You have no excuse for complaining that there's not enough theater in the days ahead. In fact, you'll have a hard time fitting it all in. Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati's regional premiere of Mrs. Mannerly opened a few days ago: It's a comedy about growing up in small-town Ohio under the watchful (perhaps oppressive) eye of a strict etiquette teacher. Jeffrey Hatcher's play (largely based on his own experience in 1967) features one of Cincinnati's best actresses, Dale Hodges, in the title role. And the production has been staged by Ed Stern, recently retired after 20 years as producing artistic director at the Cincinnati Playhouse. Box Office: 513-421-3555. Cincinnati Shakespeare is producing Shakespeare's romantic tragedy Romeo & Juliet, featuring a pair of actors — Sara Clark and Ian Bond — who had great chemistry in recent productions of Pride & Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility. They will bring new life a familiar work, I'm sure. The production opens Friday; bear in mind that Cincy Shakes has been selling out its productions this season, so catching this one before it catches on with the larger audience might be a good idea. Box Office: 513-381-2273 x1. For entertainment of an entirely different stripe, I suggest you check out The Beggar's Carnivale on Friday and Saturday evenings (9 p.m.) at Know Theatre. This variety show has been described as "Cirque du Soleil on a whiskey bender." It includes elements of traiditonal circus arts, gypsy folk and Rock & Roll. You'll witness a fast-paced spectacle with several acts linked by interludes in the style of silent film. There's live music, too, by their house band The Royal We and the Carnivale's personal DJ. Sounds like an evening of unusual entertainment. Box Office: 513-300-5669. For the stay-at-homes, you might sample Lost in Yonkers on WVXU's broadcast of L.A. Theatre Works, Saturday evening at 8 p.m. on FM 91.7. This great nostalgic play by Neil Simon is part of an autobiographical trilogy; the Cincinnati Playhouse is producing Brighton Beach Memoirs, another from this set, a few weeks from now. On Sunday evening at 8 p.m. WVXU will air The Moth, a collection of monologues by everyday people, sharing anecdotes of things that actually happened to them. It's the inspiration for our local company True Theatre, which opens its third season on Monday evening (7:30 p.m.) with trueLearning at Know Theatre. Finally, to keep you occupied next week, CCM Drama is offering a week of free, unticketed readings of gay-themed plays. On Monday it's Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart (1985); Tuesday and Wednesday offer Tony Kushner's 1993 award-winning Angels in America, Part 1: Millennium Approaches and Part 2: Perestroika. Thursday evening it's Stephen Karam's Sons of the Prophet (2011). All readings are at 7 p.m. in the Corbett Center's Room 4755 at the University of Cincinnati. On Friday evening, Dr. Richard Coons will moderate a conversation about "Storytellers, History Makers and Revolutionaries: The LGBT Story." A clinical psychologist, Coons is a CCM Drama grad; in 1998 and 1999 he played the central role of Prior Walter in CCM's local premiere of Kushner's Angels in America. (Also free, this event will be in Patricia Corbett Theatre on the UC campus.) 

