Changing How the Ohio Constitution Is Changed
During the past few years in Cincinnati, various citizen groups have placed numerous issues on the ballot to amend the city’s charter. The issues — which included selling the Greater Cincinnati Water Works or installing cameras to catch motorists who run red lights — have drawn criticism from elected officials, who call them “government by…
Holy Rap
To most people the words “Gospel” and “Hip Hop” would seem mutually exclusive and to combine them would be a confusing convergence of concepts. It’s difficult to reconcile the swaggering braggadocio, rampant misogynism and dissipating lifestyle of Hip Hop with a devout Christian perspective, but for Cincinnati rapper D’Maub it’s a personal crusade. “It’s like…
Art: Self-Reliance at ArtWorks
Since ArtWorks relocated to the corner of Central Parkway and Jackson Street at the front of Over-the-Rhine, its energies have been devoted to highly public art projects around the city (including the newly unveiled artist-designed bike racks that are going up). This Thursday will inaugurate the new location’s project gallery space with a one-night-only gallery…
Heat Beneath Our Wings
Whenever I say “hot wings,” I want to say it in a James Brown voice, something with swagger and, well, heat. Hot wings! Sorta like “Hot damn!” but you can say it in front of little kids. Hot wings! Gimme some hot wings! Woo! CityBeat’s spirits expert Michael Schiaparelli recently had a brilliant idea for…
Digging Deeper
Most of the obituaries of Dennis Hopper, who died of prostate cancer May 29 at age 74, have followed a similar narrative arc: After a promising start in supporting roles in two of friend James Dean’s movies – Rebel Without a Cause and Giant – the young, volatile actor fell afoul of director Henry Hathaway…
Black Keys, The Sadies, Mary Gauthier, Susan Cowsill and More
I’m so far behind I can see my own ass. And it’s not a pretty sight. Given my current schedule, I’ll keep this opening brief, other than to note the welcomed surplus of women in this week’s releases — sisters are doing it for themselves and for us as well and we’re the better for…
Events: Taste of Northside and CitiRama
This year the city of Cincinnati’s annual CitiRama focuses on the Rockford Woods development in Northside, where seven homebuilders unveil model homes offering the latest in urban living features and green/sustainable construction. To help draw even more attention to the joys of living in city neighborhoods, the city and the Home Builders Association of Greater…
The Hot 100 Days of Summer: AUGUST-SEPT
JUNE – JULY – AUG/SEPT Sunday, Aug. 1 Take your baby out for a Sunday ride to check out some classic wheels at the MAINSTRASSE VILLAGE CLASSIC CAR SHOW. Over 250 cars will be showcased along the Sixth Street Promenade. MainStrasse Village, Covington, www.mainstrasse.org.FINDLAY MARKET makes grocery shopping more fun with the addition of the…
The Hot 100 Days of Summer: JULY
JUNE – JULY – AUG/SEPT Thursday, July 1 Learn to fly like circus performers at the Levee’s FLYING TRAPEZE SCHOOL. $35-$55. Newport on the Levee, Newport, 513-921-5454. Friday, July 2MIDPOINT INDIE SUMMER heats up the summer with a series of performances by local and national indie acts to preview MPMF. It happens every Friday on…
All for Show
Probably the most eagerly awaited regional art museum event this summer isn’t an indoor exhibition at all. It’s the debut (on June 20) of 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park at Indianapolis Museum of Art. Long in the works, it will become one of the largest museum art parks in the…
Rivertown Breakdown
The annual Rivertown Breakdown has been the finest showcase of local Roots music practitioners for nine years now. And the lineup for this year’s event — Saturday at the Southgate House — once again provides a “Cincinnati Roots Music Scene 101” for Americana fans who might not realize what a strong scene we have right…
Michelle Malone
The term “criminally overlooked” has negative connotations, but nowadays more than ever a singer/songwriter or band or any musical entity can “make it” on their own terms (release music, build followings) and find their own success without going near the troubled waters of the mainstream. So don’t cry for Michelle Malone, the Southern-born-and-bred Roots Rock/Blues…
Events: Wag It!
