“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.  

New Edgecliff Theatre completes its 15th season with David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Proof (onstage through Sunday at the Aronoff Center’s Fifth Third Bank Theater), a production providing ample evidence of NET’s strength...   

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.  

It’s time for mistletoe and holly, when theaters entice folks in search of holiday cheer (and occasional parodies thereof) to celebrate the season. Many theaters need December ticket revenues to present shows onstage for the rest of the year.  

When Oscar Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest back in 1895, he subtitled it “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People.” That’s an apt description for a show still produced with frequency 117 years later — and as funny as ever.  

Collaboration is the byword for many arts organizations today, especially theaters where financial support is tough to obtain and ticket revenues are seldom enough to support the cost of productions. By working together, economies can be achieved and, in some cases, multiple constituencies can be activated.  

When Know Theatre of Cincinnati was launched in 1997, it was an itinerant theater company. In fact, it was called the “Know Theatre Tribe” and its shows, touring productions and readings directed by founder Jay Kalagayan, were presented at bookstores and art galleries around town.   

More often than not, I try to introduce CityBeat readers to new plays and writers. We see quite a few such shows locally thanks to Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati (ETC), the Cincinnati Playhouse and Know Theatre. In fact, looking at American Theatre’s list of 2012-2013’s “Top 10” most-produced plays, six have already been presented locally.  

Daniel Beaty spent his first 18 years in Dayton. He considers that a blessing. “I’m a native Ohioan,” he said in a recent phone interview, as he prepares to bring his one-man show, Through the Night, to the Cincinnati Playhouse, where it begins a four-week run on Thursday.  

What makes Bruce Cromer one of our region’s best actors? He’s especially good at virtuous characters such as Atticus Finch, the admirable, broadminded attorney in To Kill a Mockingbird, a role he’s currently playing for Cincinnati Shakespeare Company (CSC).