I’m sorry to tell you that there’s not much of anything on local stages yet, but some good things are coming that I’ll mention that are worth considering next week, one per day!
The Broadway Series opens a touring production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid on Tuesday (it’s onstage at Downtown’s Aronoff Center through Jan. 29). You probably know the characters: Ariel, weary of flipping her fins and longing to be on dry land; Sebastian, her crabby sidekick; handsome Prince Eric; and most memorably, Ursula, the evil sea witch. Tickets: 513-621-2787.
On Wednesday, Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati opens its first production of 2017 with a musical called First Date. It’s a new show. Here’s the description: A blind date at a busy New York restaurant turns into an uproarious high-stakes dinner when restaurant patrons turn into best friends, manipulative exes and protective parents, who sing and dance the couple through ice-breakers, appetizers and conversational land mines. It sounds like it will be entertaining audiences through Feb. 5. Tickets: 513-421-3555.
On Thursday, the Covedale Center will kick off its production of John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize winner, Doubt, about a provocative battle of wills between a young priest and an opinionated nun. Artistic Director Tim Perrino’s calls it “a play for big people.” Read more about it in my recent Curtain Call column. Tickets: 513-241-6550.
On Friday, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company continues its multi-year project to stage all of the Bard’s “history cycle” plays in the chronological order of the kings they portray. Henry VI, Part 2 will be onstage through Feb. 11. (Shakespeare actually wrote Henry VI as three plays, but Cincy Shakes combined I with half of II a year ago; the upcoming production, onstage through Feb. 11, is the rest of II and all of III.) They’re building toward perhaps Shakespeare’s greatest history play, Richard III, which opens on Feb. 17. Tickets: 513-381-2273.
On Jan. 19, Covington’s Carnegie will present one of its annual musicals: Meredith Willson’s The Music Man. The Tony Award-winning musical about a flim-flam salesman who convinces an Iowa town to fund a boys’ band is a classic with lots of great tunes — from “76 Trombones” to “Goodnight, My Someone.” You’ll find that one onstage through Jan. 29. Tickets: 859-957-1940.
Find more recommendations of shows in the weeks and months ahead here.
Rick Pender’s STAGE DOOR blog appears here every Friday. Find more theater reviews and feature stories here.
This article appears in Jan 11-18, 2017.
