Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your box office.
Consider Cinderella at Northern Kentucky University, an inventive take on a familiar show (the Rodgers and Hammerstein version) that’s quickly selling out. Director Ken Jones and company have taken a simple, timeworn stage scheme and run with it, adding a trio of cute rodent clowns, a full repertoire of eccentric line readings and gestures, endless gags and, yes, a giant pest-ensnarement device set center stage as this tuneful, two-hour fairytale unfolds. That’s a lot of musical theatre cheese and not all of it works (as the fine print says, patent pending). But give Jones, his creative designers and energetic student cast props for experimenting.
