The 36th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville is set for Feb. 26 through April 1, 2012. The theater today announced the line-up of full-length works. (A bill of three ten-minute plays will be announced at a later date.) Here’s what’s in store for the festival that the theater world looks to every year for the hottest new plays and playwrights. (Maple and Vine by Jordan Harrison from the 2011 festival is getting rave reviews at Chicago’s Next Theatre Company and is about to open at Playwrights Horizons in New York City.)

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I have three words for you regarding theater-going this weekend: Fringe. Fringe. Fringe.

If you haven't dropped in yet for this stimulating festival of push-the-envelope performances, you're missing out on the greatest dose of annual creativity that we get here in Cincinnati. And a lot of your friends have already caught on: Fringe Producer Eric Vosmeier tells me that as of Thursday they've hit their ticket goal for the entire festival ... and there are still two more days to go!

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The League of Cincinnati Theatres LCT) continues its program of recognition for 2011-2012 theater productions with recently announced awards for productions of As You Like It at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and Gruesome Playground Injuries at Know Theatre of Cincinnati. Nine shows have now been handed awards by panels of informed theatergoers.

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For the holidays, they'll produce The Naughty List, hosted by Ronda Androski and her great staff at Arnold's Bar & Grill downtown and featuring the talent of OTR Improv, one of the groups Know has nurtured with its Jackson Street Market. They'll take holiday memories from those in attendance as they recreate holiday movies and tell you how your life would have been different if you had received that special gift you yearned for. The fun will be happeing in Arnold's courtyard on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday evenings from Dec. 2 to 30. Tickets will be $15 in advance and $18 at the door.

Know will also offer The Apocalypse Show! for two nights on its home stage at 1120 Jackson St.. Since the world is scheduled to come to an end on Dec. 21, 2012 (according to the Mayan calendar), Know will produce a variety show to end all variety shows on Dec. 20 and 21. There will be sketch comedy, predictions, guest appearances, "gratuitous drinking and answers to all of your apocalypse FAQs." Dec. 20 will be a fundraiser (tickets: $50), despite the funny come-on that you should bring all your money, since it will be worth nothing the next day! (If you come to the performance on Dec. 21, you only need to scrape together $15 in advance or $18 at the door.)

Assuming that the world really isn't ending on Dec. 21, Know will co-host its annual New Year's Eve event with CityBeat, the Speakeasy Party from 8 p.m. on Dec. 31 (to 1 a.m.). Know typically attracts 300 well-dressed guests for this event, and everyone has fun with casino games, food, dancing to a DJ and a live band, martinis and a champagne toast at midnight.

After all this fun stuff, Know will get down to some serious theater — presenting Andrew Bovell's "best new play of 2010," When the Rain Stops Falling (Feb. 8-March 16, 2013). It's another partnership, with the production being staged by Brian Isaac Phillips, artistic director at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. (Bovell's Speaking in Tongues had a great production at the Cincinnati Playhouse last season.) The show uses an intricate fabric of overlapping connections, moving between several generations between 1959 and 2039 and between London and Australia. Acts and sins of the past are connected to three generations that follow. 

More will be following, including an unnamed production running from April 5 to May 12. Sometime in late April (date TBA), just in advance of the tenth annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival (May 28-June 8, 2013), Know will host the 2013 United States Association of Fringe Festivals Conference. "We're honored to have been selected to host this year's conference," says Know's Producing Artistic Director Eric Vosmeier. "It's an amazing opportunity to work on ideas and issues at the core of all Fringe Festivals. Every time I have been to a conference, the Cincinnati Fringe is better for it. We can't wait to show off our city to festival producers from all over the United States."

One more note: Know is selling its version of a subscription, Flex Passes. But these have evolved: You can purchase six flex passes for $90. Valid for most Know productions, they do not expire. (If a show ticket has a higher price than the pass, you can use your pass and just pay the difference.) Know's website will designate: "Flex passes are valid for this event." When you run out of tickets (and you surely will), you simply need to buy another pass.

Know's Fringe Festival has promoted itself with the slogan "Weird, like us." And they're living up to that mantra in a way that should appeal to its supporters and more.

A bunch of classic characters will be showing up at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company to entertain us for the 2012-2013 theater season, announced today: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson; Atticus Finch; Romeo and Juliet; Lady Bracknell; Nick Bottom and Puck. Oh, and a few kings and generals — Richard II and the bloody Titus Andronicus — plus a hearty dose of laughs with reprises of Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some!) and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). Here’s the rundown:

• The Hound of the Baskervilles (July 20-Aug. 12, 2012). A regional premiere of a three-actor adaptation by Steve Canny of this memorable Sherlock Holmes mystery.
  
• To Kill a Mockingbird (Sept. 7-30, 2012). A reminder that all classics need not be British. One of our region’s best professionals, Bruce Cromer, will play Atticus Finch in this adaptation of Harper Lee’s 1960 novel about prejudice, violence and hypocrisy in 1932 Alabama.
  
• Romeo & Juliet (Oct. 12-Nov. 11, 2012). You probably know the details of Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy of star-crossed lovers. The cast features Sara Clark, Billy Chace, Annie Fitzpatrick and Sherman Fracher.
  
• Titus Andronicus (Oct. 20-Nov. 11, 2012). Cincy Shakes enjoys providing a bloodbath every year for Halloween, and Shakespeare’s play about a tyrannical Roman military leader is the perfect vehicle — revenge, murder, betrayal and gruesome murders.
  
