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Need a little magic in your summer? The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park provides an annual dose in August with its ABRACADABRA fund-raiser (this year it happens Aug. 18-21). They've just announced that illusionist TIM KOLE will be the featured performer. He has mystified audiences in more than 30 countries and in all 50 states; he's starred in shows in Lake Tahoe, Atlantic City and Las Vegas, including at the Flamingo Hilton in the Great Radio City Music Hall Spectacular. He's also been featured on several TV specials on the Discovery Channel, on NBC's World's Greatest Magic and ABC's Champions of Magic. Kole comes by his magical talents honestly it seems: His father is a leading inventor of magical effects who has served as a creative consultant for David Copperfield. One of his illusions, called "Just Passing Through," involves him being lowered into the center section of a woman and then walking the length of her body; in another, "The Jet Engine Penetration," he walks through the moving blades of a plane's jet engine. Abracadabra begins on Aug. 18 with a Preview House Party; the gala fund-raiser performance is Aug. 19; there are four public performances on Aug. 20-21 (2 and 7 p.m.). Gala tickets are pricey ($250, but it is the Playhouse's only fund-raiser); to get them, you need to call 513-345-2242. For the House Party and the public performances, call the Playhouse box office at 513-421-3888.
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Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival founder MARNI PENNING won't be coming to town this fall after all. She was scheduled to play the scary Queen of the Goths in Titus Andronicus (Oct. 27-Nov.13), but she's been hired again by the well known Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C., to play the title role in Gina Gionfriddo's recent hit, After Ashley (Sept. 5-Oct. 9) which will preclude a gig in Cincinnati. Penning just concluded a role in Big Death and Little Death with the same theater. Sounds like D.C. audiences love her, too. Right now she's back "home" in New York City. ...
KNOW THEATRE TRIBE is seeking true stories, essays, recollections, memories and anecdotes about coming out as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered and the challenges faced by people who have experienced these emotional events. Some of these tales will be assembled into OUT! TRUE COMING OUT EXPERIENCES, performed by some of Cincinnati's best actors to mark National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11. Authors will receive credit for their contributions (or can remain anonymous, if they prefer). Submissions are not paid for; Know Theatre reserves the right to edit pieces for length. Submissions should be mailed to Know Theatre, 1425 Sycamore St., Cincinnati OH 45202 or e-mailed to [email protected]. Deadline: Aug. 10. ...
Looking for theatrical options in the year ahead? Here are the seasons for three theater companies you might want to check out. Rising PHOENIX THEATRE COMPANY in Middletown (513-705-4131) will present Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce (Sept. 30-Oct. 9); their annual holiday show, Taking Christmas to the Troops (Dec. 9-18); The Crucible (Feb. 24-March 5) by the late great Arthur Miller; and Jason Robert Brown's Songs for a New World (May 12-21, 2006). THE COVEDALE CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS (513-241-6550) on Cincinnati's West Side will present Grease (Oct. 20-Nov. 6); A Christmas Carol (Dec. 8-23); On Golden Pond (Jan. 19-Feb. 5, 2006); Nunsense II: The Second Coming (Feb. 16-March 5, 2006); and Fiddler on the Roof (March 23-April 9, 2006). MARIEMONT PLAYERS (513-684-1236), which has been producing shows since the 1950s, will offer Steel Magnolias (July 15-31); Visiting Mr. Green (Sept. 9-25); Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs (Nov. 4-20); Never the Sinner (Jan. 13-29, 2006) about "thrill killers" Nathan Leopold and Robert Loeb in the 1920s; Book of Days by Lanford Wilson (March 10-26); and G.I. Jukebox (May 5-21), a 1940s musical revue.