Your best bet for theater this weekend, based on several enthusiastic recommendations, seems to be Daniel Beaty's one-man performance at the Cincinnati Playhouse in Through the Night. Harper Lee gave it a Critic's Pick in her CityBeat review this week, and the League of Cincinnati Theatres panel described Beaty as a "brilliant showman and interpreter” whose “beautifully and powerfully acted” performance “weaved in, out and through real people — multifaceted people.” The show was praised as “moving and full of hope — an evening of pure joy, celebration and a mournful reminder as well.” Through the Night “shatters the stereotypes of the ‘African American’ plight and shows beautifully that these predicaments and life choices are ‘human’ ones." I caught a performance this week and found Beaty's ability to shift from character to character quite astonishing — he plays six men and boys, as well as numerous other figures in their lives, each well defined and believable. It's a tour de force performance in the Shelterhouse, presented simply with some projected images and nothing more, not even costume changes. Box office: 513-421-3888. College theater has good choices for you at both UC's College-Conservatory of Music and Northern Kentucky University. Each is presenting a classic, although from very different eras. NKU continues its run of You Can't Take It With You (through Sunday), a classic comedy by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart that won a Pulitzer Prize back in 1937. It's about a wacky family that marches to the beat of several different drummers and how their "normal" daughter and her boyfriend (the product of truly straitlaced parents) try to figure out how to make a relationship work in the midst of a lot of craziness. At CCM there's another form of craziness in Michael Burnham's staging of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, a tale of mistaken lovers and magical transformations. In both cases, there's a happy ending and most of the right people end up with suitable partners. Both shows are sure to offer offer a lot of laughs, as well as plenty of opportunities for young actors to take on entertaining roles. Either show should make for a fun outing that doesn't require much serious thought. CCM Box Office: 513-556-4183; NKU Box Office: 859-572-5464. Finally, on Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. you have a very special opportunity to see a brand-new musical as a work-in-progress at the Carnegie Center in Covington. It's a one-night-only presentation of The Sandman, a creepy musical created by Cincinnati native and Cirque du Soleil maestro Richard Oberacker and his creative partner Robert Taylor. Using a wildly imaginative story by E.T.A. Hoffmann (the guy who wrote the wildly imaginative story of battling mice and toys coming to life that became The Nutcracker), Oberacker and Taylor have crafted a show that's getting a workshop locally with some serious star power. Narrated by Van Ackerman (who turned in a great performance as the Man in the Chair in CMT's recent production of The Drowsy Chaperone), the performance will feature Tony nominee (and early CCM grad) Pamela Myers, always watchable Bruce Cromer (fresh off his powerful turn as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird at Cincy Shakes), Charlie Clark and Sara Mackie. While it's a "reading," it will have sound effects and some slide projections to set the eerie scene. You can call 859-957-1940 for tickets, or order them online at www.thecarnegie.com. General admission is $25 (theater professionals and students can get in for $15). Sounds like a don't miss event.

After a long-established program that provided grants to individual artists was cut in 2009, City Council voted to re-instate and improve the program in an effort to show that Cincinnati is an art friendly city and to encourage artists to live and work here. Under the old system, grants of $3,000-$5,000 were awarded to local artists. Now, the Cincinnati Arts Ambassador Fellowship Committee will provide more impactful grants of $6,000 to seven different artists. The process kicked off at the beginning of the year when artists were invited to submit a letter and resume to City Councilwoman Laure Quinlivan before Jan. 15. The invitation was open to artists of all different disciplines but they had to be residents of Cincinnati throughout the program (July 1, 2012-May 31, 2013). After more than 100 applications applied, twelve finalists were announced on Tuesday. “We were blown away at the number of applications,” Todd Wurzbacher, Chair of the Cincinnati Arts Allocation Committee, said in a press release. He presented the list of finalists in Quinlivan’s Strategic Growth Committee today.  The twelve finalists are Jesse Mooney-Bullock, Tatiana Berman, Pam Kravetz, Karen Heyl, Melissa Godoy, Guy Michael Davis, Tonya Matthews, Terri Kern, Casey Riordan Millard, Brad Austin Smith, Rondle West and Nathaniel Chaitkin. The finalists will be interviewed by the Cincinnati Arts Allocation Committee members, who will then choose the final seven artists to receive awards. The final awards will be given to seven artists on Tuesday, Oct. 16 at 11:30 a.m. on the steps of City Hall. “I’m excited we have visual artists, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, and even a puppeteer in our finalists,” Quinlivan said in a press release. Quinlivan got council support to create the CAAF program. “More than 125 Cincinnati artists applied for the newly created Arts Ambassador Fellowship, proof that Cincinnati is a strong arts city,” she said.

OK, so it's MidPoint weekend and I know you're busy running from bar to bar and band to band, but variety is the spice of life, right? So wouldn't you enjoy it all the more if you took in a show, just to break up the monotony of all that great music? Here are a couple of theatrical ideas. Shark Eat Muffin is a new Cincinnati theater company — with a name that sounds like a band! They're breaking onto our local theater scene with three short plays they're calling Just Beyond Reach. For one ticket ($10 in advance, $15 at the door) you'll get into Newport's Monmouth Theatre (636 Monmouth St.) to see Abbie Doyle's It's a Real Shame, David H. Hughes Acapulco and Catie O'Keefe's The Noise Maker.  This is mostly young talent, so it's your chance to catch the theater equivalent of the up-and-coming Midpoint bands: Doyle is a senior at McAuley High School, Hughes is a recent UC theater arts grad and O'Keefe is New Edgecliff Theatre's young playwright-in-residence (and Shark Eat Muffin's artistic director). Their scripts are derived from the theme of "just beyond reach," one of several suggestions posted on the company's Facebook page two months ago. Sounds like fun: performances are at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Tickets: www.sharkeatmuffin.com. The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park just opened its first Shelterhouse production of the season, Daniel Beaty's Through the Night. It's a one-man show that Beaty wrote and performs — it's already won an Obie Award in New York City (that's "OB" as in Off-Broadway). He plays six African-American males whose lives intertwine during the course of one night. It's an exploration of the place of such men in America today, especially how they influence one another. I chatted with Beaty about his play in my CityBeat column this week, and I expect this to be a thought-provoking performance. Box office: 513-421-3888. If you want something more tried-and-true, head to the Northern Kentucky University campus for You Can't Take It With You, a Pulitzer Prize winning comedy from 1937. It's about the wacky but endearing Sycamore family and the oddball characters who fill their lives. It's truly a comic masterpiece, with lots of opportunity for actors to make their mark. Box office: 859-572-5464.

