Critic's Pick

Have some time on Saturday afternoon for a one-time theatrical experience? Stop by Know Theatre at 3 p.m. for a reading of Noah Haidle's Mr. Marmalade.

Know planned to mount a full production of this show during its current season, but with the economy in the crapper, they had to make some adjustments and Haidle's script was set aside. Nevertheless, Know wanted to offer it in some form for audiences that are currently enjoying another play by the 30-year-old Haidle, Vigils (getting a full production through April 25).

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Cincinnati Landmark Productions (CLP), operator of the Showboat Majestic and owner and operator of the Covedale Center for the Performing Arts, is looking to expand its entertainment empire with a new facility in East Price Hill, not far from the Primivista Restaurant. At a meeting today with the East Price Hill Improvement Association, representatives from CLP will present a proposal to build a new performing arts center in the Incline District.

The plan is for a theater with approximately 250 seats that will be programmed throughout the year. CLP estimates 112 evenings of performances, including theatrical productions, a summer season, concerts, comedy events and cabarets.
CLP recently marked the tenth anniversary of the Covedale Center, a onetime movie theater that the group acquired and renovated. The West Side fixture has seen stead growth in attendance over the decade since opening in 2002. In its first year, there were 804 subscribers; 3,600 are anticipated for the coming season. Season attendance in 2002-2003 was 13, 990; for 2011-2012 it grew to 35,300.

Representatives from CLP have already met with developers and leaders of the East Price Hill Development Association for exploratory purposes. CLP’s executive artistic director Tim Perrino says that both his organization and the developers view the partnership as a win-win. The vacant parcel on Matson Place has nearby parking and dining — as well as the spectacular view that’s familiar to generations of diners at Primavista.

“The people we’ve talked to,” Perrino explains, “see the true value an arts center can bring to a neighborhood. The arts create neighborhood vibrancy, more pedestrians, good news stories, visitors from outside the neighborhood, more bar and restaurant patrons and improved neighborhood perception.

The project is still a concept without a budget or plans, but it’s an exciting prospect coming from an organization that clearly knows how to connect with audiences.

What with the economy sputtering and lots of people fretting about how to make ends meet, it's possible that you're thinking theater is a luxury you can't afford. I'd like to suggest that we need a bit of art and perspective more than ever at times like this, but I know that affording it can be a pragmatic issue. So let me make a suggestion for this weekend: Go see Love Song at the Cincinnati Playhouse.

Let's start with the subject matter. In my CityBeat review, I wrote, "If you need to be uplifted, you couldn’t find a better tonic for your mental state than the Cincinnati Playhouse’s regional premiere of John Kolvenbach’s Love Song, a quirky, contemporary, romantic comedy." I suggested that it had characters and situations reminiscent of a Seinfeld episode, and I thought it would charm audiences. Perhaps because of the state of the world, perhaps because this is an unfamiliar title by a little known playwright (if you'd like to know more about him, you can read my interview with him) — whatever the reason, the Playhouse is not selling as many tickets for this production, which is in its big theater.

That's too bad, because a lot of folks could be entertained. But that leads to my tip: The slow sales means that you can take advantage of the Playhouse's standing offer to purchase unreserved tickets for half-price on the day of a show. In other words if you call the Playhouse's box office (513-421-3888) on Friday or Saturday, between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., you can purchase tickets normally priced for $31-$55 for half that much — and that's a good deal. And if you're a student, here's another good deal: Show up within two hours of curtain time, show your student ID, and you can buy any available ticket for $18. These "student rush" tickets are perfect for young people who like to make last-minute decisions. I can assure there are tickets available for most of Love Song's performances. I can also say it's pretty likely you'll enjoy this production. Give it a chance. (Performances continue through Nov. 21.)

Before heading to South Pacific, I took a Friday morning excursion to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (better known today as BAM) and toured some of their historic facilities, including an old theater repurposed by dividing it into four small cinema spaces and a nearby building, dubbed The Harvey (for administrator Harvey Lichtenstein, who ran BAM for more than three decades), which was once a vaudeville theater.

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The polls close tonight at midnight for the 2009 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards for Theater. Once again the public is invited to determine the winners in 12 categories, while the remaining eight categories will be decided by as panel of local theater critics. See all the nominees and find the ballot here.