The annual dance party at downtown's Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts is turning into one of city's hippest, happeningest fundraising events. This year's edition, WAG It! Warehouse Party, occurs 8 p.m.-1 a.m. Saturday in the secret, usually off-limits "underground" space behind the gallery where DJ Pillo will be creating the…
Events: Fountain Square Movie Night
Ever hear you parents talk about a time when going to the movies meant going to a drive-in and spending a lot less than $14 per ticket (even in 3-D!)? Those times may have passed, but you can stop by Fountain Square on Saturday nights this summer for a little taste of the past with…
Red Hot Summer Festivals
June 10-13What’s a matter you? Get off your Yankee butt and immerse yourself in the Old World flavors of Newport’s ITALIANFEST. Rome won’t burn, but it sure will sizzle with live Italian music and authentic Italian food. Yum! There’s also a pizza-eating contest, a photo exhibit that shows off the lovely mugs of generations of…
Events: DAAPWORKS 2010
See the future of design when DAAPWORKS 2010 displays the best of the brightest in all of DAAP’s design and art programs. See works from all of the college programs in Architecture, Art Education, Community Planning, Digital Design, Fashion Design, Fine Arts, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Interior Design and Urban Planning. All of this talent…
Music: Michelle Malone
The term “criminally overlooked” has negative connotations, but nowadays more than ever a singer/songwriter or band or any musical entity can “make it” on their own terms (release music, build followings) and find their own success without going near the troubled waters of the mainstream. So don’t cry for Michelle Malone, the southern born-and-bred Roots…
The Reds Play the Hits
Reds outfielder Jonny Gomes’ entrance to the plate at Great American Ballpark is much like you’d expect: hard guitars, harder drums and completely lacking in subtlety or artistry. “Burn It to the Ground” by Nickelback plays as he walks to the plate and, sure, Nickelback sucks, but they put butts in seats and so do…
Events: Your Bridal Show
Everyone knows the brides-to-be are insane. But this weekend, brides can go crazy for the cure, as all admissions fees for Your Bridal Show benefit Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Awareness of Greater Cincinnati. Purchase discounted wedding dresses and accessories, get advice from local wedding planners, watch fabulous bridal fashion shows by David's Bridal and…
Da Haughtness
Hot Theater Voyeurism: Fringe FestivalA sure sign of summer is the Cincy Fringe Festival, the annual celebration of funky theater, visual art, film and dance produced by Know Theatre of Cincinnati. Roughly 30 acts are planned for the 2010 version (June 1-12) with more than 150 performers from near and far — some acts are…
Music: Camera Obscura at MidPoint Indie Summer Series
In their 14-year history, Scottish Indie Pop collective Camera Obscura has benefited from high profile endorsements — legendary DJ John Peel was an early champion and Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch produced CO’s debut full-length, 2001’s Biggest Bluest Hi Fi — while stuffing their press kit with glowing praise for each successive album (2003’s…
Mr. Sushi (Review)
Critic's Pick I never realized downtown’s lack of sushi options until just now. After Ko-Sho’s move to Northside, downtown was left with almost no place for quality sushi other than Bootsy’s. Perhaps because of the name, I expected Mr. Sushi to be basic and a little less than refined. I pictured a small place with…
American Roots Music Spectacular
The annual Rivertown Breakdown has been the finest showcase of local Roots music practitioners for nine years now. And the lineup for this year’s event — Saturday at the Southgate House — once again provides a “Cincinnati Roots Music Scene 101” for Americana fans who might not realize what a strong scene we have right…
The Hot 100 Days of Summer: JUNE
JUNE – JULY – AUG/SEPT Wednesday, June 2 The CINCY FRINGE FESTIVAL kicked off yesterday but the action continues tonight! In line with the fest’s mission of challenging our perceptions of performing and visual arts, artists from here and everywhere descend on downtown and Over-the-Rhine for 12 days of experimental works including performance, visual, film…
Comedy: Costaki Economopoulos
Costaki Economopoulos bills himself as “the biggest name in show business,” but there’s more to this stand-up comic than clever wordplay. Well-known for his political and current events humor, he's found himself drifting more toward domestic comedy these days. The 39-year-old and his domestic partner, fellow comic Caroline Rhea, welcomed a daughter last year, and…
Events: Bugfest
