If your aspirations include playwriting, New Edgecliff Theatre is offering a weekend intensive playwriting workshop for anyone age 16-22 — from beginners who have never dabbled in playwriting, to professionals wanting to get back to the basics. Catie O’Keefe, a professional playwright who is NET’s playwright-in-residence, will lead the workshops.

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The 2009 Cincy Fringe Festival heads into its second week with high expectations.

"I've heard from a number of patrons that this is the strongest field of shows they've ever seen in at the Fringe, and we agree," Managing Director Eric Vosmeier reports. "Our attendance numbers are up, though it's difficult to say how much just yet."

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Well, it's summertime and I suspect your movie-going choices run to scary popcorn flicks. One of those from long ago, Little Shop of Horrors, a schlocky sci-fi romp from 1960, was translated into a campy Broadway musical in the early 1980s. It became a surprisingly big hit, running for more than 2,200 performances — more than seven years! (It also came around again in 1986 as a movie of the musical.) Jersey Productions is offering a production of Little Shop of Horrors as its second production of the summer at the Aronoff Center's Jarson-Kaplan Theater.

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If I were you, I’d to my best to catch a performance of Titanic: The Musical before it closes on Saturday at the Aronoff Center’s Jarson-Kaplan Theater. The show puts you in the midst of dozens of characters as they board the ship, overflowing with great expectations — of success, of escaping poverty, of new life in America, of achieving dreams. You get to know them, and then you see the tragedy that comes their way after the tragic collision with an iceberg in April 1912. Maury Yeston’s score is all about choral singing, and Cincinnati Music Theatre, one of our most ambitious community theaters, makes it work with an impressive physical production and great voices. Full review: here. Tickets: 513-621-2787.

I’m pleased to tell you that Cincinnati Shakespeare Company has done a fine job with its production of The Merchant of Venice, one of Shakespeare’s most difficult plays. It’s officially categorized as a comedy because it has humorous and romantic elements. But the central story about a potentially fatal argument between a moneylender and a businessman is anything but amusing. CSC’s artistic director Brian Isaac Phillips takes on the role of the rapacious moneylender who has faced anti-Semitic discrimination for his entire life. Is Shylock a villain or a victim? Shakespeare gives him aspects of each, and CSC’s production, directed by Jeremy Dubin does not tilt in either direction. It’s up to you to decide, and that’s how this show works best. Full review: here. Box office: 513-381-2273, x1.

Life Could Be A Dream, Roger Bean’s sequel to The Marvelous Wonderettes and a show ful of teen hits from the ’50s and ’60s, concludes its successful run at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati this weekend. This time it’s boys, and that’s most of the difference. As in the two Wonderette shows, Dream is shot through with adolescent angst, this time around a local radio station contest that could “make them famous.” Audiences seem to have loved this excuse for two dozen tunes from the era, and ETC is keeping its cast busy to the very end, adding an extra finale on Sunday evening at 6 p.m. Box office: 513-421-3555.

This is also the final weekend for you to get down with the Blues in the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park’s production of Thunder Knocking on the Door. The show, a hit for the Playhouse in 1999 has been thoroughly and creatively reimagined. The musical — with emotional tunes mostly by Keb’ Mo’ — tells the story of the power of love, music and Blues guitar players. It’s presented with panache, including technology and design that are all about 2012. Through Sunday. Full review: here. Box office: 513-421-3888.

Each week in Stage Door, Rick Pender offers theater tips for the weekend, often with a few pieces of theater news.

I was at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music last evening to see this weekend’s production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. I love this densely intellectual script that’s awash in math and physics theory as well as conflicting perspectives deriving from the Romantic movement and the Age of Enlightenment. The play alternates between 1809 and 1993, with characters in the more recent era speculating about actions and motives of people, including the poet Lord Byron, from nearly two centuries earlier. It’s a fascinating conceit, but it’s also three hours of dialogue that require close attention — and a lot of the CCM audience took off at intermission. The challenge is exacerbated by a lot of fast-talking using British accents and amplification (the actors wear body mics) that sounds blurry. That’s too bad, because the production looks great, is nicely costumed and has some fine performances, and Stoppard’s script is one of the great plays of the past 30 years. But unless you’ve seen it or read it, you might find this production a challenge. Box office: 513-556-4183

Pump Boys & Dinettes at the Covington’s Carnegie Center is something like an off-Broadway classic (it had a brief Broadway run) from the early 1980s. Set in a filling station that’s also a diner — where you can “Eat and Get Gas” — it’s a jaunty framework for downhome Country tunes and cornpone humor. It opens a three-weekend run a week ago, and I found it to be a delightfully entertaining production. Read my review here. Box office: 859-957-1940

More musical froth is available this weekend, including My Favorite Year, through Sunday at Northern Kentucky University (859-572-5464), and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat through May 13 at the Covedale Center (513-241-6550). The former is a story about backstage shenanigans in the early days of television; the latter is an early show by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on a familiar biblical story. Neither is profound, but both should fun to watch.

For a musical with some sharper edge, you might check out Know Theatre’s production of the recent off-Broadway and Broadway Rock musical hit, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. The show is a youthful mix of political commentary, driving Rock performances, history, humor and sober observations on the will of the people — just what we’ve come expect from Know Theatre. (The “orchestra” for the production is the local band The Dukes Are Dead.) The show has a cast of strong musical theater performers, and they make this sassy political satire a Critic’s Pick. This is Bloody Bloody’s first professional regional production, and it will surely be the big hit of Know’s season. (Through May 12.) Box office: 513-300-5669.

