After three seasons, Tantrum Theater is leaving central Ohio.

Ohio University's acclaimed professional summer theater ompany, which presented plays and musicals from 2016 through 2018 in Dublin's Abbey Theater, will shift to producing shows in 2019 on Ohio University's main campus in Athens, Ohio.

"Central Ohio will feel the loss because Tantrum Theater did exceptional work and set a standard," said Pam Scheer, a past president of the Central Ohio Theatre Roundtable, a consortium of about 30 area companies that included Tantrum Theater.

"Any time a good theater leaves the area or folds, it's a tremendous loss," Scheer said.

The move to the university campus in Athens will bring the theater home to its sponsor, expand ties to the university theater department and allow the expansion of the summer season into both fall and spring.

"For the past three years, it has been our privilege to consistently bring world-class artists to work with our students on productions for the Dublin community, and we're simply thrilled that we'll be better able to share them with the larger student and faculty body and with our friends and neighbors in Athens," Tantrum Producing Director Rachel Cornish said in a statement.

"We're grateful for all of our devoted following in central Ohio, and we're looking forward to extending a very warm welcome to them down in Athens for the shows," Cornish said.

"Tantrum Theater sets a high bar for the performing arts in Ohio and beyond, and we are grateful they will continue to offer educational opportunities in Dublin, working with our Dublin Arts Council," said Michelle Crandall, Dublin assistant city manager. "We wish them great success at their new home in Athens."

Tantrum's departure doesn't mean the Abbey Theater will be dark.

The theater in the Dublin Community Recreation Center, 5600 Post Road, will continue to host a variety of children's theater programming through various organizations, Crandall said.

Last August, after Tantrum had completed its season, Dublin rented the Abbey Theater to a group called Original Productions Theatre, which produced a three-week run of a play called "How I Got Pluto," written by a local playwright, Dave Morgan, said Michael Schirtzinger, Abbey Theater supervisor.

Original Productions Theatre will return this year for a three-week run in June, a two-week run in September, and a three-week run in November, Schirtzinger said.

Park Playhouse Teen Theater will perform "Beauty & the Beast" July 8-12, he said.

Tantrum Theater plans to continue a summer-camp program in Dublin in collaboration with Dublin Arts Council.

The 2019-2020 Tantrum season in Athens will begin Aug. 16-24 with three shows in a summer theater festival to coincide with the Athens Community Arts & Music Festival. The show titles have not been announced.

During Ohio University's academic year, Tantrum Theater will present two plays: the absurdist fable "Rhinoceros" (Nov. 21 to Dec. 7) by Eugene Ionesco and the drama "Objects in the Mirror" (April 2-11, 2020) by Charles Smith.

Tantrum shows will be performed on campus either at Kantner Hall's Baker Theater or the Radio-Television Center's Forum Theater.

Tantrum Theater was established in 2016 in central Ohio as a replacement for a summer-stock program Ohio University had sponsored for 56 years in Monomoy Theatre in Chatham, Massachusetts.

ThisWeek's Sarah Sole contributed to this report.

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