The creepiest annual event returns to the Cincinnati Museum Center for a seventh year. And this year’s Bugfest promises to be as informational, crawly and kind of gross as ever. All ages are invited to explore the world of arthropods to learn about their unique characteristics and clear up many common misconceptions about the little…
Onstage: Cincy Fringe Festival
Today’s the day to begin your marathon of creative, off-brand theater. At storefronts and stages throughout Over-the-Rhine, Know Theatre of Cincinnati hosts roughly 30 brief shows (most are around an hour long or less) using theater, dance, movement, sound, images, music and more to tell stories, create illusions and — bottom line — to experiment…
Music: Amy London
In the liner notes to When I Look In Your Eyes, Jazz vocalist Amy London’s 2007 debut CD as a band leader, WBGO radio host and author Sheila Anderson cites London among an “elite group of female stylists, including Sarah Vaughn, Carmen McRae, Nina Simone and Shirley Horn.” High praise indeed for a singer whose…
Events: Summerfair
What’s a better way to celebrate the heat of summer than to wander around in it for three days perusing arts and crafts, and enjoying fine live entertainment? Summerfair at Coney Island, a nationally recognized event, suggests nothing could be better and they’re proving it by featuring more than 400 visual and performing artists from…
Double Vision
Hollywood Hotness is born as a result of the undeniable alchemy of circumstance, timing and luck, all of which the industry believes it can manufacture at any time and in any quantity necessary. But true Hotness constantly defies the dream-factory model, teasing both the would-be star-makers and audiences. How else can you explain the parade…
Music: Garaj Mahal
For instrumental Jazz/Fusion/Jam quartet Garaj Mahal, the next logical frontier to explore would be to add vocals to its repertoire. Although the band has utilized vocal melodies as a textural component over the years, the members have never actually sung in the strictest definition of the term. That’s all changed with the release of Garaj…
A Taste of Duveneck Celebrates 20
Spoiler alert! You won’t really be able to taste any Duveneck at the 20th annual food and wine fundraiser for the Cincinnati Art Museum (953 Eden Park Drive, Mount Adams). In fact, experts generally agree that no one has ever been served a dish prepared with Duveneck. —- And that’s because “Duveneck” refers to Frank…
Voices in the Garaj
For instrumental Jazz/Fusion/Jam quartet Garaj Mahal, the next logical frontier to explore would be to add vocals to its repertoire. Although the band has utilized vocal melodies as a textural component over the years, the members have never actually sung in the strictest definition of the term. That’s all changed with the release of Garaj…
Amy London
In the liner notes to When I Look In Your Eyes, Jazz vocalist Amy London’s 2007 debut CD as a band leader, WBGO radio host and author Sheila Anderson cites London among an “elite group of female stylists, including Sarah Vaughn, Carmen McRae, Nina Simone and Shirley Horn.” High praise indeed for a singer whose…
MidPoint Indie Summer Series Featuring Camera Obscura
In their 14-year history, Scottish Indie Pop collective Camera Obscura has benefited from high profile endorsements — legendary DJ John Peel was an early champion and Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch produced CO’s debut full-length, 2001’s Biggest Bluest Hi Fi — while stuffing their press kit with glowing praise for each successive album (2003’s…
A Meth Addict and Trashing ‘Sex and the City’
Just in time to rescue us from another week of safe, reheated Hollywood product (yes, I'm referring to you, Sex and the City 2), a locally produced film gets its local debut at 8 p.m. tonight at Cincinnati State's ATLC Auditorium (3520 Central Pwky., Clifton). Meth, the latest short from Cincinnati filmmaker Michael Maney, centers…
Marine Mom Speaks Out
Can a person support the troops without supporting the two wars? Peggy Logue replies with an unqualified “yes.” Logue pondered the question deeply when her 19-year-old son, U.S. Marine Cpl. Michael Logue, was deployed to a volatile area of Iraq, an action that clashed with her anti-war views. The result of her soul-searching is the…
The Yellow Handkerchief (Review)
With a guiding title premise that has little to no bearing on the story, The Yellow Handkerchief is basically a glorified student film. William Hurt gives a worthy performance as Brett Hanson, a convicted murderer released into the hot Louisiana sun after serving a six-year prison sentence. Brett catches a ride with an unlikely but…
Taste of Cincinnati Schedule and News
