She decided last fall to take the leap of expanding her children's group into a professional company. The new Ballet Theatre of Ohio will have a preview concert in February, when it will reprise two Heinz Poll works. These are not story ballets, which Poll disliked, but neither are they brand-new pieces, which audiences seem to have been gravitating to when performed by Northeast Ohio companies like Verb Ballets and GroundWorks Dancetheater. The challenge for Meneer will be to see if she can develop new repertoire that captures audiences' interest, and carve out a niche for the group.

Finally, in the performing arts realm, Dan Dahl took a break this fall from heading E.J. Thomas Hall and the Akron Civic Theatre, citing personal reasons. He'll be back at his old job as executive director of both Akron institutions on Jan. 8.

Museum to reopen
I've been feeling starved for art, with both the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Akron Art Museum closed for major additions, although luckily we still have the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, and the wonderful Barcelona show in one portion of the Cleveland Museum of Art (through Jan. 7).

The Akron Art Museum announced a week of opening activities in mid-July 2007. The new building makes a grand artistic statement for downtown. I can't wait to see out-of-town visitors coming to check it out. Cultural tourism would be a welcome trend in 2007.