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s production of The Grapes of Wrath (running through April 29) is a powerful theatrical interpretation of John Steinbeck’s grim tale about a Depression-era family of Oklahoma sharecroppers driven to homelessness by ecological and economic disasters. It’s a portrait of the desperate life wrought by the Depression in the 1930s and a powerful reminder that life hasn’t improved for many Americans 80 years later. CSC’s production is made all the more relevant by folksy musical interludes performed live by some of the actors. A downer of a story, but definitely worth seeing. Box office: 513-381-2273, x1.

Each week in Stage Door, Rick Pender offers theater tips for the weekend, often with a few pieces of theater news.

There’s a ton of theater this weekend, much of it certainly worth seeing. But if you want to be in the vanguard of theater fans who have seen fascinating work from around the world, you can do that at the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center on Friday (7 p.m.) or Sunday (3 p.m.) when the Covington facility and Cincinnati World Cinema jointly present FELA! directly from the National Theatre in London.

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You'll have to pick and choose this weekend because there's so much theater onstage. In addition to our professional theaters, it's worth checking out production at universities: Tonight through Sunday, CCM's esteemed musical theater program is offering the cult favorite Chess, with music by ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. The story is set in Bangkok and Budapest during a mid-1970s world chess championship — and it's driven by gamesmanship between nations, between lovers and, of course, between chess players. I saw the opening on Thursday, and it's a BIG show with a gigantic cast. Several leading roles are double cast (with more juniors than seniors, in fact, which bodes well for CCM productions for this season and next). In particular, Matthew Paul Hill, playing the Russian grand master Anatoly, lifted the roof of Corbett Auditorium with his powerful baritone voice singing the stirring "Anthem," the Act 1 finale. Tickets ($30) Box office: 513-556-4183. At Northern Kentucky University you'll a production of Royal Gambit by German playwright Hermann Gressieker (translated into English in the late 1950s). The subject is King Henry VIII and his six wives, and this looks to be a beautifully costumed show, featuring senior Seth Wallen in the leading role. Tickets ($14). Box office: 859-572-5464.

Neil Simon's funny and endearing Brighton Beach Memoirs is onstage at the Cincinnati Playhouse. I gave it a Critic's Pick (review here), and I'm sure audiences will love this sweet portrait of growing up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, where a loving but fractious family copes with hard times. It's told from the perspective of  Eugene, a precocious adolescent (he's really Simon as a 15-year-old), who takes notes on his family's behavior. Well acted and beautifully staged. Box office: 513-421-3888l.

My schedule hasn't permitted me to see several shows that are getting good notices, including recognition from the folks evaluating productions for the League of Cincinnati Theatres. I'm catching up this evening with Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, which is offering two shows this month. Romeo & Juliet is its mainstage show, and Sara Clark is getting high marks for her portrait of romantic but tragic young love. Brian Phillips' staging picked up an LCT nod, and the show received an overall recommendation from LCT. On the evenings when R&J is not onstage, there's another Shakespeare work for thrill seekers, specially selected and staged for the Halloween season: the bloody, gory tale of revenge, Titus Andronicus. Veteran actor Nick Rose plays a crazed Roman general, and just about everyone I've heard from says his performance is memorable. (It earned him an LCT nomination, too.) Box office: 513-381-2273.

This weekend is the final one for Mrs. Mannerly at Ensemble Theatre. When Harper Lee reviewed this one for CityBeat (review here), she gave it a Critic's Pick, and I agree wholeheartedly. (LCT named it a recommended production, too.) CEA Hall of Fame actress Dale Hodges is great fun to watch as a strict etiquette teacher in 1967, and Raymond McAnally plays all the other characters — a bunch of kids who are learning how to behave in a "mannerly" way. It's funny from start to finish, but there's a heart-warming message within the story. Definitely worth seeing. Box office: 513-421-3555.

At Clifton Performance Theatre, Clifton Players are staging A Bright New Boise, which also picked up an LCT recommendation. I haven't seen it, but the show won an Obie Award (that's for outstanding off-Broadway plays) in 2011, and it has a strong cast. This is a newish venue that's specializing in "storefront theater." Should be worth supporting. Tickets ($20): 513-861-7469. 

Last fall UC's College-Conservatory of Music rousingly revived the 1967 hit musical Hair, an iconic work that distilled many of the attitudes of a generation using music by Galt MacDermot. CCM returns to MacDermot (whose other musical, Two Gentlemen of Verona, was a big production a year ago at Patricia Corbett Theater) with his last Broadway work, The Human Comedy (from 1983) this weekend. Unfortunately this show lasted only 13 performances after a two-month run at New York's Public Theater.

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If you’ve ever felt that your parents just don’t get what your life is about — or if you’re a parent convinced that your kids don’t appreciate what you’ve done for them — you need to check out Julia Cho’s new play Durango at the Cincinnati Playhouse this weekend. Not only is this a play about strife between generations of a Korean-American family. It’s also a more universal exploration of how parents from any culture yearn for the best for their children and how children need to follow their own paths. (See my review here.)

In the Lee family, proud father Boo-Seng has just lost his job, a fact he can’t bring himself to share with his sons, eager Jimmy and angry Isaac. But he does coax them into a road trip from their Arizona home to Durango in Colorado: Cooped up in a car for a long drive, they cannot contain their strong emotions, and there are many revelations that could lead to greater understanding. But don’t expect this play to wrap events and conflicts up neatly — it’s more like life. You can see the possibilities, but they don’t necessarily arrive in a timely manner. Still, there’s a kind of hope.

Cho is a promising playwright whose work is imaginatively staged in the Playhouse’s intimate Shelterhouse Theatre. You’ll come away from this story thinking about your own parents — or your kids. Get show times and tickets here.

— Rick Pender

No bad luck for this Friday the 13th: The Showboat Majestic is presenting The Nerd, a great 1981 comedy by Larry Shue, who also wrote The Foreigner.

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