Taste of Cincinnati kicks off tomorrow and offers not only the best in local culinary arts but also some of Cincinnati’s finest musical acts. Below is the full schedule of Taste entertainment (including a switch-up on the CityBeat stage Sunday, with Buckra replacing All the Day Holiday at 5:30 p.m.).—- Local musician Kelly Thomas has…
Stage Door: Music, Music and More Music
This weekend's theater offerings are music, music and more music. To celebrate Memorial Day, lots of people typically do things other than theater, but if you want a break from picnics and parks and Taste of Cincinnati take in one of the final performances of Ain't Misbehavin' at the Cincinnati Playhouse (read a review here)…
Finney Strikes Out
For all the chatter about conservatives and Tea Partiers trying to take over the Republican Party by becoming precinct executives, the person who is perhaps the most prominent local conservative lost his race. Amid the pages and pages of results from the May 4 primary election is the news that attorney Chris Finney, a leader…
Kris Kristofferson: Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends (The Publishing Demos 1968-72)
It’s hard to remember a time when Kris Kristofferson wasn’t a singing/songwriting icon and ubiquitous entertainment presence, parlaying his musical fame into a prolific if somewhat scattershot acting career. And even as Kristofferson’s film and television work devoured more of his time and attention, the songs that he conceived and birthed in the turbulent ’60s…
Sweets and Other June Treats
News for my sweeties — and you know who you are — includes a fabulous new bakery at Findlay Market, a plethora of cupcake bakeries, a gluten-free bakery in Covington and more. Skirtz & Johnston Fine Pastries and Chocolates can be found at 111/113 West Elder St. on the south side of the Market House…
A Night of Well-Adjusted Ladies
Megan Venzin and Emily Althaus didn’t have to dig too deep to find material to mine for their Fringe show. They simply looked to their mothers. “My mother is a bipolar alcoholic and Em’s mom is a manic narcoleptic,” Venzin says. “Fun, right?” Venzin and Althaus wrote, produced and perform this reportedly hilarious two-woman show…
A Brief History of Petty Crime
Mostly, Jimmy Hogg blames his dad. “He was kind of a cheapskate. He’d sneak into the circus or the zoo if he could get away with it,” says Hogg, explaining how a nice lad from southwest England became a juvenile delinquent. A Brief History of Petty Crime tells the whole sad tale and as funny…
Just Say Know
People have long called the war on drugs a complete joke. Louisville improv and sketch comedian De Blenniss is taking the next step. Just Say Know is a one-man stand-up comedy presentation — mixed with slick multimedia — dissecting and investigating the history of drugs and their impact on the country. Blenniss got the idea…
Kincaid State Park Hike
Key At-A-Glance Information Length: 3.3 milesConfiguration: Series of loopsDifficulty: ModerateScenery: Woods and streamsExposure: ShadedTraffic: ModerateTrail Surface: Soil with exposed rocks and rootsHiking Time: 1.5 hoursDriving Distance: 1 hour south of CincinnatiSeason: Year-roundAccess: Dawn-duskMaps: USGS Falmouth; Kincaid State Park mapWheelchair Accessible: NoFacilities: Restrooms and water at recreation centerFor More Information: (859) 654-3531 or www.parks.ky.govSpecial Comments: The…
Fringe Binge
It’s time again for the annual Cincy Fringe Festival, a 12-day celebration of theater, art, music, film and more. The seventh annual Fringe, again organized by Know Theatre of Cincinnati, offers 30 productions in multiple venues through June 12. The best way to take it all in is to get a pass and return frequently…
A Short Lecture of a Different Time
Karim Muasher says there’s a reason why we’ve never heard of the Oldverse: “You weren’t there.” Fair enough. And because this otherworld existed before the Big Bang, “there is no visible evidence,” adds Muasher. A member of last year’s Fringe favorites Giant Bird, he’s flying solo this year. His “spoken-word, multimedia bedtime story” begins as…
The End Is Near
Think the café poetry scene inspired by the spoken-word poetry and alternative Hip Hop of Saul Williams, West Coast popping-andlocking, T. S. Eliot, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Nas, Wu-Tang Clan and others of their ilk. Casey Scott Leach, a recent CCM Drama grad, brings his sense of anxiety along as he explores with wonder, rage…
Medea
Director Michael Burke was drawn to the Greek dramatist Euripides’ 431 B.C. examination of passion, love and vengeance by the dichotomy it embodies: We feel Medea’s justified rage at Jason, but to get revenge by the horrific killing of their children? To augment this dramatically faithful production presented in an approachable translation, Burke has mixed…
Harold
