|
If you read this column with any frequency, you know that I admire the efforts of ACTORS THEATRE OF LOUISVILLE, especially its annual Humana Festival of New American Plays. Actors does a good job for its local audience, but it's worth noting that Cincinnati theatergoers are served as well — and in many cases better — by our own CINCINNATI PLAYHOUSE IN THE PARK, which won the Regional Theatre Tony Award in 2004 (Actors won it back in 1980). As an example, take a look at Actors' 2005-2006 season: It includes Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (Sept. 20-Oct. 15) and Arthur Miller's The Crucible (Oct. 25-Nov. 19), two shows that led off the Playhouse's Marx season a year ago. Also scheduled are two more we saw last season in Cincinnati, Teresa Rebeck's Bad Dates (Feb. 2-25, 2006) and Regina Taylor's Crowns (April 19-May 14). The only play on Actors Mainstage Series not at the Playhouse over the past year is the award-winning Intimate Apparel (Jan. 3-28) — and it's just been announced that Lynn Nottage's play will have its Cincinnati debut at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (Sept. 7-25). Actors remounts several productions annually (a pre-Halloween Dracula, and a twin bill for the holidays, A Tuna Christmas and A Christmas Carol). Filling in between these will be some shows on Actors' smaller stages that are strong offerings, but one of them — Love, Janis (Aug. 16-Sept. 10) about Janis Joplin — is a co-production with the Playhouse (it opens the Shelterhouse season, Sept. 29-Nov. 26), and another is I Am My Own Wife (Jan. 19-Feb. 5, 2006), which Cincinnati audiences saw in a hard-to-top production by ETC in March featuring multiple CEA-winner Todd Almond. This fall Actors will import a production from Chicago's Neo-Futurists, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (Sept. 13-25) and the Humana Festival's half-dozen world premieres go up between Feb. 26 and April 8. I'll head south on I-71 for those, but otherwise I'm grateful for the Playhouse and ETC, which give local audiences the best in contemporary and classic theater in a very timely manner.
An 11-year-old from Wilmington, HANNAH WILSON, has been cast as Emmy in a national tour of a show called Dragon Tales Live.
If you read this column with any frequency, you know that I admire the efforts of ACTORS THEATRE OF LOUISVILLE, especially its annual Humana Festival of New American Plays. Actors does a good job for its local audience, but it's worth noting that Cincinnati theatergoers are served as well — and in many cases better — by our own CINCINNATI PLAYHOUSE IN THE PARK, which won the Regional Theatre Tony Award in 2004 (Actors won it back in 1980). As an example, take a look at Actors' 2005-2006 season: It includes Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (Sept. 20-Oct. 15) and Arthur Miller's The Crucible (Oct. 25-Nov. 19), two shows that led off the Playhouse's Marx season a year ago. Also scheduled are two more we saw last season in Cincinnati, Teresa Rebeck's Bad Dates (Feb. 2-25, 2006) and Regina Taylor's Crowns (April 19-May 14). The only play on Actors Mainstage Series not at the Playhouse over the past year is the award-winning Intimate Apparel (Jan. 3-28) — and it's just been announced that Lynn Nottage's play will have its Cincinnati debut at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (Sept. 7-25). Actors remounts several productions annually (a pre-Halloween Dracula, and a twin bill for the holidays, A Tuna Christmas and A Christmas Carol). Filling in between these will be some shows on Actors' smaller stages that are strong offerings, but one of them — Love, Janis (Aug. 16-Sept. 10) about Janis Joplin — is a co-production with the Playhouse (it opens the Shelterhouse season, Sept. 29-Nov. 26), and another is I Am My Own Wife (Jan. 19-Feb. 5, 2006), which Cincinnati audiences saw in a hard-to-top production by ETC in March featuring multiple CEA-winner Todd Almond. This fall Actors will import a production from Chicago's Neo-Futurists, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (Sept. 13-25) and the Humana Festival's half-dozen world premieres go up between Feb. 26 and April 8. I'll head south on I-71 for those, but otherwise I'm grateful for the Playhouse and ETC, which give local audiences the best in contemporary and classic theater in a very timely manner. ...
An 11-year-old from Wilmington, HANNAH WILSON, has been cast as Emmy in a national tour of a show called Dragon Tales Live. She'll be on tour for nine months. She's appeared locally with Footlighters as Baby June in Gypsy, in Annie at Covedale Performing Arts Center and in five shows at La Comedia Dinner Theatre. ...
This isn't exactly theater, but MIKE TANGI had an impact on a lot of local actors who supplemented their onstage work with TV and commercial work. He was hired by WCPO-TV in 1953 to direct live programs, including the legendary Uncle Al Show. He also did character voices and wrote jingles for advertisers. Later he worked with an ad agency that promoted the King Kwik Minit Markets, and Tangi became the "King Kwik Twins" in a campaign that ran throughout the 1970s. Tangi died in 1995; his daughter Mary Lynn Tangi has created a Web site to jog Cincinnatians' memories and collect more information about her dad's creativity. Her goal is to collect enough material to write a book to memorialize him. Check out the site: tangipublishing.com. ...
Yet another grad from UC's College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) is Broadway bound: BEN MAGNUSON, with the ink still drying on his diploma, will play a key role in a revival of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd that's planned for Broadway this fall. The cast will be led by Tony Award winners Michael Cerveris and Patti LuPone; the concept of the production is a small cast with actors who also play their own musical accompaniment. Magnuson, a cellist, will play Anthony, a young man in love with the daughter of the "demon barber." The production is directed by John Doyle, engaged to give a similar treatment to Sondheim's Company at the Cincinnati Playhouse next spring.
