A & E

New Playwright on the Radar

I’ve been a member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) for about a decade. I even had the opportunity to serve as its chair a few years ago, but these days I’m back to being a run-of-the-mill member. Every year ATCA does something that makes me very proud and I want to tell others about it: We recognize “emerging” theater artists with several prizes.

By that, we mean mostly playwrights who have not yet come to the attention of a national audience. By virtue of a membership base spread across the United States, ATCA has the advantage of noticing up-and-coming talent before it arrives in major theater centers, especially New York City, where it’s expensive to put new works onstage in any significant way.

ATCA annually hands out its M. Elizabeth Osborn Award for a playwright whose work has not moved beyond regional status. This year’s Osborn recipient was Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder for her moving play, Gee’s Bend, about several generations of African-American women who have been quilters on an isolated island off the Gulf Coast of Alabama.

Jer-RY, Jer-RY, Jer-RY!

New Stage Collective just opened its production of the irreverent Jerry Springer: The Opera. The Thursday-night opening didn't seem to provoke much of the expected kerfuffle from America Needs Fatima, a group whose conservative approach has actually heightened awareness of several controversial theatrical works. (Read Tom McElfresh's review here.) ANF raised a huge outcry against Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi when it was presented by Know Theatre back in 2003. (Thanks to the publicity ANF’s efforts provoked, that show had a sold-out run.)

Perhaps the same thing will happen with Springer, a raucous (ANF says calls it “blasphemous”) musical that earned positive reviews in England (it’s creators are a pair of Brits, Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas) and earlier this year at New York City’s Carnegie Hall, where a two-performance event featured actor Harvey Keitel as Cincinnati’s former mayor, now the infamous talk-show host.

I wasn’t able to attend opening night, but I plan to catch the production this weekend — because I want to be able to offer my informed opinion if anyone asks. Whether you’re a lover of musicals, an omnivorous theatergoer, a news hound or just a supporter of Alan Patrick Kenny’s brand of on-the-edge theater at New Stage (1140 Main St., Over-the-Rhine), you should call for a seat: 513-621-3700. (Some performances are already sold out; the production is scheduled to run through Aug. 3.)

– Rick Pender

CCM grads play a part in AIDS fundraising in New York City

The organization Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA) was founded by Tom Viola, a 1976 CCM grad (he was in Cincinnati in early May to speak at CCM about fundraising for special causes). One of BC/EFA’s most successful annual events is Broadway Bares, a “variety show” that combines the naughtiness of vaudeville with the razzle-dazzle of Broadway, showing a lot of skin in the process. On Sunday, June 22 the 2008 show happened in New York City, Broadway Bares 18: Wonderland. Using an Alice in Wonderland theme, it broke all previous records, raising $874,372 (exceeding the 2007 take by more than $130,00).

Helping the cause was a more recent CCM product, Tyler Maynard, a musical theater major who graduated in 2000, a member of the original cast of Altar Boyz and more recently making a splash in The Little Mermaid. He paired with Jennifer Cody (Shrek The Musical and Urinetown) for a number inspired by the crusty duchess in the Lewis Carroll classic. The event encourages free-form interpretations, and that’s what Maynard and Cody offered: He played Joan Crawford and she was Christina to recreate several classic scenes from the scary film about bad parenting, Mommie Dearest.

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA) is the nation’s leading industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fund-raising and grant-making organization. By drawing upon the talents, resources and generosity of the theater community, BC/EFA raises funds for AIDS-related causes across the United States. Since Viola got things going back in 1988, BC/EFA has raised over $140 million for critically needed services for people with AIDS, HIV or HIV-related illnesses. More info: www.BroadwayCares.org.

— Rick Pender

Remembering Carlin

I'm dreaming about trying to locate what has been billed within my dream as the greatest record store in modern history. Apparently it's a three-story annex to an enormous mall with a series of escalators that appear to have been designed by M.C. Escher, moving stairs that just miss where I need to go and return to where I have just been. The store that has every record I’ve ever wanted is tantalizingly close. If I could just figure out how to get on that escalator … over there.

A phone rings. My cell? I don’t have it on me. Whose phone is that? I should answer it. Maybe it’s someone who can tell me how to get to the record store. I turn to face the sound and find myself off the surrealist escalators and in my bed. Damn. No record store.

