Every year, Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati brings together a group of young professionals who spend a season at the Over-the-Rhine theater understudying roles, working backstage, helping build sets and run lights and sound — learning the ins and outs of professional theater. Many of them stick around town continuing their lives in the theater. Several of them will come together at Washington Park on Sunday evening at 6 p.m. for a free performance of Still Life with Iris, a play by Steven Dietz. The 1996 script is an adventure about a little girl’s search for the simplest of things: home. She lives with her mom on a magical island where by night workers make things seen in the world by day. The rulers are determined to have the best of everything on their island, so they kidnap Iris and bring her to be their daughter, leaving her with no memory of her home or family. She joins with friends she meets on her journey as she embarks on a quest to return home. The family-friendly play, written in 1998, was the first to receive the Kennedy Center’s Fund for New American Plays Award. The cast is comprised entirely of former ETC interns, including: Jared D. Doren (1996), Sara Mackie and Burgess Byrd (2000), Daniel Winters (2005), Lisa DeRoberts (2011), Ben Raanan and Jared Earland (2014), and Molly Israel and Patrick Phillips (2015).
The summer theater company, Stone on a Rock, is back for the second production of its second season with a new version of Aristophanes’ ancient comedy Lysistrata. The company focuses on productions that are “short, sweet and cheap.” This one is a time-tested farce about the women of Greece giving their husbands an ultimatum: Stop waging war or no more sex. Maybe they can next bring their strategy to bear on Greece’s current financial crisis? Performances are at Simple Space, 16 E. 13th St., Over-the-Rhine. Tickets ($10) can be purchased at the door.
Another summer company is presenting the 1998 Tony Award-winning musical Ragtime at Highlands High School’s Performing Arts Center (2400 Memorial Parkway in Ft. Thomas). The Commonwealth Artists Summer Theatre (C.A.S.T.) is led by theatre instructor Jason Burgess; his cast includes students from Anderson, Walnut Hills, Newport Central Catholic, Cincinnati Country Day, Seven Hills, Highlands, Scott High Schools and more. Ragtime is a remarkable show with great music (composed by Stephen Flaherty, a graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music). Set at the dawn of the 20th century, it’s a time of change and possibility in the volatile melting pot New York City. The show tells three interwoven stories — a stifled upper-class wife, a determined Jewish immigrant and a daring young Harlem musician — united by courage, compassion and belief in the promise of the future. It’s being presented for two weekends, opening tonight and continuing through a matinee on July 26. Tickets ($10) can be reserved at
http://www.showtix4u.com
. (Remaining unreserved seats may be purchased at the door one hour prior to each performance.)
Queen City Flash, Cincinnati’s flash-mob theater company, is up to the third installment of its four-part play cycle of Mark Twain’s tales of Tom Sawyer. This part, The Complete Tom: 3. Abroad, is performed by three actors and an array of puppets. For this episode, the characters of Tom, Huck Finn and Jim the runaway slave are on a trans-Atlantic voyage in a Jules Verne-like airship. Free performances begin at 8 p.m. but the outdoor locations remain secret until 4 p.m. when an email is sent to ticket holders with a map and parking instructions. (The fourth installment is set to happen in August.) Tickets — no charge — can be reserved at
http://www.QueenCityFlash.com
You can stay at home on Saturday evening, if you prefer, and enjoy a radio theater production of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac by LA Theatre Works, broadcast on WVXU-FM 91.7 at 8 p.m. The story of the brash 17th-century soldier-poet with an oversized nose is also a tale of love and longing. The audio production features Hamish Linklater, Jason Ritter, Devon Sovari and Gregory Itzin. This is your chance to get prepared for Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s season opening production (Sept. 11-Oct. 13).
Continuing productions of 1776 at the Incline Theater (513-241-6550) and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (859-572-5464) are both worth seeing.
Rick Pender’s STAGE DOOR blog appears here every Friday. Find more theater reviews and feature stories
here
.
This article appears in Jul 15-21, 2015.