Four Humors has presented crowd-pleasing hits in two previous Cincy Fringes: Mortem Capiendum in 2008 and April Fools in 2009. This year they’re inspired by a familiar ghost story about a scarecrow that comes to life and menaces two farmers. According to Kristin Campbell, Four Humors’ managing director, “Harold explores the combination and similarities of…
Sophie’s Dream
The power and truth of dreams leads a young woman from confusion to understanding in this multi-disciplinary new work. Playwright Serenity Fisher and director Caitlin Kane present a dreamscape of personal metaphors and iconic issues through poetry, music and storytelling. Fisher says of this original piece, “We hope the audience will have a personal realization…
The Global Lovers
In an hour of poetry, visual imagery, song and ad slogans, poet-playwright Rhonda Pettit, director e. E. Charlton-Trujillo and a cast of 10 women explore an unlikely relationship between a teenage sex slave in Pakistan and a wealthy older woman in Kentucky. The play, Pettit says, began as a poem. She then transmuted it into…
Inner Selves and Animal Instincts
“Fringe suggests that (which is) set apart from work aiming at marketability. It probably has a tendency to disturb. Fringe won’t answer questions, it will present them.” So says Cincinnati artist Robin Stinetorf in his statement for this year’s Visual Fringe Festival. Stinetorf is one of six artists to comprise the visual art appendage of…
Ex-Ambassador: Terrorism Is Here to Stay
Like most Americans, Wendy Chamberlin witnessed the 9/11 attacks via television, transfixed as one World Trade Center tower was afire, then a second jetliner dove into the other. She remained glued to the screen as both towers collapsed and the world was introduced to the modern face of terrorism. What made her experience unlike anyone…
The Finkles’ Theater Show
For Christmas 2008, Minnesota-based actors Ryan Lear and Rachel Petrie sent loved ones an oddly festive portrait in glitter-bomb envelopes. “We set up a camera in our living room and started pulling stuff out of this costume trunk,” says Lear, who found a pair of oversized glasses. “As soon as I put them on, I…
Helping All Creatures Great and Small
Gene Baur remembers the complaint well. In a scene reminiscent of the film Fargo, some farmers in southern California called about a neighbor who was throwing live hens into a wood chipper to kill them. The hens were older and no longer producing as many eggs, making them unprofitable to keep. “There were living animals…
That One Show
Find out what others think about dance — and maybe shift your own perceptions — at the third Fringe production from locally based performance art group Pones Inc. Laboratory of Movement. Interviews with more than 100 people became fodder for a multimedia exploration into the relevance of dance and people’s relationships to it. Presented in…
The Long Way Home
UC professor Roger Collins’ expressionistic first play takes audiences on a walk along an inner-city boulevard in another man’s shoes. Derek Snow plays an Iraq War veteran who encounters indifference and far worse when he returns. Reggie Willis and Khrys Styles play people he meets along the way. As people fail to interact with him,…
Music: Pentagram
At 56, after four decades of touring and recording, there aren’t many firsts that Pentagram frontman Bobby Liebling can notch for himself. But on the day of our interview, Liebling’s 24-year-old wife had an ultrasound that determined their unborn child’s sex. “We’re going to have a boy,” a shell-shocked Liebling says. “It’s my first on-paper,…
Salem! The Musical
New Englander Elise Dubois thought she knew everything about the Salem witch trials — until research began for an all-female musical parody. “The girls who started this were only 9 and 10 — they didn’t know what they were doing,” she says. What also struck Dubois and her Chicago company was how some of Salem’s…
John Clark [Lucky John’s Slow Market]
John Clark is indeed a lucky man. After he was laid off from his design job, he was able to do what he loved: cook, eat and educate others about good food. John has set out to change the way Walnut Hills (and beyond) thinks about food. Lucky John Slow Market is a neighborhood grocery…
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (Review)
If you rank the greatest, most historic moments in series television, near the top would have to be an early 1968 episode of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in which Pete Seeger sang his classic “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” a pointed, caustic attack on the disastrous Vietnam War and the “big fool” of…
CityBeat Gets Tastey on Sunday
CityBeat is hosting a music stage at Taste of Cincinnati this weekend. The lineup for Sunday’s “CityBeat Stage presented by Riverbend Summer 2010” features a stellar collection of national up-and-comers and local heroes. (The stage is located at Fifth and Race streets.) Headlining at 9:30 p.m. is Chicago DJ duo The Hood Internet (pictured), a…