I can see from the ID it’s my friend Kirk in Florida. I pick up the phone and immediately think of the old bit by Robert Klein about answering the phone from a dead sleep and trying not to sound like someone who’s been in an overnight coma.

“Did you hear about George?” says Kirk. I think for a dream-dazed moment. Is he talking about Bush? He would never refer to him as George. Bush, sure. The Antichrist, more likely. Not George. I can’t seem to come up with an appropriate George or a coherent response, so I say, “I guess not.”

“Carlin died yesterday. He had a heart attack.”

Oh. That George. My heart fell. It’s falling still.

Stage Door: Outdoors!

No sitting in the dark this weekend. Instead, I invite you to open the Stage Door and head to an area park for a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream by Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. That's what they're offering all over the Tristate from now through September with another year of "Shakespeare in the Park."

There's something about presenting Shakespeare's hilarious magical comedy in an outdoor setting that seems especially appropriate, and you have three chances this weekend to catch a performance of this tale of confused lovers and Bottom the Weaver who makes an ass of himself: Friday evening at 7 p.m. the performance is at Grant County Park in Williamstown, Ky. On Saturday at 7 p.m. you'll find them in a central location — at Seasongood Pavilion in Eden Park, the amphitheater between the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Cincinnati Playhouse. And on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m., if you're on Cincinnati's East Side, you might want to head for Stanbery Park in Mount Washington for a performance there.

Pack a picnic and enjoy the talents of Cincinnati's well established Shakespearean theater company — another cultural asset that many cities lack altogether. No need to call for tickets, by the way — these performances are free.

– Rick Pender

Fringe Lingers On

A bit of the 2008 Cincinnati Fringe is still available in the days ahead: The Satori Group's (rsvp) has been brought back to life starting today and continuing through June 29.

Rather than on the Jackson Street sidewalk outside of Know Theatre in Over-the-Rhine, it’s now happening at two Coffee Emporium locations. One is at the Emery, just a block or so from Know Theatre; the second is in deepest, darkest Hyde Park Square, where experimental theater isn't frequently seen. The unusual work takes about 30 minutes — of your choosing within the periods when it’s offered. That’s because you are the performer, ideally with someone you know.

Here’s the scoop: “Performances” start at the top and bottom of the hour within the designated time periods. Arrive a few minutes before the time you want to start and pay $12 per couple (this includes cups of coffee for each of you). You sit at a café table, put on headphones and follow the instructions you hear. Through physical action, dialogue and imagination exercises, you’re guided through the events of a blind encounter, some expected and some not. (rsvp) erases the lines between audience and performer.

Quote of the Day

"Fox News is hopeless; you might as well get angry at mildew." — Henrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker

Stage Door: Back to the Trailer Park

It's Friday the 13th, but there's nothing but good luck if you're looking for an entertaining night in the theater. That's because Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati has resuscitated The Great American Trailer Park Musical. The show closed at the end of its scheduled run in May, but there was such a demand for tickets during the initial three weeks that ETC's Producing Artistic Director D. Lynn Meyers decided to bring it back for two more. It's onstage through June 22, but don't wait to order your tickets. It was selling-out performances a month ago, and it will probably do the same this time around. (Meyers says she might keep it going if people keep calling, but there's no guarantee — you'd be smart to order your tickets this weekend.)

When I reviewed the show in early May, I commented that the set alone is worth the price of admission. "As one character observes, 'Knick-knacks is what makes a trailer home.' That’s the motto for this set: Pink flamingoes are the dominant motif, and plastic is clearly the medium of preference. Overhead are strings of hundreds of colored lights. There are beer bottles (illuminated with tiny lights, no less) holding single-stem plastic flowers. There’s a 'planter' made of stacked tires painted pale blue, and window boxes festooned with more plastic flowers. The grass is Astroturf. There’s even a barbecue that opens up to double as a make-up table with lights.'

