by Rick Pender
08.26.2011
Stage Door: Swing on Sunday at Know
The Manhattan Dolls will make a one-night tour stop at Know Theatre on Sunday evening at 7:30, performing their Swing-style revue of tunes from the 1930s and 1940s, "Sentimental Journey," in the Over-the-Rhine theatre’s Underground cabaret space. The trio of singers from New York City travel the world performing for military events, air shows, award ceremonies, parades, Jazz clubs and concert series.
by Rick Pender
04.23.2012
Carnegie Plays Well with Others
Joshua Steele will produce four collaborative shows in Covington next season
In case you haven’t been paying attention, the Carnegie Center in Covington has been producing some ambitious theater and following a course that others haven’t tried: It’s called collaboration. Joshua Steele, the managing director of theater for the arts center in a one-time Carnegie Library, has amplified his results by working with other arts institutions in the region — especially, but not limited to, the fine theater programs at area universities. Steele will announce his 2012-2013 this week, and it’s evident that he’s continuing this commendable course working with Dayton’s Human Race Theatre Company for the first time and building on a productive relationship with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. He’s also engaged some top-notch freelance talent to ensure that productions will be memorable.
Steele, who previously co-founded the meteoric New Stage
Collective with his friend Alan Patrick Kenny, is bringing the remarkable
director back to town for his first return since NSC closed in April 2010.
Kenny, who has been earning an M.F.A. in California and staging theater on the
West Coast, will direct the regional premiere of the musical Xanadu
(Aug. 11-26, 2012). This campy, tongue-in-cheek show, based on the 1980 move
that featured Olivia Newton-John, is right up Kenny’s inventive alley, and
should be a refreshing dash of onstage energy at summer’s end. (Auditions for
this show will take place on May 22, 7-10 p.m. at the Carnegie. Actors
interested in auditioning should contact Adrianne Eby, aeby@thecarnegie.com)
The Human Race collaboration will be next. The Dayton
company, which performs regularly at the Loft Theater in that city’s downtown,
is premiering a new play by Michael Slade, Under a Red Moon, in late October.
The production will then move to the Carnegie for a three-weekend run (Nov.
2-18, 2012). Set in 1949, it’s a taut psychological thriller telling the story
of John George Haigh, Britain’s infamous “Acid Bath Killer.”
For the third consecutive year, Steele has lined up a joint, in-concert presentation of a well known musical with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. After successful outings with the CCO for Carousel and The King and I, the late January 2013 production will be Camelot, the story of chivalry and the love triangle of King Arthur, Queen Guenevere and the knight Sir Lancelot. The lush Lerner and Loewe score will be conducted by the CCO’s music director Mischa Santora onstage with musicians from the orchestra.
Steele wraps up his four-production season with Jason Robert
Brown’s powerful musical Parade (April 5-21, 2013), staged by
local director-choreographer team Ed Cohen and Dee Anne Bryll, who will be
joined by music director Steve Goers (currently appearing in the Carnegie’s
production of Pump Boys & Dinettes).
Set in Atlanta in 1913, it’s about the intolerance and misunderstanding
swirling around the trial of a Jewish factory manager accused of murdering a
young girl in his employ. Cohen and Bryll staged an excellent community theater
production of the show with Footlighters Inc. in 2007, winning that season’s
outstanding community theater award. They also staged the Huck Finn musical Big River for the Carnegie with great
results in 2010.
It’s a great line-up, and I suspect audiences will be lining up in Covington for these productions.
by Steven Rosen
09.25.2009
Cincinnati Art Museum: Genius Factory
Cincinnati Art Museum did well at this week's announcement of MacArthur Foundation $500,000 "genius grants" — one of the most prestigious in the world. Among the 24 recipients were artist Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford (pictured), who creates large-scale map-like collages out of everyday material and whose show Maps & Manifests was featured at Cincinnati Art Museum in 2008.
by Rick Pender
10.23.2009
Stage Door: ’Tis the Season for Poe
If you're looking to get revved up for Halloween, I can think of no better choice than heading to Cincinnati Shakespeare Company this weekend for Giles Davies' first performance of Poe, a compilation of creepy stories from the master of the macabre.
by Rick Pender
04.19.2012
2012 Fringe Cranks Up its Engine
Twenty-nine shows in two weeks, commencing May 29
Know Theatre has announced the 2012 Cincinnati Fringe Festival, kicking off May 29 and continuing through June 9. Festivities begin with the official CityBeat Fringe Kick-Off Party on May 29 at 6 p.m. (A suggested donation of $5 gets you in.) During the Festivals’ two-week run, 29 productions will receive multiple performances. Some shows are locally originated (14) and others are by touring artists (15) who travel to festivals around the United States. If everything selected actually happens (that’s seldom the case), there will be 10 plays, nine solo shows, four dance works and six multimedia/variety pieces.
Several award-winning groups popular with past Fringe audiences are set to return. One of the most popular performers from 2011, Kevin J. Thornton — his I Love You (We’re Fucked) had a sold-out run and returned for another stint last October — is back with Strange Dreamz. Thornton has appeared in the Capital Fringe, Indy Fringe, NYC Frigid Festival, Tucson Fringe Festival, Phoenix Fringe Festival, Orlando Fringe Festival, Kansas City Fringe Festival, and the Minnesota Fringe Festival.
