By Sean Hughes

HOLIDAY ISSUE 2005

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Deck the halls with yuletide treasures, right? Every year it's an interesting challenge to find new things to say about shows we see every holiday season. That task is a bit easier this year thanks to several new productions, not to mention changes in several that will be shaking off the cobwebs of familiarity.

Let's start with the most obvious: The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park has promoted Bob Cratchit to the big chair in Scrooge's counting house for its 15th annual production of A Christmas Carol. Veteran Joneal Joplin finished an eight-year run last December as the old miser. In his place will be Bruce Cromer, who has been part of the production for eight seasons himself, playing the cowering clerk with a big family and a bigger heart.

There's no doubt Cromer is a great choice for the role: He's one of our area's finest actors -- as evidenced by his performances on stages throughout southwestern Ohio, from Ensemble Theater of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival (he created a CEA nominated George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for CSF last season) to the crotchety half of the pair of friends in The Drawer Boy for Dayton's Human Race Theatre Company. Cromer is an associate professor of theater at Wright State University who has worked all over the county on regional theater stages.

I suspect Cromer will offer an edgier performance than the avuncular portrait offered by Joplin. Whatever direction he takes, Cromer will be part of a memorable production. The Playhouse's Christmas Carol, adapted by Howard Dallin, is without question the best stage version I've ever seen of Dickens' classic tale of greed and redemption. (Tickets: 513-421-3888.)

Downtown at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (ETC) they're offering their traditional musical fairytale adaptation, but Cinderella has several twists that make this one fresher than usual. First of all, after several years of reprising works that originated at ETC in past seasons, Cinderella is a brand new work. Second, it should derive some new energy with another member of the creative time: Composer Fitz Patton is joining resident playwright Joseph McDonough and lyricist and musical director David Kisor to create this piece.

Patton has been a sound designer and composer in New York and theaters across America. For ETC he designed the sound for While We Were Bowling, James and Annie, A Lesson Before Dying and I Am My Own Wife, among others. Kisor and McDonough have worked together on ETC holiday shows for nine seasons, but I suspect the addition of Patton to the team will change the sound and the tone the script, as he has for nine seasons.

Cinderella will be enlivened by a cast that includes Broadway veteran Pam Myers as the stepmother. Myers was nominated for a Tony Award in 1969 for Stephen Sondheim's Company (she originated the song, "Another Hundred People") and she was inducted into the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards Hall of Fame. Also in the cast are frequent CEA nominee and winner Sherman Fracher as one of the stepsisters, and Michael Bath as the prince's manipulative father, King Frederick. (Tickets: 513-421-3555.)

If Cinderella doesn't satisfy your fairy-tale fix for the holidays, check out New Edgecliff Theatre's 3 Times the Tail. After several years of David Sedaris' The Santaland Diaries, NET has moved in a new direction, premiering a work written and conceived by Matt Johnson, a member of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival acting company.

Johnson has created a piece that stirs three classic tales -- Chicken Little, The Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Miller, His Son and The Donkey -- into one hilarious piece. The stories are told using puppets and masks manipulated by veteran puppeteer Aretta Baumgartner and four additional performers -- Molly Binder, Chris Guthrie, Jim Stump and Elizabeth Taylor. NET's artistic director, Elizabeth A. Harris, will direct partnering again with Johnson: Their previous collaborations have included a 2004 Fringe Festival hit, You Don't Exist to Me, and the 2004 CEA-nominated Drinking Alone. NET performs at the Columbia Performance Center, 3900 Eastern Ave., Columbia-Tusculum. (Tickets: 888-588-0137.)

Photo By New Edgecliff Theatre

Molly Binder is Henny Penny, the biggest chicken in the world, in 3 Times the Tail, a work by Matt Johnson staged by New Edgecliff Theatre in December.

While The Know Theatre Tribe is bringing back its popular show, The Eight: Reindeer Monologues, presenting it again at Arnold's Bar & Grill on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday evenings, this will not look much like productions from the previous two seasons. This year it will be directed by Alan Patrick Kenny, founder of the New Stage Collective and music director for Know's recent hit, tick, tick ... BOOM! He's using a reality TV approach, perfect for the show about a sex scandal at the North Pole.

"We've set the monologues in our newest popular form of confessional," says Kenny, "the reality TV show confessional." He'll work with video designer Luke Brockmeier, using a mix of filmed scenes, live camera work and performance. Some cast members will return from previous productions, and others are new this season. Reindeer Monologues is closer to stand-up comedy and the show is definitely not for kids. That said, Arnold's courtyard is the perfect setting -- for dinner (starting at 6 p.m.) and performances (8 p.m., Dec. 4-20). This has been a hot ticket for Know Theatre each holiday season; Kenny's new concept should make it a must-see. (Tickets: 513-300-5669.)

If you're looking for entertaining shows completely off the holiday theme, check out offerings by the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival and the Human Race Theatre Company. (For more information on those productions, see Curtain Call, page 35.) ©