Jerry Springer Returns to Cincinnati

Thanks to New Stage Collective (NSC), which just announced its upcoming season, a familiar face will be back in town — at least onstage. The adventurous theater company with performing space at 1140 Main St. in Over-the-Rhine will present the regional premiere of Jerry Springer: The Opera (June 26-Aug. 3, 2008), the only work in the history of British theater to win all the major awards — Olivier Awards, Critic’s Choice, Evening Standard and What’s On Stage. It’s a wild mix of opera and daytime TV, portraying an array of characters who are desperate for a moment on the air. It’s one of five regional premieres NSC will present in its 2007-2008 season.

Up first will be Caroline, or Change (Oct. 25-Nov. 18), a work created by Tony Kushner, who wrote Angels in America, probably the most honored and admired play (it’s actually two plays) of the 1990s. Caroline is Kushner’s first stab at a musical; he worked with composer Jeanine Tesori (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Violet) to create a show that won the 2004 Tony for best Broadway musical. Drawn from Kushner’s Louisiana boyhood, the show, set in 1963, focuses on an African-American maid, divorced and a single mother, who works for a Jewish family in suburban Lake Charles. It’s about spare change she finds in pockets while doing laundry and about social change that is rearranging the face of America. The show’s score blends Rhythm & Blues, Motown, Gospel, Klezmer and traditional Jewish melodies.

For the holidays, NSC will present Striking 12 (Nov. 29-Dec. 31), a Rock holiday musical based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl. It’s described as “a holiday show for people who don’t like holiday shows.” Among its creators are Rachel Sheinken (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) and the Pop Rock band GrooveLily.

NSC has recruited Brian Isaac Phillips, Cincinnati Shakespeare’s artistic director, to stage Richard Greenberg’s comedy, Take Me Out (Feb. 14-March 9, 2008). It’s a raucous comedy that asks some serious questions about our perceptions and attitudes about gay men and professional sports. It’s the story of a superstar baseball player who comes out — and the many repercussions of his decision. On Broadway the show got a lot of notice because it frankly presented male frontal nudity in several locker room scenes.

The spring will bring an infestation — Tracy Letts’ psycho-thriller, BUG (April 3-27, 2008). It’s about a woman holed up in a seedy hotel room with an ex-con who’s protecting her from her abusive former husband — but their hideaway becomes a world of deluded reality that blends The X-Files, Quentin Tarantino and a few more things to give you the creeps. It was made into a 2006 film (directed by William Friedkin, it starred Ashley Judd and Harry Connick Jr.), but it’s not been onstage locally.

It’s exciting to have New Stage Collective as part of our local theater scene: These are shows that people serious about contemporary theater will want to see. For more information, go to newstagecollective.com.

— Rick Pender