But it's really the personnel that makes this show worth seeing. Here's another snippet from my review: "This production is directed with spirit and humor by Aubrey Berg, long-time chair of the musical theater program at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). Trailer Park is, in fact, a showcase of past and present CCM talent — five of the seven cast members have the musical theater credential, and the other two are every bit as good. Ashley Kate Adams, still an undergraduate, shows star power as hard-boiled Pippi. Jessica Hendy, an alum who’s been in Broadway productions of Aida and Cats, gives Jeannie a plaintive but comic spin, and Allen Kendall has the right kind of shlubby charm to make Jeannie's husband Norbert lovable and dumb, but a bit of a cad, too — and he has a great voice."

No lolly-gagging, as they might say in Starke, Fla., the home of Armadillo Acres (aka, the "Great American Trailer Park"). Call for tickets right now: 513-421-3555.

– Rick Pender

Mysterious Candy

Earlier last week, an announcement was forwarded letting me know about an art show-cum-house party in Bellevue, Ky. The small house on Ward Avenue has been dubbed Penny Candy Gallery, and the other night it was showing a set of works called Classy, featuring the art of a sculpture class from UC.

I’m very interested in this development of house shows exhibiting visual art. Steps past the traditional gallery cube, but not quite as polished as the beloved Publico, the feelings of intrusion, clique-ishness and domesticity that commonly infiltrates the visual art view in such situations can be jarring and provocative. I know local Reid Radcliffe has made his apartment into a gallery venue more than once, and I’ve tried to keep track of the happenings of The Padlock Gallery (www.padlockgallery.com) in Philadelphia.

The experience of the show at Penny Candy was cryptic and strange, with no identification (that I could find) of who made what, and an intermixing of ArtWorks Gallery staff and groupies with strung-out neighborhood folk who had just wandered up to the open door. One woman followed me around the room asking whoever might be in charge, “Where’s the art? Where’s the art?”

Fringe Finale

The 2008 Cincinnati Fringe Festival is history, after 12 days of theater, dance and music performances. Featuring 37 different shows (every one was reviewed by CityBeat on our special Fringe blog), the festival offered 170 performance opportunities. In this fifth year, the Fringe set new records and really felt like it hit its stride. Audience attendance was up 12 percent from 2007, to nearly 6,500 people watching shows; the sale of passes admitting purchasers to multiple shows saw a 44 percent increase this year. Eric Vosmeier, producing director of the Fringe, says, "The 2008 Festival proves that we're still growing."

This year's festival offered the best balance of high-quality shows in Cincinnati Fringe history. I attended three shows on the final evening (June 7) — Mortem Capiendum, Anna the Slut and the (Almost) Chosen One and Oatmeal and a Cigarette — each of which had full houses, and the latter two were standing-room-only by show time. I witnessed about half of the 37 productions (and had to hustle to see that many); I edited all of CityBeat's reviews, which included eight critic's picks. Virtually every production had partisans, and there was considerably commentary from readers on CityBeat's blog site.

The Fringe also awards recognition for favorite shows. Based on a poll of critics the "Critics' Pick of the Fringe Award" was handed to Oatmeal and a Cigarette, a work by Bad Dog! Productions from Ithaca, N.Y. The "Producers' Pick" went to Mortem Capiendum, by Four Humors Theatre from Minneapolis. The "Audience Pick" was awarded to Don't Make Me Pull This Show Over: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Parenting, a song cycle with lots of local talent, staged by director Richard Hess (his fourth consecutive year of having a show picked as one of the Festival's best) with Terry LaBolt music directing 18 tunes by the team of Richard Oberacker and Robert Taylor. (The show will be more fully staged at Ensemble Theatre in April 2009.) It should be noted that the latter category had very close voting: Announcing the winners from the stage at Know Theatre on Saturday evening, Vosmeier noted that Body Language: A Radical Truth, created locally by Stacy Sims and a team of young women, came close to being the audience favorite. The Fringe organizers also announced a special recognition for The Dance: The History of American Minstrelsy by Inthacut, Inc. from Los Angeles.

Two films shown during the "Visual Fringe" were also cited: The "Producer's Flick of the Fringe" was The Job by Flaming Frog of Los Angeles; the "Audience Flick" was The Emulsion by Cider Mill Productions from Cincinnati.

I have just one question: How soon is the next Fringe Festival? (Be patient: It's back in June 2009.)

– Rick Pender