• The Importance of Being Earnest (Nov. 23-Dec. 16, 2012). The smile-inducing production for the holidays will be Oscar Wilde’s delirious 1895 comedy of manners and intentionally mistaken identities, with Jim Hopkins in the cross-dressed role of the imperious grand-dame, Lady Bracknell.
  
• Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some!) (Dec. 16-30, 2012). An added holiday treat from Cincy Shakes — for the grown-ups — back for its seventh season.
• Richard II (Jan. 11-Feb. 3, 2013). As the company marches toward the completion of Shakespeare’s canon in 2014, this one notches the final history play in the repertoire.
  
• Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) (Feb. 15-March 10, 2013). This 1985 play (and a 1988 Oscar-nominated movie) was adapted by Christopher Hampton from a 1782 novel about French courtiers who used sex as a weapon to manipulate and degrade. It’s a cynical, dark comedy, directed by Drew Fracher and starring Giles Davies, Sherman Fracher and Corinne Mohlenhoff.
  
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (March 22-April 21, 2013). Shakespeare’s most popular comedy — four young lovers lost in a magical forest and a troupe of amateur actors rehearsing a silly play. Nick Rose plays Bottom the Weaver, he of the donkey’s head.
  
• Measure for Measure (May 3-26, 2013). Shakespeare’s play about the virtuous Isabella, played by Kelly Mengelkoch, one of Cincy Shakes’ best actresses, who must contend with hypocritical, religious double standards. 
  
• Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) (June 7-30, 2013). A final bit of summer fun.

You might think that Dead City is a play about Cincinnati, especially after our second snowstorm in a week. But it's actually the next production coming to New Stage Collective, one of the "Gems of the Neighborhood," those hardy theaters that are, in fact, bringing new life to Over-the-Rhine, as described in CityBeat's cover story this week. 

Dead City was supposed to open on Thursday this week, but with all the bad weather in the past seven days rehearsal time has been held to a minimum. So NSC's Alan Patrick Kenny has decided to push his opening night to Friday.

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The Cincinnati Arts Association (CAA) manages the Aronoff Center — that means they run our downtown performing arts center on Walnut Street, but it also means they work to fill the facility with occasional performances to supplement the big shows brought to town by Broadway Across America.

The first of those opens tonight, when CAA presents Late Nite Catechism for a two-week run (Oct. 7-19) at the Jarson-Kaplan Theater. This funny one-woman show about a nun preparing adults for the rigors of the Roman Catholic Church has a built-in local appeal, what with the large number of local residents who went to parochial schools where various teachings and behaviors were drilled into them.

When this played in Cincinnati several years ago for a one-week run, people flocked to see it — laughing from start to finish as audience members were chastised, scolded and gently (or firmly) reminded of tenets of belief and proper behavior. There’s lots of audience participation (including rewards in the form of glow-in-the-dark rosaries and other nifty prizes like trading cards depicting various saints); every performance takes on a life of its own because actress Kimberly Richards as “Sister” plays off those present and responds to moments in the theater that are seldom predictable. Get tickets and more info here.

CAA recently announced an extensive lineup of other performances in the next two weeks:

1. Christian musicians Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman will offer a one-night program on Oct. 10 in the Procter & Gamble Hall.

2. NBC’s Last Comic Standing Live Tour will provide some laughs from the comedians you saw recently on TV on Oct. 16 in the Procter & Gamble Hall.

More good things are also booked for 2009:

• Lily Tomlin will offer a program of her classic routines on Feb. 6, 2009.

• Neil Berg’s 100 Years of Broadway will offer music from a century of Broadway shows, and is likely to include some musical theater performers with Cincinnati connections. This one is planned for Feb. 20, 2009.

• DrumLine Live! happens on March 16, 2009, featuring thunderous entertainment from the African-American marching band tradition.

• The Afro-Cuban All Stars will show up on March 22, 2009. You might know some of these performers from the wonderful film The Buena Vista Social Club.

• Actor Hal Holbrook has been playing 19th-century American writer Mark Twain for more than 50 years. He’ll bring his act to the Aronoff on May 14, 2009. Holbrook has more than 16 hours of material he’s developed, and he tailors each performance to the moment, often offering comment on current events drawn from Twain’s observations. He’s a treasure of the American theater.

For more information about CAA’s offerings: www.cincinnatiarts.org

— Rick Pender

The 13th annual Cincinnati Entertainment Awards for Theater were handed out last night in a loose, fun event at Below Zero Lounge in Over-the-Rhine. Amazingly, 11 different local theater organizations took home a trophy: Cincinnati Playhouse, Ensemble Theatre, Cincinnati Shakespeare, Know Theatre, College-Conservatory of Music, New Stage Collective, New Edgecliff Theatre, Cincinnati Music Theatre, Footlighters, Covedale Center for the Performing Arts and Artemis Exchange for a production at the 2009 Cincy Fringe Festival.

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When you see a show like Emma, the Jane Austen musical recently presented at the Cincinnati Playhouse (pictured), do you ever wonder where it came from? If you paid attention to some of the Playhouse’s publicity, you might know it premiered at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, Calif., where it was a big box-office hit. In fact, the theater’s artistic director Robert Kelley, who staged the original, and several cast members from the original production came together again in Cincinnati for the Playhouse production.

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Marsha Hanna, artistic director of Dayton's Human Race Theatre Company, died on Monday. I was saddened to learn of her passing — especially at age 59 — because she was a passionate advocate for theater, not just in Dayton but throughout the region.

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