May 19-25: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY MAY 19We at WWE! are admittedly afraid of many things: Rollercoasters, angry PR representatives and our fathers after Bengals games are all pretty high on our lists of things to avoid. But there is one entity that scares us so badly that even the mention of its name strikes fear into the most brave…
The Council
At a time when the national political scene has pundits turning blue and budgets running red, the Performance Gallery veterans have wittily and willfully transformed themselves into the rogues gallery that makes up a city council. Playwright Brad Cupples and director Darryl Harris put local leaders under the microscope (by way of the funhouse mirror)…
A Year of Great Theater
A lot of theater awards are handed out around the nation this time of year, including the Acclaims earlier this week in Cincinnati. I organize the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, which will return in August (for year 15) to honor excellence from this season just before the next one kicks off. Awards are arbitrary, subjective and…
Trust
What is it with trust when love, lust and Rock & Roll rule? Trust, presented by the Ensemble Theatre Acting Intern Company, gives five actors strong roles as their characters prepare for a wedding, flirt on the side, play music and generally behave badly. This 50-minute play is by Stephen Dietz, the playwright of ETC’s…
Aftershock! An Event!
Hollywood is currently banking big on 3-D technology as a draw for today’s audiences. But back in the 1970s disaster flicks such as Earthquake touted ridiculous gimmicks like Sensurround, which simply pimped out the theater with big speakers to shake the audience silly. That’s where the folks at Fake Bacon went for the premise of…
Money Back Guaranteed
Burlesque meets consumerism in Money Back Guaranteed, marking Houston-based Psophonia Dance Company’s return to Cincy Fringe. This seductive-sounding work examines the temptations of buying and owning material goods. Fill your life with stuff while you max out that credit card. Buy now, pay later. But what are the real costs? As showgirls, company members might…
Tantric Acting at the Holiday Inn
Finite Number of Monkeys Productions presents a send-up of esoteric approaches to theater arts (and probably more) in Tantric Acting at the Holiday Inn, also the fictional location for their successful The Success Show in last year’s Fringe. George Alexander and Randy Bailey, who performed last year’s Success, are again a two-person cast. Visions of…
The Comfort of Anger
This show comes from the same company that brought The Gospel According to Tammy Faye to the 2006 Cincy Fringe Festival. This time out, a Latina novelist is fighting old ghosts in dreams that haunt her days and nights. Houston playwright Fernando Dovalina of Driscol Street Salon Theatre says Cincinnati is the second performance venue…
Blue Collar Diaries
Solo performer-playwright Michelle Myers Berg celebrates what producer Michelle Storm calls the “overlooked lives” of ordinary people in the working class neighborhood where she grew up in the 1960s and ’70s. Aided by a few props and costume accessories, Berg assumes the voices and personalities of over 20 relatives and neighbors, telling tales that demonstrate…
Of People and Not Things
Andrew Hungerford calls his show “a break from the high-energy insanity that permeates the Fringe. This play is quiet, thoughtful and intimate.” What if the world ended with a soft goodbye and the thought of what might have been? Would you walk through the door? Take a seat in the audience? Hungerford’s piece offers two…
Pick Six
Just in time to rescue us from another week of safe, reheated Hollywood product (yes, I’m referring to you, Sex and the City 2), Film Fringe is back featuring six films that will screen in conjunction with the theater-based Cincy Fringe Festival, which runs June 1-12. Film Fringe Committee Co-Chairs Chris Strobel, a onetime organizer…
Sex and the City 2 (Review)
Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) might be the most self-absorbed fictional character ever. And by “might” I mean she is, but I try to stay away from such stark absolutes. Bradshaw is the perfect New Yorker in that she totally believes she is the center of the universe and the paragon of all things. She…
Just Stuff
I’ve never considered myself much of a pack rat. Furniture, clothes, dishes, books — I’ve never had any trouble selling, throwing out or giving away things I don’t want or no longer need. They’re just material processions. Most of it isn’t important to me. There are some exceptions, however. If you would walk through my…
Queer in the U.S.A.
