For its 33rd iteration, the Humana Festival of New American Plays offered as many works that were based on ensemble and imagery as it did traditional dramatic plays. By the luck of the schedule during the weekend I recently attended at Actors Theatre of Louisville (ATL), I saw three works (Wild Blessings, a selection of writings by Kentucky poet Wendell Barry; Ameriville, a piece of performance art by UNIVERSES, a Hip Hope ensemble; and Under Construction, a script by avant-garde writer Charles Mee performed by the equally experimental SITI Company directed by Anne Bogart) that lacked traditional narrative form.

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The 2012-2013 season of touring productions presented by Broadway in Cincinnati marks a quarter-century of bringing high-quality shows to the Aronoff Center, which the series has called home since it opened in 1995. The shows that will keep the Walnut Street facility humming – not to mention nearby restaurants – were announced today. They include the funky Blue Man Group making its first appearance in Cincinnati, plus a selection of shows that have been Broadway hits and award winners. Here’s the rundown:

Blue Man Group (Oct. 16-28, 2012) is a wild and crazy theatrical experience, a performance act that has been combining comedy, music and technology for more than 10 years. With no spoken language, the trio of guys with blue plastic skin presents a show that’s big, loud, funny, silly, visually arresting – and not easy to describe. The show won a special citation in the 1991 Obie Awards, and recognition in 1992 from the Lucille Lortel Awards (for excellence in off-Broadway theatre) and from the Village Voice’s Obie Awards.

Jersey Boys (Nov. 28-Dec. 9, 2012), the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, was a big hit for the series in 2008 when it sold approximately 64,000 tickets during a two-week run. It’s one of the best of the jukebox musicals, and it should be a popular choice again. (Since it’s a repeat Broadway in Cincinnati invites subscribers to choose between this one and Peter Pan to fill out a six-show subscription.)

Memphis (Jan. 22-Feb. 3, 2013) is a fine musical derived from a true story about the challenge race relations in that Tennessee city in the 1960s when a white DJ and a talented black singer find themselves attracted to one another. The show, which won four Tony Awards in 2010, has a rhythm-and-blues score and a lot of great dancing as it tells a powerful story about love, show biz and how the races interacted. One critic called this show “the very essence of what a Broadway musical should be,” and I agree wholeheartedly.

Million Dollar Quartet (Feb. 19-March 3, 2013) was also nominated for the best musical Tony in 2010, losing out to Memphis. It too is based on a real event that happened in Memphis, this one at the studios of Sun Records on Dec. 4, 1956, when four young Rock-and-Roll musicians intersected: Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. It was the only time they were together in a recording session, and the legendary results are the subject matter of this lively show.

Peter Pan (March 12-17, 2013) brings back one-time Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby who has made a career of performing in this show. She turns 60 in December, which brings some kindof weird irony to playing the boy who “won’t grow up,” but Rigby’s athletic skills for flying and fighting mean she’s popular with audiences. She performed the role at the Aronoff in 2000 and 2006. This show is the “choose-one” that subscribers get for their sixth choice.

War Horse (March 26-April 7, 2013) won the 2011 Tony Award for best drama. Set in England in 1914, it’s about an adolescent named Albert and his horse Joey, the latter recruited to go with the troops to World War I in France. It’s an epic tale of the powerful connection between Albert and Joey, and it’s told using remarkably realistic “puppets,” a term hardly seems to suit the manner in which life-sized horses are created and become key characters in this production.

Sister Act (April 30-May 12, 2013) is a musical comedy based on the popular Whoopi Goldberg film from 1992 about a woman whose life takes an unexpected turn when she witnesses a crime and is “hidden” at a convent. This show promises a lot of fun, and it’s been running on Broadway for almost a year. However, I’m afraid that it strikes me as all too typical of the tendency to create shows from mildly popular movies. That film was a vehicle for Whoopi, and without her, I suspect the show is a meager reflection.

