Sunset Boulevard (Review)
Tale of Hollywood desperation and dementia gets a big-time patina
Silent Films with Live Music Make a Comeback
Measure for Measure (Review)
Cincy Shakes presents strange brew of drama, comedy
Double Indemnity (Review)
Cincinnati Playhouse production is playful, thrilling
Sister Act (Review)
Talent of touring cast provides a night of fun
Shipwrecked! (Review)
An adventurous story of storytelling
Collapse (Review)
Know Theatre production has heart and humor
1 Comment · Monday, February 6, 2012
Allison Moore’s new play is quite literally
a play for our anxious times. Its four characters are each driven by some form
of anxiety unlikely in previous generations. Moore has tapped into the contemporary
zeitgeist to write a story that, while full of zany, improbably humor,
nevertheless hits a sensitive nerve that you’re likely to recognize and perhaps
feel.
ArtReach Inspires Future Theatergoers
0 Comments · Tuesday, January 24, 2012
You might be aware of many of Cincinnati’s local theaters. But there is one probably not on your radar. Nevertheless, ArtReach annually reaches
hundreds of thousands of kids in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan,
Illinois, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
Billy Elliot The Musical (Review)
Coal-burning electricity fuels production at Aronoff
0 Comments · Thursday, January 19, 2012
You can’t go wrong
with this much expressive dancing, and the kids who perform it will
win your heart, from tiny Jeremy Zorer who gets the show started, to
Billy’s ebullient, cross-dressing friend Michael (Ben Cook). The
show evoked a rousing, and well-deserved response from the audience
on opening night.
Local Chamber Ensemble concert:nova Does Zappa
0 Comments · Wednesday, January 18, 2012
This weekend, Zappa’s music gets the help
of musicians who are very much on to the molecules. Leave it to the
innovative ensemble concert:nova to present Shut Up and Play the Zappa! featuring
chamber pieces by Zappa and his musical mentors, as well as covers of
his Rock music, at the 20th Century Theater in Oakley.
 - actor jim hopkins - photo rich sofranko.t2.jpg)
Henry VIII (Review)
Rarely staged Henry VIII at Cincy Shakes tells tales of political intrigue
0 Comments · Sunday, January 15, 2012
Shakespeare
wrote Henry VIII in 1612 or 1613, probably in collaboration
with John Fletcher, another playwright. The events of the history
play date from an era not long before Shakespeare’s birth, and the
work — known originally and hyperbolically as All Is True —
chronicled events that were still vivid in England’s cultural
memory.
Meaningful Connection
True Body Project continues to empower women
0 Comments · Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Women of the world: It’s time to
reconnect. Being a woman holds different meaning from culture to
culture, but women everywhere can agree that growing up female is no
breeze.
Excellence Is Its Own Award
Even without award shows to celebrate it, 2011 offered plenty of good theater
0 Comments · Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Identifying the year’s best theater
productions is a more idiosyncratic task this year because of the
disappearance of two long-established awards programs. CityBeat’s
Cincinnati Entertainment Awards had their final iteration in August
2010, with the plan to merge them into the Acclaim Awards, launched by The Cincinnati Enquirer in
2005.
 dan doerger, rick kramer & brandon wentz - photo holly yurchison .t2.jpg)
White Christmas (Review)
Covedale holiday production is an entertaining eyeful
0 Comments · Friday, December 9, 2011
This backstage musical about good-hearted people
putting on a show to save a struggling Vermont ski lodge is perfect
for the Covedale’s mainstream audience, and the performance I
attended at the converted movie theater, a Sunday matinee, had every
one of its 400 seats filled with people loving what they were seeing.
Love’s Labour’s Lost (Review)
Cincy Shakespeare production has a lot to say
0 Comments · Wednesday, December 7, 2011
This is surely Shakespeare’s most
verbose and verbally tricky text, even in the reduced version Clark has
staged, absent two very wordy characters. Delivered at high speed, this
production is a constant game of catch-up.
Snow White (Review)
ETC production offers a different telling of a familiar story
0 Comments · Friday, December 2, 2011
Good and evil play tug-of-war throughout the story of Snow White,
Ensemble Theatre’s new holiday fairytale musical.
Meet the Penguins
Penguin Encounters offer up-close experience with those lovable birds
0 Comments · Wednesday, November 30, 2011
When we were kids, my sister collected
penguins. Plush penguins, ceramic penguins, penguins wearing knit hats
and scarves, penguins ice skating and more. Now even the most hardcore
penguin enthusiasts can indulge their obsession with the Newport
Aquarium’s Penguin Encounters.
Always ... Patsy Cline (Review)
Cincinnati Playhouse portrays a singer whose calling card was honesty
1 Comment · Monday, November 28, 2011
There’s a lot to like about the Cincinnati Playhouse’s non-holiday show for the holiday season.
It’s a revue that includes two dozen of Cline’s best-known songs, and
actress Carter Calvert perfectly captures the iconic Country singer’s
delivery and manner.
Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party (Review)
Know production is passionately conceived but a little zany
0 Comments · Monday, November 28, 2011
Don’t go thinking this show has anything to do with the holidays, and
despite the fact that some fourth-graders light its political fuse when
their teacher replaces a holiday pageant with a script that references a
possible gay relationship involving the 16th president, this is not a
show for kids. Who is it for? I’m not really sure, although some at the
opening performance found it hilarious.
Abe, Ebenezer, Crumpet and More
Take a sleigh ride around town for onstage holiday cheer
0 Comments · Tuesday, November 22, 2011
It’s just about time for that magical
season of holiday shows in Cincinnati — some tried and true, and some
for the Grinches who don’t resonate with the good cheer that permeates
the world through most of December. Let’s take a little sleigh ride
around Cincinnati’s theaters to see what’s happening.
 mary malloy (mrs. daldry), clare ward (annie), kristopher dean (dr. givings) - photo mikki schaffner 1a.t2.jpg)
In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play (Review)
CCM production at the Carnegie has a thrilling current
1 Comment · Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room, or the vibrator play,
now at Covington’s Carnegie Center in a production by the drama program
at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music, has a current running through
it. The production is warm, bright and slightly shocking.
