Two of Cincinnati’s exceptional professional theaters kick off their 2025-2026 seasons with powerful shows on Aug. 30 and Sept. 5. At the Cincinnati Playhouse, it’s Where the Mountain Meets the Sea by Jeff Augustin; Cincinnati Shakespeare Company is staging an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People.
On Aug. 30, veteran guest director Timothy Douglas returns to the Playhouse to stage Augustin’s play, a time-traveling duet about fathers, sons and the distances between them. His Playhouse productions — including last season’s Primary Trust, Clyde’s the season before and several of August Wilson’s “Century Cycle” plays — have repeatedly pleased audiences.
Augustin’s script tells two parallel stories: Jean, a Haitian immigrant father, is on a road trip from Miami to California in search of possibilities. Years later, after Jean’s death, his son, Jonah, an adult gay man, retraces his father’s journey, hoping to better understand a distant parent he never really knew. Their narratives are interwoven monologues. They never speak to one another directly, but as their stories unfold, common ground is revealed. Their bond across time deepens as their stories unfold, accompanied by folk-infused music created by The Bengsons. (The husband-wife duet is fondly remembered locally for their 2015 production of Hundred Days at Know Theatre in 2015.)
Augustin’s show debuted in 2020 at the Humana Festival in Louisville as a video concert during the pandemic; it had a fully realized off-Broadway production in 2022. A year ago, Douglas staged it at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia. Joanie Schultz, the Playhouse’s associate artistic director, saw it there and urged Blake Robison, the theater’s artistic leader, to include it in the upcoming season. This is the first time it’s been staged without the Bengsons’ personal involvement, but with their enthusiastic blessing.
In a phone conversation with CityBeat, Douglas said the two musicians he has cast have been folded into the storytelling. He said the show defies description: “It’s not a play; it’s not a musical.” Instead, he terms it “storytelling,” more like musical versions of “The Moth” or “StoryCorps” on public radio. He also suggested, “The evening is really a meditation, in no way a traditional play.”
The 80-minute production will be performed on the Playhouse’s intimate Shelterhouse stage. With Douglas, a subtle director who understands the script’s silences as much as its songs, it seems likely to be deeply affecting. “I’m so sure that Cincinnati audiences are going to so fully embrace it,” he said, “I’m really excited to share it with them.”
On Sept. 5, Cincy Shakes opens An Enemy of the People, Amy Herzog’s new adaptation of Ibsen’s 1882 bitter and tragic play about local politics, staged by artistic director Brian Isaac Phillips. The show premiered in a limited 16-week sold-out run on Broadway in 2024 that earned positive critical assessment and five Tony nominations. The production won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. Actor Jeremy Strong, best known for his Emmy-winning role as Kendall Roy in HBO’s Succession, received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as Dr. Stockmann.
A small-town doctor in Norway has been an upstanding citizen of the community. But when he’s hired to oversee a spa and research shockingly reveals that the water is dangerously contaminated, he risks everything to expose the secret. He is not heeded and, in fact, is condemned by those in power, especially his own brother. A pair of Cincy Shakes veterans play the pair — Brent Vimtrup is the upright Dr. Stockmann and Matthew Lewis Johnson is the town’s corrupt mayor Peter Stockmann.
In a conversation with CityBeat, Phillips said not many classic plays address issues of climate, so he was drawn to this one after seeing it in New York last year. He was impressed by Herzog’s swift adaptation of Ibsen’s long, talky script, previously adapted in 1950 by playwright Arthur Miller. “Herzog’s version gets to the crux of the matter a lot quicker with a lot more urgency than Miller,” Phillips said. In fact, the production takes just about two hours.
As a parent, the director thinks about the world coming to the next generation. “This play talks about the idea of when greed and commerce become a priority over health and safety.” A man who chooses to stand alone and say, “Wait a second, this is wrong, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be,” is at risk. Phillips said, “For us as a people, it’s important to have this dialogue about something that is a prominent crisis.”
When rehearsals began, Phillips recalled, there was some joking comparing the play to the movie Jaws. “Dr. Stockmann is the Roy Scheider character saying, ‘You can’t go into the water,’ but the government, the mayor, the townspeople, they’ve got to make their money off the summer tourists.” Phillips compared the circumstances Ibsen imagined to “Dr. Fauci, looking out for public safety, public health during the pandemic, trying to make sure we’re being cautious. But it’s hurting business, and people would rather ignore a warning to make sure their livelihood is not threatened.” It’s a classic dilemma that Cincy Shakes will enable audiences to explore.
Phillips wants his production to inspire dialogue. “Using our recent history of going through COVID is a way to think about this. Where do you stand? With Dr. Stockmann or Mayor Stockmann? What are your plans? How would you address something like this? Would you have the courage to stand up if you were the one person standing alone?”
Where the Mountain Meets the Sea will be presented by the Cincinnati Playhouse from Aug. 30-Sept. 28. More info: cincyplay.com. An Enemy of the People will be onstage at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s Otto M. Budig Theater from Sept. 5-20. More info: cincyshakes.com.
This story is featured in CityBeat’s Sept. 3 print edition.