Broadway in Cincinnati today is announcing its 2014-2015 season, which will bring back The Lion King for a month-long run in April 2015 as well as the 2012 Tony Award winner, Once, which has a two week run in mid-November 2014. Lion King had a record-breaking engagement at the downtown Cincinnati’s Aronoff Center in 2007, and the winner of 1998’s best musical Tony continues its long run on Broadway. Once, based on the 2007 movie of the same name, is theatrical retelling of the story of musicians in Dublin. Played out in an Irish pub, if features an impressive ensemble of actor-musicians who play their own instruments onstage.
The season also offers two tried-and-true classics: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, a made-for-TV musical fairytale from 1957 which had a well-received Broadway run in 2013, will land at the Aronoff Center next January for two weeks. And a classic from 1934, Cole Porter’s Anything Goes will show up for five days in February; the story of love and blackmail on a cruise ship sailed back to Broadway in 2011 and won three Tonys.
Rounding out the season are several shows with roots in pop culture. The season opens with Dirty Dancing, a musical based on the 1987 movie about a summer vacation in the Catskills that turns into a steamy romance with a lot of choreography. For the holidays, we get another short run aimed at families: Elf: The Musical about an human orphan who ends up as one of Santa’s elves, but never quite fits in. It’s based on the 2003 film that starred Will Farrell. (Broadway in Cincinnati had good luck last Thanksgiving with a short run of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and this is surely aimed at the same audience.)
Also likely to capture an audience in search of for laughs is the season’s concluding production, I Love Lucy: Live On Stage, bringing to life recreations of one of TV’s greatest sitcoms with actors portraying Lucy and Ricky Ricardo and Ethel and Fred Mertz. Set in 1952, it lets audiences pretend they’re attending the filming of a pair of classic episodes on an L.A. soundstage. It’s not a musical, but it has lots of tuneful interludes by Ricky’s orchestra at the Tropicana Nightclub, plus ’50s style singing commercials.
Season subscriptions go on sale today: 800-294-1816 or BroadwayinCincinnati.com
Dirty Dancing (Sept. 23-Oct. 5, 2014)
Once (Nov. 11-23, 2014)
Elf: The Musical (Dec. 2-7, 2014)
Cinderella (Jan. 6-18, 2015)
Anything Goes (Feb. 17-22, 2015)
The Lion King (March 31-April 26, 2015)
I Love Lucy (June 2-14, 2015.
