This story originally appeared in our July 8-21 print edition. Check out the edition online here and find where you can get a print edition near you here.
Theater fans in Greater Cincinnati have to be a bit more diligent to find onstage entertainment during the summer months when many of the region’s theaters are dark. Cincinnati Shakespeare Company isn’t one of them, however, according to Artistic Director Brian Phillips.
When he began his tenure as Cincy Shakes’ leader two decades ago, the company faced an annual budgetary challenge: with a season beginning in September, revenue from ticket sales often were not quite enough to sustain operations through the year’s end. Phillips decided to launch a summertime show — initially “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” to get the ball rolling.
“That enabled the company to have more financial stability, and it built an audience for us.” Phillips said. “We know we’re competing with a lot of events in Cincinnati — Reds, festivals and so on — it’s obvious that “Long Day’s Journey into Night” is not going to be a draw during the summer months. We look for plays that are funny, that are shorter, get people out before the sun is completely gone. It’s lighter fare to keep spirits up and keep the laughs coming.”
From July 10 to 25, the company will present its latest light-hearted summer offering, a brand-new comedy titled “Dogberry and Verges Are Scared.” It’s a buddy comedy with Shakespearean roots, developed by actors Michael Doherty and Will Mobley. Its inspiration is the two bumbling constables from the Bard’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” a pair who are regularly and comically frightened by the prospect of real danger. Cincy Shakes has played a key part in developing this script, which gets its world premiere on the company’s Over-the-Rhine mainstage.
Back in early 2023, Doherty and Mobley were cast as Dogberry and Verges in a production of “Much Ado” at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre. They hit it off immediately, according to Mobley’s account of their first rehearsal together.
“Someone came up to us after that read-through and asked how long have you guys been working together? We were like, well, we met five minutes ago,” he said. “Our synergy was just so clear from the beginning. Looking back, it seems like it was inevitable that we would make something together and specifically something so funny.”
Mobley subsequently met Cincy Shakes’ Phillips during a visit to Utah Shakespeare Festival. He described the project to Phillips, who was interested in giving it a tryout in Cincinnati. That led to a 2024 developmental workshop, andCincy Shakes eventually became the show’s co-producer with Mobley and Doherty, who established Slippery Trout Productions, their amusingly named fledgling production company.
Their script had a test run in September 2025 during the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, where Doherty had mounted a show several years earlier. A pair of veteran Philadelphia actors—Scott Greer and Tony Lawton—were cast as the inept clowns, and several Cincy Shakes regulars were part of the show: Jeremy Dubin, Elizabeth Chinn Molloy and Courtney Lucien. Philadelphia director Matthew Dexter staged it, supported by an artistic team from Cincinnati. The upcoming performances at Cincy Shakes’ Otto M. Budig Theater will feature the same cast and team, but with more fully expanded staging. After that, they will pack everything up and head off for a month of performances throughout August at the famous Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland.
Asked why the playwrights aren’t themselves playing the title roles they created, Doherty said, “It’s kind of like a little gift we’re giving to others like Scott and Tony. They’re excited to do things in this play that clowns really drool over. It was awesome to involve people of their stock.”
Mobley and Doherty are grateful to be working with Phillips and the team.
“We can’t say enough about the Cincinnati folks, not only the actors, but our stage manager and the design team,” Doherty said. “Everyone from Cincinnati has not only been incredibly kind and talented, but also super game for whatever comes their way. We feel so lucky to have them help bring our play to life.”
“Dogberry and Verges Are Scared” resembles other legendary shows with comic leads whose interactions transcend humor, like Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” or Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.”
“When you set that up as an expectation, as we do with our play and the title, to then have fart jokes will cause people to have whiplash from what they’re expecting,” Doherty said. “At the same time, using what we think is pretty sophisticated wordplay, pathos and emotional vulnerability is really exciting for comedic actors.”
Mobley said the play is “definitely a comedy with a capital C.”
“But we have worked really hard to weave in some weightier substance: themes of forgiveness and friendship, and explorations of what it means to be in a relationship with someone and have doubts and fears and what it means to hold onto those or let go,” he said.
The two didn’t build their play to deliver a heavy-handed lesson, however.
“When I see a play that tries to educate me, my eyes kind of glaze over. Mike and I say that we’ve always found it more successful when a play sort of sneaks some of that stuff in a little surreptitiously. I want to be very clear that this is a very, very silly play. But we sneak in some heart and some pathos, and everyone will leave the theater having a really well-rounded experience,” Mobley said.
For anyone wanting a refresher for (or an introduction to) “Much Ado About Nothing,” Cincy Shakes’ free Shakespeare in the Park series will present the classic comedy in regional parks across the Tri-State, starting in mid-July and continuing through early September. Now in its 20th year, the company’s park productions — portable and shortened, but authentically Shakespearean — reach audiences that don’t often come downtown to see productions at the company’s Over-the-Rhine theater. While “Dogberry and Verges” will feature in Elizabethan-era costuming, the “Much Ado” tour — in keeping with the celebration of America’s 250th celebration — sets the story of the sparring skeptical lovers Beatrice and Benedick in post-Revolutionary War America in 1776.
“We take Shakespeare to many parks and different communities, so geography is not a barrier, cost is not a barrier, and the text is not a barrier because we do a really great job of staging the show. It’s very accessible to audiences,” Phillips said.
For tickets to “Dogberry and Verges Are Scared” or to check out the calendar of free park performances of “Much Ado About Nothing,” go to www.cincyshakes.com.
Elsewhere in July, there’s a production of the highly entertaining musical tribute “Always … Patsy Cline” at Cincinnati Landmark Productions’ Warsaw Federal Incline Theatre (July 8 to Aug. 2). The show offers a heartwarming portrait of friendship and an evening of music by one of the all-time great country singers. Tickets: 513-241-6550
At The Carnegie in Covington “Murder for Two” will have a brief run (July 22 to 26). It’s an uproarious, fast-paced, 90-minute musical by two performers, a whodunit paying tribute to classic murder mysteries. One actor plays the detective while the other impersonates 13 suspects; both of them play the piano. Tickets: thecarnegie.com/whats-on/murder-fortwo
The annual summer production by Cincinnati Young People’s Theatre, featuring kids ages 14 to 19, will be Disney’s “Newsies” at the Covedale Center for the Performing Arts (July 23 to Aug. 2). For more than four decades, Cincinnati Landmark Productions has presented performances for, of and by area teenagers. “Newsies,” set in early 20th-century New York City, tells the story of a charismatic newsboy who rallies others from across the city to strike against unfair conditions and fight for what’s right. Tickets: 513-241-6550
This article appears in July 8-21, 2026.