Imagine that you’re a kid from New Jersey, 14 years old and gay. It would be unfortunately normal to suffer abuse from your peers, but how about a cruel rejection from your high school glee club? Johnny actually has a terrific voice; the only problem is that he’s a high soprano. He uses the glee…
Cyrano
The acting interns at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park have cooked up a theater piece for our delectation, a new version of the classic French play Cyrano de Bergerac. Our hero Cyrano was blessed with a monstrous nose, which makes it ever so hard to woo the ladies. All is not well when he enlists…
The Water Draft
Although filmmaker Barbara Wolf and theater director Michael Burnham have lived together for 40 years, they’ve never collaborated on a project until now. A man at a grocery store buying bottled water instead of groceries inspired their piece. Wolf decided to make a documentary about how good Cincinnati’s water is; Burnham wanted to explore how…
Ain’t That Good News
Ask Abigail Bengson how best to describe her Fringe show, and she doesn’t hesitate. “A rockin’, sockin’ husband/wife duo in their twenties traveling the world and singing about sex and soul,” she says. “Blam!” Featuring a unique blend of vaudeville showmanship with Gospel, Folk and Rock music, Ain’t That Good News is essentially about the…
Contact Center and Dusty Rhodes
[WINNER] SEEMANN & ELLINGTON: If you’ve lost your faith in good Samaritans, consider the examples of Scott Seemann and Gene Ellington. When the two men, who don’t know each other, read about the plight of Dorothy Rembert in The Enquirer, they separately decided to help. Rembert, 61, is now in failing health and could’ve been…
Aberrant Reflections on the Barbarism of You & I
Co-creators Chris Wesselman and Christopher Karr want their evolving, dark-hearted comedy to ask audiences this question: “Where does the barbaric nature of the human rest its head when it’s unconscious?” Says Wesselman, “We try to take things that are dark and depressing and make them light and frothy.” And maybe a whit more understandable. He,…
Toilet Art, VIPs and Metal Mayhem
[HOT] Art Imitates Filth New York’s now defunct CBGB club is remembered for a lot of things — the birthplace of American Punk, legendary concerts by The Ramones, Television and Patti Smith … and those disgusting, filth-encrusted bathrooms in the basement. So it’s fitting that artist Justin Lowe would include a re-creation of the world’s…
Lectures/Film Screenings: Wendy Chamberlin & SOS: State of Security
Wendy Chamberlin, a former high-level counterterrorism official during the Clinton administration, was the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan at the time of the 9/11 attacks, having just come home from her embassy office when her daughter summoned her to the TV set. Chamberlin, 62, now president of the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington, D.C.,…
Safety in Numbers
As anyone in a big city knows, familiarity and comfort can require time and effort. Modern dance collective The Space Movement Project delved into the individual experiences of its company members — some Chicago newcomers and some natives — to find differences and common ground in their ties to the city. Safety in Numbers evolved…
Nevermore
Amy Pettinella, playwright/director/ costar of Nevermore, says Edgar Allan Poe’s greatest mystery was his death. Researching Poe’s life led her to writing this play about him and American writers in general. They appear to court their own deaths, she feels, but she promises funny if sardonic moments and possible free shots of absinthe, Poe’s drink…
Soul Juice
What would you do if you had an earthshattering vision that prompted you to create a Christian ministry called “Soul Juice?” Josiah Pratt stands up and answers the call, creating a ministry with his wife, Ruth Gardener. This sincere ministry is specifically calculated to open the eyes (and hearts) of the most egregious sinner. Pratt…
The Enquirer’s Streetcar Numbers Don’t Add Up
For supporters of Cincinnati’s proposed streetcar system, it was the final straw. Having discussed privately among themselves for the past few months what they viewed as unfair, lopsided coverage of the streetcar debate by The Enquirer, the lead story in the newspaper’s May 23 edition brought their simmering anger into public view. And in a…
