By Rick Pender

CCM stages Pearl Cleages’s Blues for an Alabama Sky at UC. Next winter it will be a full-fledged production at the Cincinnati Playhouse.

While Lanford Wilson's plays are all over town, a show by another Wilson -- August Wilson's The Piano Lesson -- got my attention last weekend. TV star and SCPA grad ROCKY CARROLL was back home for his first onstage appearance in 20 years, acting in (and directing) for THE CHILDREN'S THEATRE. I sat in on a May 11 morning performance for several thousand high school students who were held in rapt (and occasionally rambunctious) attention. Carroll had a magnetic stage presence as Boy Willie, a schemer who has come to visit his sister in Pittsburgh in hopes of selling off a family heirloom piano to get the necessary funds to buy some land to farm down south. His sassy attitude was contained in a hat that he constantly flipped up, smoothed down, doffed and put back on his head. (Children's Theatre's artistic director Jack Louiso, who knew Carroll when he was a student at SCPA, told me, "He's the best actor I've ever worked with.") Carroll was in the Broadway production of The Piano Lesson in 1990 (nominated for a Tony as Boy Willie's country bumpkin sidekick, Lymon), and his acting skills have done nothing but mature, making him perfect for this sly role. But Carroll also assembled a set of talented local actors to round out his cast, and they were by no means overshadowed. Veteran A. D. Davis in the role of Doaker, a sturdy uncle with a sense of the past but a streak of soul, and Deondra Means, as the shy but eager Lymon, both offered memorable portraits. Too bad this production was only around for one weekend: It would have been a box-office hit with a longer run. ... The Piano Lesson is set in 1936; Pearl Cleage's BLUES FOR AN ALABAMA SKY takes place in 1930. It's another work focused on African-American life during the Depression. The joy of the Harlem Renaissance is fading, and an out-of-work singer dreams of what could have been. This weekend's CCM Studio Theater production is a chance to preview a show that gets a full-fledged production at the Cincinnati Playhouse early next year (Jan. 15-Feb. 15, 2002). Cleage is an Atlanta-based playwright and novelist (her What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day was an Oprah book) whose work has come to national attention during the 1990s. Free admission, but limited seating. CCM Box Office: 513-556-4183. ... As if things weren't already busy at ENSEMBLE THEATRE OF CINCINNATI (ETC) with its current production of Lanford Wilson's A Sense of Place, they're wedging in another intriguing work to showcase their hard-working (and minimally paid) Acting Intern Company. The show is BACK STORY, and it originated at the 24th Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2000. Joan Ackermann wrote a three-chapter short story describing a brother and sister whose sibling loyalty and rivalry spans two decades. Eighteen playwrights wrote scenes of 2-3 minutes each for young actors to give multi-faceted takes on Ainsley and Ethan Becker. The writers behind the works include Craig Lucas (whose Blue Window and Prelude to a Kiss were produced locally last fall), Donald Margulies (his Pulitzer Prize winner, Dinner With Friends, was a box office smash for ETC in March) and David Rambo (whose God's Man in Texas will open the Cincinnati Playhouse's Shelterhouse season next September). Directing intern Khara Pease is staging the show with her 14 intern colleagues, including Brian Kash, who's playing Josh in A Sense of Place every other night of the week. Now that's a busy actor. The show is free with open seating at ETC's Over-the-Rhine facility, 1127 Vine Street. Info: 513-421-3555. ... To find some offbeat musical theater fare, you'll need to go to church. Well, let me clarify that: Check out the Stained Glass Theatre in Newport, home of FOOTLIGHTERS, Inc. One of the area's most ambitious community theaters, this group is often willing to try something a little different, and that's the chance they gave to director Brian Benz, who is staging WEIRD ROMANCE, with music by Alan Menken, who wrote the tunes for The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. It's two one-act musicals, each exploring the endurance of love and romance in the face of an uncertain future. Act 1 is "The Girl Who Was Plugged In," a futuristic Cinderella story; Act 2, "Her Pilgrim Soul," is a romantic ghost story set in the very near future. Benz tells me, "This show is funny and intelligent, yet guaranteed to touch even the hardest of hearts." It's also the show's regional premiere, a feat we don't typically expect of community theaters, who tend to specialize in Oklahoma (which Footlighters offered last fall in fact) or The Sound of Music. Bear in mind, also, however, that an unknown title can be a risky proposition for a community theater with a limited budget. This weekend is the final of three, so call quick for tickets before it's over: 513-891-1965. ... THE CINCINNATI OPERA is gearing up for its summer 2001 season, opening June 21 with Madame Butterfly. But unlike past years, they've already begun to beat the drum for 2002, likely to be a spectacular season, particularly with the regional premiere of DEAD MAN WALKING by Jake Heggie (July 11, 13 and 19, 2002). Inspired by Sr. Helen Prejean's book (also the source of the 1995 film with Susan Sarandon, who won an Academy Award for her performance as the nun counseling a brutal murderer, played by Sean Penn), the opera has libretto by renowned playwright Terrence McNally. This will be the opera's first staging outside California. Also on the docket are Gounod's Romeo & Juliet (June 20, 22, 28), Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro (June 27, 29) and the Cincinnati premiere of Richard Strauss's 1909 opera, Elektra (July 17, 20). ... Head to citybeat.com for reviews of shows by LANFORD WILSON playing all over town, including a newly opened production by OVATION THEATRE COMPANY of four one-act plays at the Aronoff Center's Fifth Third Bank Theater. On the Web you can also read interviews by dance writer Kathy Valin with several departing members of the CINCINNATI BALLET.

contact rick Pender: rpender@citybeat.com

E-mail Rick Pender

Lessons Learned (May 10, 2001)
Tallying Up (May 10, 2001)
Onstage (May 10, 2001)
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