A few good local productions are winding up this weekend. On Labor Day weekend, you won't find much onstage. But you have a couple of decent choices right now to tide you over.
At the top of my list would be Chicago at the Carnegie (CityBeat review here). It's a classic musical by Kander & Ebb, getting an excellent staging — great performances (by some solid professionals with Broadway experience as well as rising talent from universities around the Tristate), great choreography (Bob Fosse's iconic style has been updated in some very imaginative ways) and really hot orchestral accompaniment (the musicians would be worth listening to on their own!) It all adds up to some fabulous razzle-dazzle. Final performance is Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets ($19-$26): 859-957-1940.
Know Theatre wraps up its run of Lauren Gunderson's very contemporary comedy, Toil and Trouble, which has echoes of Shakespeare's Macbeth from start to finish (CityBeat review here). Inspired by messages from fortune cookies (in place of Macbeth's witches) A couple of slackers and their aggressive sportscaster girlfriend concoct a crazy scheme to grab power and wealth. Of course, it goes wildly wrong, with a lot of laughs along the way. Final performance is Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets ($20): 513-300-5669
And if you're a Woody Allen fan, you might want to board the Showboat Majestic at the Public Landing for Don't Drink the Water, a play he wrote in 1966 that had a two-year run on Broadway. Set inside an American embassy behind the Iron Curtain, the show features lots of Allen's hallmarks: farcical situations, loopy characters and a high dose of humor. Final performance is Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets ($19-$20): 513-241-6550
The current issue of CityBeat includes previews of the fall arts season. It's online here, including my suggestions about shows from local theaters here.
