I’ve written about theater in Cincinnati for more than 25 years — including reviews and features for CityBeat since it began in 1994. I recently dug through my files on theaters that came and went during the 1990s. In this column (and one on July 3), I’ll provide an overview of that era and offer some thoughts about what’s missing in 2013.   

There are just a few days left for the 2013 Cincinnati Fringe, our annual celebration of weirdness and creativity, produced by Know Theatre. It’s over on Saturday evening (the final party is at 10:30 p.m. at the Jackson Street theater’s Underground Bar), but there’s still time to catch several productions.  

The League of Cincinnati Theatres (LCT) presented awards for the 2012-2013 theater season on May 20 at Know Theatre, too late to report the results in this issue of CityBeat. So I want to offer some thoughts and my own choices.  

“If something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing,” proclaims one of the spunky gals in the current iteration of The Marvelous Wonderettes at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati this month. ETC apparently agrees, since this is the fourth consecutive year it has staged one of Roger Bean’s retro shows featuring music from the ’50s and ’60s.  

Last weekend I traveled to Louisville, Ky., for the 37th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre. I’ve attended regularly since 1998 and thoroughly enjoyed these doses of new, ambitiously conceived and professionally presented works.  

Here are the ingredients: a couple of Broadway and off-Broadway hits, three world premieres, a lavish Jane Austen show, a classic musical by Kander and Ebb, an innovative drama with tap dancing and video, plus holiday festivities...   

Playwright Frank Higgins began his writing career as a poet, so he pays careful attention to the way he puts words together. After some time working at poetry, he felt that his best pieces were stories about people.  

This week marks the opening Actors Theatre of Louisville’s 37th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays. First up is Meredith McDonough’s The Delling Shore, about two rival authors and their daughters, a work in which words become weapons.  

You might know that Shakespeare’s Richard III focuses on one of his great villains. But among his 38 plays, there’s also Richard II. You probably know almost nothing about this guy — a weak king, deposed in 1399 — who died in captivity in 1400.   

All right, you’re going to have to forgive me — I am a theater critic and a theater lover. Those terms are not mutually exclusive.