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As I wrote in my column in the current issue of CityBeat, there's a lot of good holiday theater available on Cincinnati stages right now. The Playhouse's production of A Christmas Carol, now in its 22nd year, is best in class — a well-told traditional tale with some of the best professional actors in town onstage, from Bruce Cromer as Scrooge and Dale Hodges as the Ghost of Christmas past. There are a few new faces, too, playing the Cratchits. And speaking of new faces, I feel comfortable recommending New Edgecliff Theatre's one-woman show, The 12 Dates of Christmas, which is being engagingly performed by Annie Kalahurka. It's paired with David Sedaris's The Santaland Diaries, which feels a little shopworn to me, but you can catch the double-bill downtown at the Arnonff's Fifth Third Bank Theater — and maybe go for drinks at Arnold's before or after the show.

If you're looking for something kind of different, try The Naughty List (review here), a holiday-themed improv show (presented in Arnold's courtyard on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday evenings) by Know Theatre. Five quick-witted comics who constitute OTR Improv are doing routines that use audience suggestions (and occasional audience participants) for nearly two hours of entertainment. It's a different show every night.

Have kids you want to take to the theater and give them a taste of what fun it can be? Two good bets are Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati for one of its musical fairytales with a moral (this year the show is a colorful, cartoonish rendition of Alice in Wonderland) and Covedale Center, where Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella is singing and dancing its way through another familiar story the kids will know. The prince is handsome, Cinderella is sweet and the nasty Stepmother is played by a guy.

As far as familiar stories go, you've probably seen Frank Capra's classic holiday film It's a Wonderful Life a few times during the holidays. But I bet you haven't experienced in the unique way that Falcon Theater offers it up at Newport's Monmouth Theatre: The script frames the story as an old-time radio drama, and you get to watch behind-the-scenes as a handful of actors play all the roles and a few others create  the necessary sound effects. It opens this weekend and runs for a week. I haven't seen this year's edition, but I've enjoyed past incarnations, and I suspect this one will be entertaining as well.

Happy holidays!

I'm quick to admit that suspense mysteries are not my favorite form of onstage entertainment: They always feel a bit contrived to me. But I know I'm in the minority, and if anyone is going to do a good job with one of them, it's certainly the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and its associate artistic director, Michael Evan Haney. 

The current production of Anthony Shaffer's Sleuth is fun to watch as two men find themselves on a seesaw of accusation, humiliation and vengeance. There are special effects and some surprising twists and turns that actors Munson Hicks and Michael Gabriel Goodfriend make both lively and chilling. And then there's a set by CEA Hall of Fame designer Paul Shortt — full of tricks and surprises, too.

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The CD, Les Mouches, is new (or at least newly released), but it's actually a compilation of recordings from 1980, when LuPone was making a big name for herself on Broadway in her first Tony Award-winning role as Evita. For 27 consecutive Saturday nights at midnight, she did a cabaret act at Les Mouches, a dinner club on 11th Avenue that seated around 500 people (and people stacked "four-deep in the bar," she says). Everyone who was anyone in the theater world — plus politicians, celebrities, singers and more — turned out for LuPone's energetic performances. I received a copy of the recording recently and had a chance to hear LuPone talk about it in a recent phone conversation.

She did the act, she says, because she wanted people to see she was not a blonde dictator but rather a "comic, brown-eyed brunette." Each Saturday night the show was taped, and LuPone had cassettes of each of them. These provided the raw material, now cleaned up and re-mastered for the new release. It's an eclectic array of material, from "I've Got Them Feelin' Too Good Today Blues" and Cole Porter's "Love for Sale" to "Meadowlark," a song from The Baker's Wife by Stephen Schwartz (a long time before Wicked; LuPone, who played the title role, took this song and made it a signature number) and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man." Of course, Evita's ardent theme, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" gets a powerful rendition, too.

"I'm a Rock & Roll wannabe," LuPone says. "These performances were pure, unadulterated joy -- there was a lot of whoopee going on."

Listening to the recordings today, LuPone says she'd like to tell herself to "calm down," but she loves the energy that comes through.

LuPone, who will be 60 next year, has continued to build her stellar reputation with subsequent Broadway roles — she was Mrs. Lovett in the acclaimed revival of Sweeney Todd, and she just won another Tony as Mama Rose in the award-winning revival of Gypsy — but she still likes to take on interesting projects and other kinds of music. She performed for a week at the Aronoff Center here a few years back with her one-woman revue, Matters of the Heart (a collection of romantic Rock and theater standards), and she's also released a collection of heart-rending torch songs, The Lady with the Torch.

If you'd like to get your hands on this recording, why not stop by Below Zero on Sunday evening? You'll get to hear a great show, support a worthy cause (the suggested donation at the door is $10) and maybe go home with a recording of a legendary cabaret performance. More information: 513-421-9376.