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Perhaps after watching the Academy Awards you're wondering how screenplays actually get written. ENSEMBLE THEATRE OF CINCINNATI (ETC) is offering a comic version of how one of the greatest movies of all times, Gone With The Wind, might have been assembled. Turns out that producer David O. Selznick didn't much like the first crack his writers took at the script back in 1939, so he fired them and hired screenwriter Ben Hecht and director Victor Fleming to give it a go. Unfortunately, they only had five days before shooting would begin, and Hecht had never read the book. Playwright Ron Hutchinson's MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS (Wednesday-March 26) envisions what might have gone on when they were locked into an office with an enterprising secretary, Mrs. Poppenghul. Moonlight is directed by DREW FRACHER (a 2005 Cincinnati Entertainment Award winner for his role in ETC's Sight Unseen), and his cast includes his wife SHERMAN FRACHER (a frequent CEA nominee), plus professionals Warren Kelly, David Arden Engel and William McNulty (a regular for 25 years at Actors Theatre of Louisville who we've occasionally seen at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park — his most recent work there was in The Drawer Boy in 2004). Moonlight and Magnolias opens Wednesday, but if you wait a few more days, you can enjoy one of ETC's "Friends Night Out" events on Tuesday. It's a whole evening of entertainment for $22 — a pre-show, cash-bar, happy hour and complimentary buffet happens at 5:30 at Harry's Bar & Pizza (1207 Main St., Over-the-Rhine), followed by a 7:30 p.m. performance of Moonlight. Tickets: 513-421-3555.
ETC's 2005 production of I AM MY OWN WIFE continues to wow audiences in other cities.
Perhaps after watching the Academy Awards you're wondering how screenplays actually get written. ENSEMBLE THEATRE OF CINCINNATI (ETC) is offering a comic version of how one of the greatest movies of all times, Gone With The Wind, might have been assembled. Turns out that producer David O. Selznick didn't much like the first crack his writers took at the script back in 1939, so he fired them and hired screenwriter Ben Hecht and director Victor Fleming to give it a go. Unfortunately, they only had five days before shooting would begin, and Hecht had never read the book. Playwright Ron Hutchinson's MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS (Wednesday-March 26) envisions what might have gone on when they were locked into an office with an enterprising secretary, Mrs. Poppenghul. Moonlight is directed by DREW FRACHER (a 2005 Cincinnati Entertainment Award winner for his role in ETC's Sight Unseen), and his cast includes his wife SHERMAN FRACHER (a frequent CEA nominee), plus professionals Warren Kelly, David Arden Engel and William McNulty (a regular for 25 years at Actors Theatre of Louisville who we've occasionally seen at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park — his most recent work there was in The Drawer Boy in 2004). Moonlight and Magnolias opens Wednesday, but if you wait a few more days, you can enjoy one of ETC's "Friends Night Out" events on Tuesday. It's a whole evening of entertainment for $22 — a pre-show, cash-bar, happy hour and complimentary buffet happens at 5:30 at Harry's Bar & Pizza (1207 Main St., Over-the-Rhine), followed by a 7:30 p.m. performance of Moonlight. Tickets: 513-421-3555. ...
ETC's 2005 production of I AM MY OWN WIFE continues to wow audiences in other cities. At Actors Theatre in Louisville the show established new box office records for February productions. (Interestingly, another production with Cincinnati ties — Love, Janis, directed by the Cincinnati Playhouse's Michael Evan Haney, which was also presented at the Playhouse — played to 94 percent capacity, and became one of the highest grossing plays in the history of Actors Theatre.) D. Lynn Meyers' ETC production of Wife, still featuring Todd Almond in his CEA-winning performance as an East German transvestite who survived in Berlin under the Nazis and the Communists, has now moved to Sarasota's Florida Studio Theatre (it runs through March 24). ...
Actors Theatre of Louisville, which is having an excellent season at the box office, opened the 30TH HUMANA FESTIVAL OF NEW AMERICAN PLAYS this week. The annual showcase of a half-dozen new works always attracts national (sometimes even international) attention. One of this year's shows, SIX YEARS, a poignant drama by Sharr White covering six-year intervals from the end of World War II to the Vietnam era, has a cast that includes former Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival regular (and founder) MARNI PENNING. The show is already open; it runs on various dates through April 1. Info: actorstheatre.org. ...
RUN IT DOWN is the next ALTERACTIVE show at the Cincinnati Playhouse. On Monday evening at 6:30 p.m. you can catch solo performer David Gonzalez presenting music, personal stories and poetry. He'll present "Jazz Orpheus," a classic Greek myth set to A Cappella scat; "Slash the Boats," a father-son story set in Chile about false promises and the CIA; and "Hickman Device," an account of a friend's bravery in the face of AIDS. Tickets: 513-421-3888. ...
Veteran local actors REGGIE WILLIS and TONY DAVIS have been refining their performances as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. for nearly a decade. Their vehicle is Jeff Stetson's THE MEETING, which imagines an encounter between the two. This time around their performance is being presented (through March 19) by QUEEN CITY OFF BROADWAY at Cincinnati Artist Warehouse (4011 Hamilton Ave., Northside) 513-227-0480.
