Thanks to some beautifully conceived scenic elements — resonant churches, glowing mountains and glittering cityscapes — a touring production of The Sound of Music at the Aronoff Center looks great, and it has a fine set of child actors to play the von Trapp family children. They sing like angels, and they handle this production’s inventive choreography by Danny Mefford with real panache. Kerstin Anderson, with two years of college experience, is a youthful and rambunctious Maria, and Ben Davis plays Captain von Trapp with more warmth and charm than is usually granted to this role. Merwin Foard is especially entertaining as Max, the talent scout/festival producer who puts the family onstage. Melody Betts delivers the show’s iconic inspirational number, “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” with impassioned soul. Staged by director Jack O’Brien, this is a crowd-pleaser from start to finish, a show for the entire family. Through Oct. 9. Tickets: 513-621-2787.
Two couples sit down for a dinner party: a Muslim, a Jew, an African-American and a WASP. Sounds like a set-up for a joke, right? But there’s more horror than humor in Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced, the 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning play that’s kicking off the Cincinnati Playhouse’s Shelterhouse season. There’s a good reason that this show is the most produced play at theaters across America this season: It touches a raw nerve about Islamophobia, but even more deeply, it reminds us of how much trouble we have getting along in our nation’s long-admired “melting pot.” The 80-minute performance steams through love, art, business, religion and politics and leaves most of them in tatters. It’s a show that will make audiences squirm and will irritate many — in other words, it’s a stunning piece of theater. Bravo to the Playhouse for presenting it in this unflinching production, staged by Lisa Portes, a much-admired Chicago-based director in her first Cincinnati outing. Through Oct. 23. Tickets: 513-421-3888.
Falcon Theater in Newport has a penchant for spoofy musicals made from not-so-great films, and its regional premiere of The Toxic Avenger is squarely in that vein. Based on a 1984 film of the same name, this one is about a nerd turned hero who tries to clean up corruption in New Jersey. The show won an Outer Critics Circle Award as outstanding new Off-Broadway musical in 2009, even though one critic described it as a “phantasmagoria of bad taste.” In fact, it appears that’s pretty much what the show’s creators had in mind. If that’s your thinking, you might want to catch a performance at the Monmouth Theater in Newport, through Oct. 15. Tickets are available at the box office, but this one is likely to sell out, so I recommend ordering tickets online in advance at brownpapertickets.com.
The generically and ironically titled [Title of Show] at the Warsaw Federal Incline Theater takes its name from the space on a theater festival’s application form. It’s about two guys who struggle to write a musical while they gain amusing insights into themselves as people, friends and artists. This show is a love letter to musical theater as well as an exploration of the joy (and pain) of collaboration. It opened last night and continues through Oct. 16. Tickets: 513-241-6550.
A couple of classics are onstage at area universities: Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (through Sunday, tickets: 513-556-4183) and a stage adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic novel The Grapes of Wrath at Northern Kentucky University’s Corbett Theatre (through Oct. 9, tickets: 859-572-5464).
Wrapping up this weekend are productions of The Diary of Anne Frank at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, A Prayer for Owen Meany at the Cincinnati Playhouse and Godspell at the Covedale Center for the Performing Arts.
Rick Pender’s STAGE DOOR blog appears here every Friday. Find more theater reviews and feature stories here.
This article appears in Sep 28 – Oct 5, 2016.