Four Humors Theater from the Twin Cities is back for the fifth consecutive year, this time presenting Bombus and Berrylinne, or the Bumblebee and the Hummingbird. The group has previously produced Mortem Capiendum (Producer’s Pick of the Fringe, 2008), April Fools (2009), and Harold (Critic’s Pick of the Fringe, 2010) and the hilarious James Bond-inspired puppet show You Only Live Forever Once (2011).
The longevity honors will continue to be held by Cincinnati Fringe veteran group Performance Gallery, returning for their ninth year with Rodney Rumple's Random Reality. Past Cincinnati Fringe appearances include Images of a Beating Heart (2004), The Killer Whispers and Prays (2005), Godsplay (2006), Girlfight (2007), Fricative (2008), KAZ/m (2009), The Council (2010) and The Body Speaks (2011). Brad Cupples, the playwright for Performance Gallery’s 2010 entry, returns with Third Quarter Moon: A Complex Derivative Love Story.
We’ll see shows from established local companies, including Quake: A Love Story from New Edgecliff Theatre (they presented Darker in 2011) and Don't Cross The Streams: The Cease and Desist Musical, a stage musical from Covington’s Carnegie Visual & Performing Arts Center.
Two new local companies will present for the first time. Homegrown Theatre, led by local actress Leah Strasser will present an absurdist piece, The Doppelganger Cometh and Overtaketh, while Essex Theatre Arts Studio, founded by actors Bob Allen and Elizabeth Harris, will stage Love Knots, a series of shorts plays about love and romance by local playwright Phil Paradis.
There will be plenty of new acts, including Grim & Fisher (the award-winning A deathly comedy in full-face mask) from Portland, Ore., and Rebecca King (Storms Beneath Her Skin), a transgender artist from Chicago. New York artist Tanya O’Debra’s Radio Star has won awards in San Francisco, Montreal and New York City.
There will be dance performances by Houston-based dance company Psophonia (Delicious) and two local groups, MamLuft&Co.’s (Latitude) and Pones, Inc. (Project Activate). The latter is a collaborative and participatory performance that asks “How do you activate Cincinnati?” It’s the product of five local service organizations with 12 professional artists from a variety of disciplines.
Each evening after performances, artists, audience members, staff, and volunteers gather at Know Theatre’s Underground bar for the Fringe Bar Series featuring the “Channel Fringe Hard Hitting Action News Update.” Events there include Fringe previews, Fringe Olympics, Fringe-e-Oke, Fringe Prom, and the 22.5 hour play project.
This year marks the second year of FringeNext, offering three shows created and performed by high school students. Two are originating from the School for Creative and Performing Arts; the third is from Lakota West High School.
Individual tickets to shows are still $12. “Full Frontal” passes are $200, providing access to every event in the festival. “Flexible Voyeur” six-show passes are on sale for $60, the price equivalent of five tickets. “One Night Stand” passes are $35; that’s good for one weeknight (as many as three shows) and a drink at Know Theatre's Bar. Pre-sale single tickets will go on sale mid-May.
For more information about the performances or to purchase passes, check out www.cincyfringe.com or call (513) 300-KNOW (5669).
by Rick Pender
10.31.2008
Stage Door: Ghosts and Bad Behavior
Halloween seems on its way to being celebrated as a classic holiday, so perhaps it's appropriate that Cincinnati Shakespeare Company has not one but two productions that specifically the give-me-goosebumps crowd.
by Rick Pender
04.09.2010
Stage Door: Heavy Drama This Weekend
If you can't find some good theater to attend this weekend, you simply aren't looking. I'm sure that fans of musicals will be heading to the Aronoff to check out the tour of Mary Poppins, and for a meaty dramatic classic, you simply can't go wrong with Angels in America at Know Theatre (read my review here). But let me offer a tip on a show you've certainly never seen but that's likely to have people talking: It's the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park's world premiere of David Bar Katz's The History of Invulnerability.
by Rick Pender
03.17.2010
Theater Mentor: Paul Rutledge, 1918-2010
It's easy to spend time writing about exciting new developments in our local theater scene. But who got things started?
It could be argued that F. Paul Rutledge was the guy who laid the foundation. He passed away a week ago at the age of 91. Rutledge was a theater pioneer in Cincinnati, and many people who shaped what we have today were inspired by him.
by Rick Pender
11.20.2011
Cincinnati-Trained Singer Is Making a Name
From CCM to New York City Opera
For several years Joshua Jeremian seemed to be onstage everywhere in Cincinnati. He was a regular in opera productions at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music, where he was pursuing a master’s degree and then an artist’s diploma (additional graduate-level training) as an opera singer. But he was glad to find performing opportunities with many Cincinnati perfroming arts institutions. In 2005 he played a pair of princes in Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati’s holiday musical, Sleeping Beauty. (In fact, the big-voiced baritone was nominated for a 2006 Cincinnati Entertainment Award for his performance at ETC.)
by
08.17.2010
Man of Steel Visits Cincy
Cincinnati has had many famous visitors over the years including Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde and John F. Kennedy. Now we can add Superman to the list.
As part of an ongoing storyline in DC Comics' Superman title, the Man of Steel will visit the Queen City in issue #703, on sale in September.