The Mormons are coming! The Mormons are coming! No, not the one running for president (although he's showing up pretty often). It's the award-winning irreverent musical The Book of Mormon, which Broadway Across America announced this morning will be part of its 2013-2014 season at the Aronoff Center. The winner of nine Tony Awards (including the best musical of 2011) is a satirical look at two naive and idealistic Mormon missionaries who are sent to a remote Ugandan location where a nasty warlord is oppressing the villagers. Their clueless devotion, good-hearted but misguided — with a lot of very off-color humor — has made The Book of Mormon an unusual hit.It will come as no surprise to CityBeat readers that the guys behind this are Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of animated South Park, another outrageously irreverent look at contemporary life. Also involved was composer Robert Lopez, whose Avenue Q was another Broadway hit, this one featuring Sesame Street-styled puppets in very adult situations.The Book of Mormon has been a big Broadway hit. It will be interesting to see how it plays at the Aronoff Center for audiences that tend to be very mainstream, if not downright conservative in what they'll line up to see. I'm eager to see this one! Broadway Across America has not announced specific dates for the engagement yet.

The fall theater season in Cincinnati is off to a great start, with well received productions on several stages. If you get a chance to see Cincinnati Shakespeare Company's production of To Kill a Mockingbird, I urge you to do so. It's onstage through Sept. 30, but almost all of its performances (including several added ones) have been sold out. Good news for the theater, but not for you if you don't have tickets yet. Nevertheless, it would be worth a call to CSC's box office (513-381-2273 x1) to see if there's anything available. The chance to see Bruce Cromer portray the virtuous attorney Atticus Finch is worth the effort. If you can't score a ticket at CSC, you might try to get in to see Good People, a new play by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire, which concludes its run on Sunday. The tale about an unskilled woman from South Boston seeking work in today's world has the ring of truth and reality to it, and Annie Fitzpatrick's portrait of hard-luck Margie — who thinks of herself as "good people" — is touching and relevant to the world we live in. Tickets are selling at a fast clip for this one, too, so call to find out if seats are available: 513-421-3555. Want to take some kids to a show they'll enjoy? It's always fun to introduce them to live theater, and there are two great choices currently onstage: The Cincinnati Playhouse production of The Three Musketeers (running through Sept. 29, 513-421-3888) is full of action and adventure, good guys and bad guys. And The Music Man, on the Showboat Majestic (through Sept. 30, 513-241-6550), is a classic musical with a lot of humor — and a winning acting job by charming Owen Gunderman as Winthrop, the  kid who overcomes his shyness when he gets a cornet to play in a boys' band. Want something a tad more adventurous: Check out the Fringe shows that Know Theatre has brought back from last June's festival for several days. It's a sampling of some of the best work that drew big crowds to the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, including two "Pick of the Fringe" offerings, On Her Pillow and The Screw You Revue, and two solo performers, Tommy Nugent and Kevin Thornton, who always draw a crowd. Probably no problem with ticket availability, but I recommend calling in advance: 513-300-5669.

Does this late September weather make you wish you could turn back the clock? Know Theatre is ready to take you back to June and the 2012 Cincinnati Fringe Festival with a brief reprise of several shows and artists who pleased audiences three months ago. Today through Saturday you can stop by the theater on Jackson Street in Over-the-Rhine for performances by Honour Pillow (her Audience "Pick of the Fringe" show On Her Pillow (review here) will be presented tonight and Friday evening) or Dewey Chaffee and Douglas McGeoch (whose Screw You Revue (review here) was the Producers' Pick of the Fringe in June and will be presented on Friday and Saturday). There will also be performances by two favorite Fringe solo performers on Thursday and Saturday — Kevin Thornton and Tommy Nugent. For the schedule and tickets, click here.