Prices for six-season ticket packages range from $149 to $543, depending on seat location. Subscriptions go on sale on Monday at the Fifth Third Bank Broadway in Cincinnati box office in the Mercantile Center downtown at 120 East Fourth Street. You can also order subscriptions online at BroadwayinCincinnati.com or by calling 800-294-1816.

Greater Cincinnati has two awards programs that recognize our excellent theater scene. Perhaps that’s good news, but you might wonder if this kind of competition between competitions is the best way to go.

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Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park has been celebrating its year-long 50th season with a remarkable number of premieres. Producing Artistic Director Ed Stern will sustain that commitment to new work with a world premiere to kick off the 2010-11 season in September. High will feature movie and stage actress Kathleen Turner in a drama already designated for a move to Broadway early in 2011.

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I'm reviewing another show for next week's issue of CityBeat, but on a few nights ago I saw the final rehearsal of New Edgecliff Theatre's staging of Peter Shaffer's Equus. This is one you'll want to catch, and since this is the opening weekend, now's the time to do so — once this is reviewed by others and the buzz gets going, it will be hard to get tickets for the tiny Columbia Performance Center (3900 Eastern Ave., Columbia-Tusculum).

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Cincinnati will see the regional premiere of The Book of Mormon a year from now. The winner of nine Tony Awards will be the highlight of Broadway in Cincinnati's 2013-2014 season at downtown's Aronoff Center for the Arts. It's set for a three-week run, Jan. 7-26, 2014. A show described as "the funniest musical of all time" that was created by the guys behind the satirical South Park TV series has enough raucous, off-color humor to melt away any winter chill that settles in following the holidays. It's about two naive and optimistic Mormon missionaries who tryto persuade residents of Uganda  to follow their faith — but threatened by a maniacal warlord, the locals are more concerned with war, famine, poverty and AIDS than religion. The satire is laid on thick, and it's the kind of show that's bound to offend some people. Nevertheless, it's been a gigantic Broadway hit since it opened in March 2011; the tour that comes our way began back in August, so Cincinnati is an early stop.

The season will have a number of  familiar titles, including another three-week run for the Broadway hit  Wicked (March 5-23, 2014). The Wizard of Oz musical has been running on Broadway for a decade. There will also be two Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, a new production of his 1978 musical Evita (Feb. 18-March 2, 2014), based on the show's successful 2012 Broadway revival; as well as another chance to see Lloyd Webber's phenomenal hit, The Phantom of the Opera (April 30-May, 11, 2014).

Proving that old movies never die — they just come back as musicals — two other productions booked for the season are the love story Ghost(Sept. 24-Oct. 6, 2013), based on the 1990 movie with Demi Moore, Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg; and the romantic dramaFlashdance (Oct. 29-Nov. 10), based on the 1983 film about a young woman welder who aspires to be a dancer. And if you're yearning for another story you've heard before — with more music than you mightremember — we'll also have a brief run of a holiday show, Dr. Seuss'How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical (try singing that!) surrounding the Thanksgiving holiday (Nov. 27-Dec. 1).

Subscriptions go on sale today (Jan. 20) online, and starting Monday (Jan. 21) you can order at the Aronoff Center Box Office (650 Walnut Street, Downtown Cincinnati), online or by calling 800-294-1817. Subscriptions for six shows range between $179 and $611.  

The Broadway hit Rock of Ages took Arena Rock hits from the late ’80s by groups like Journey, Whitesnake, Styx and Bon Jovi and cobbled them together for an amped-up evening of Rock in the theater, particularly appealing to people who were, um, all about partying back in the day. Now it’s on the road, touring from city to city and inviting folks to relive their ill-spent youth — and have a raucous good time. It’s at the Aronoff Center starting tonight, running through Nov. 7.

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There’s some very interesting theater onstage this weekend, from Cincinnati Shakespeare to the Cincinnati Playhouse, but I’m going to point you at productions on two local university stages, in part because they have short runs and will be over in the next few days.

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The Cincinnati Playhouse’s incoming artistic director, Blake Robison, today announced the shows to be produced for the 2012-2013 season. Robison takes over from Ed Stern, who retires on June 30 after 20 years setting the course for the respected regional theater. During Stern’s tenure, the Playhouse has twice won Tony Awards — in 2004 as an outstanding regional theater, and again in 2007 when its production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company moved to Broadway and was named the season’s best revival of a musical.

