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KNOW THEATRE OF CINCINNATI keeps on rolling. Just after finishing up their hard work as presenters of the 2007 Fringe Festival — the best attended Fringe in four years — the energetic folks at 1120 Jackson St. have added two new contemporary musicals to their 2007-08 season. Know first ventured into the genre with tick, tick ... BOOM! in 2005 and followed that show's success with See What I Wanna See last fall. For 2007-08, they've just added regional premieres for two more new works. One is a "summer extra": Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story (Aug. 9-26) is a two-man musical based on the true story of a pair of young men who kidnapped and killed a kid for the thrill of it. With book, music and lyrics by Stephen Dolginoff, Thrill Me had its Off Broadway premiere in May 2005; it's been presented in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Seattle among others. Know will replace a previously announced update of the Greek tragedy Electra with a second new musical, Bare: A Pop Opera (April 3-May 4, 2008). It's set in a Catholic board school and draws on some of the same kind of coming-of-age energy that made the current Broadway production of Spring Awakening a big hit (and a winner of eight Tony Awards). Know has impressed business folks in Over-the-Rhine: At a luncheon at Music Hall on Monday, the theater will pick up a "Star Award" from the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce as the neighborhood's "arts organization of the year."
Info: knowtheatre.com. ...
Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. That's the song they're singing at the Cincinnati Playhouse these days: After the elation of the regional theater's revival production of Stephen Sondheim's COMPANY earning the 2007 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, the news just two days later was that the show would close on July 1. The show was critically well received, but it's not yet recouped its original investment during its six-month run. Truth to tell, very few Sondheim shows have had strong commercial success — but they have their followers. Trade papers are reporting that the composer-lyricist's most recent work, Bounce, which never made it to Broadway after being staged in Chicago and Washington, D.C., in 2003, will finally be staged in New York at the Public Theatre in 2008. The director being rumored for the production is JOHN DOYLE, who came to Cincinnati to stage Company for the Playhouse and who earned his second Tony nomination for directing the effort in New York. ...
FALCON THEATRE, which offers shows at Newport's 85-seat Monmouth Theatre, has announced its 2007-08 season, opening with The Diary of Anne Frank (Oct. 12-27). For the holidays, it's The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge (Dec. 7-16) for the second time. The season also includes less frequently seen works: John Guare's darkly comic The House of Blue Leaves (Feb. 8-23, 2008), Yasmina Reza's 1998 Tony Award-winning Art (dates and rights pending) and the classic love-Rock musical from 1968, Hair (May 2-17). Falcon's organizers have been thinking about how to position their company: They claim to offer "professional theater done by professionals," in other words, people who have careers in other professions but who view theater as a second career. I'm still not quite sure what that means in terms of the shows they present, but it does characterize who they are, somewhere between a community theater and a semi-professional company. ...
And speaking of community theater, this weekend is your annual chance to see some of the best from the past season: 11 companies will present 30-minute excerpts Friday evening and during the day Saturday during the 2007 SOUTHWEST REGIONAL OCTA FEST. Sponsored by the Ohio Community Theatre Association and ACT-Cincinnati, the sampler happens at Miami University's Hamilton campus. You can get a pass for the whole slew of shows for just $18. Info: 513-895-0099.
contact Rick Pender: rpender(at)citybeat.com
