I've been seeing theatrical productions aboard the Showboat Majestic for at least 25 years. Like the Ohio River adjacent to the "Boat" at the Public Landing, they're up and down, sometimes beautiful and sometimes a bit stinky. But I can offer you an unqualified recommendation for the current production, The Musical of Musicals: The Musical. The title itself is entertaining, but the material is even better — and then there's the cast that's been assembled. This is, in fact, a show that anyone who loves musicals needs to see. It's probably the best production I've seen on the Showboat ever. It's being performed through July 26.

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If you’re thinking of submitting a production for the 2012 Cincy Fringe Festival, now is the time to solidify your thoughts and get your application in to Know Theatre, the Fringe’s organizer. Friday Dec. 16 is the absolutely final day to do so. Follow this link for details, but don’t dally — this is a firm deadline.

The Fringe typically offers about 35 productions during its two-week run, May 30-June 9, 2012, this year. The Fringe is a juried festival that employs a selection committee composed of local artistic directors, actors, writers and producers to select which acts will be included. They study the sample material submitted with applications, then make recommendations based on several key factors: 

• Will this work be unique to our region?
• Can the proposed project be produced within the Fringe structure?
• How does the proposed project fulfill the goal of the Fringe to present diversity, creativity, innovation, inspiration, and passion? 
• How will a specific production benefit by being included in the Fringe?

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Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park Producing Artistic Director Ed Stern has shared some news about his health with the theater’s patrons, using a letter in the program book for Over the Tavern, which opens this Thursday. (It’s had preview performances this weekend.)

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There’s a lot of good theater available this weekend — Equus at New Edgecliff, Victoria Musica at the Cincinnati Playhouse, Dead Man’s Cell Phone at ETC and The Lion in Winter at Cincinnati Shakespeare (in its final weekend) are all productions worth seeing — but I want to draw your attention to one day beyond the weekend for a rare Monday evening theater event marking the sad anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard. 

If you care about the issues surrounding his brutal murder in Laramie, Wyo., in 1998, you should make a reservation at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (ETC) for a one-evening of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later.

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Cincinnati Shakespeare Company Artistic Director Brian Isaac Phillips, says, "Secrets can be good and bad." But there's one less secret today, now that he's announced the company's 17th season, eight productions, kicking off in July.

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Broadway Across American announced its Cincinnati presentations of six touring broadway shows for 2009-2010 today.

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At the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park’s announcement event for its 2009-10 season last night, Producing Artistic Director Ed Stern offered some intriguing insights and facts about his upcoming season (see my report on the new season's 11 shows here).

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I’ve often written in CityBeat about the Humana Festival of New American Plays that happens annually at Actors Theatre of Louisville. I look forward to this annual collection of new works, regarded by many as the premier opportunity in the to see fully staged works by contemporary playwrights. (This year is the Humana Festival’s 33rd iteration, and it opens March 1.)

But Actors Theatre isn't the only place for new work in the United States. I recently spent time at the Colorado New Play Summit, presented in its fourth year by the Denver Center Theatre Company (DCTC), which takes a different approach.

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Over the weekend, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati announced its 2009-10 season, and it’s full of works you’ve never heard of but will be glad that D. Lynn Meyers has picked. ETC generally offers premieres of works that have been presented elsewhere, but not locally, and she’s kicking off the season with a powerful piece, Moisés Kaufman’s 33 Variations (Sept. 2-20).

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If you're looking for a ride in the time machine this weekend, I recommend that you try to score a ticket for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). The 1962 Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner satirizes the corporate world of the early 1960s, and there are some echoes that sound pretty funny 56 years later.

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