Robison’s new season looks a little different from seasons that Stern has assembled in the past. In particular, he’s included two shows that offer journeys for the entire family — a big swashbuckling adaptation of The Three Musketeers (by Ken Ludwig, who wrote Lend Me a Tenor) to open the season on the Marx stage, and a seafaring expedition, Shipwrecked! An Entertainment – The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (by Donald Margulies, whose usual fare is dramas — including Time Stands Still, currently onstage at Ensemble Theatre.

The season's schedule will include two world premieres, Abigail/1702, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s script based on a central character from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. On the Shelterhouse stage, Robison will offer Deborah Zoe Laufer’s Leveling Up, about four twentysomethings mired in video games who find the real world a lot more complicated. (Laufer’s End Days was presented by Ensemble Theatre a year ago.) We’ll also see Dayton native Daniel Beaty perform his one-man show, Through the Night, in which he plays six African-American men, ranging in age from 10 to 60. The show recently earned positive reviews as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle award nominations in New York City.

Robison has several selected classic plays for the Marx by two legendary playwrights whose plays, I’m astonished to say, have never been produced at the Playhouse. Next fall will see Neil Simon’s semi-autobiographical script, Brighton Beach Memoirs, set in 1937. Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful (a television script best known for a 1985 movie version starring Geraldine Page), the story of an aging woman determined to return to her childhood home for one last visit, will be staged using African-American actors. Two more classic tales will be produced on the Marx stage: A Christmas Carol returns for its 22nd holiday season, and a new stage version of Double Indemnity, Billy Wilder’s spellbinding noir thriller from 1944.

Rounding out the season will be two Shelterhouse productions. For November and December, Robison has scheduled Hank Williams: Lost Highway, a show about the legendary Country artist created and staged by Randal Myler, who brought Love, Janis to the same space back in 2005. I suspect that Karen Zacarias’s The Book Club Play, a comedy about books and the people who love them, will be popular with audiences. It’s the story of a group that becomes the subject of a documentary with surprising results.

On the brink of his first season, Robison says, “It is an honor and a privilege to take the reins as the Playhouse’s new artistic director. To me, there is so much to celebrate here at the Playhouse — from the tremendous legacy of Ed Stern to the unlimited possibilities before us. What excites me most about joining the Playhouse family is the vibrant role that this theater plays within the region. The doors to the Playhouse are wide open, and we aim to invite as many people as possible inside.”

Here’s the season rundown in chronological order:

• The Three Musketeers (Marx Theatre, Sept. 1-29, 2012)
• Through the Night (Shelterhouse Theatre, Sept. 22-Oct. 21, 2012)
• Brighton Beach Memoirs (Marx Theatre, Oct. 13-Nov. 10, 2012)
• Hank Williams: Lost Highway (Shelterhouse Theatre, Nov. 3-Dec. 30, 2012)
• A Christmas Carol (Marx Theatre, Nov. 29-Dec. 30, 2012)
• Abigail/1702 (Marx Theatre, Jan. 19-Feb. 17, 2013)
• Leveling Up (Shelterhouse Theatre, Feb. 9-March 10, 2013)
• The Trip to Bountiful (Marx Theatre, March 9-April 7, 2013)
• The Book Club Play (Shelterhouse Theatre, March 23-April 28, 2013)
• Double Indemnity (Marx Theatre, April 20-May 18, 2013)
• Shipwrecked! An Entertainment – The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as told by Himself) (Shelterhouse Theatre, May 11-June 16, 2013)

Among the eight winners announced for the 2012 Governor’s Awards for the Arts in Ohio are several Cincinnatians. Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park Producing Artistic Director Ed Stern, who retires at the end of the current theater season, and Executive Director Buzz Ward have been named the recipient of the year’s recognition in the field of Arts Administration. Louise D. Nippert will be honored in the category of Arts Patron.

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