Thursday, March 25, 1999
Premieres big in Ensemble's plans
BY JACKIE DEMALINE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Ensemble Theatre slates a season of world premieres and regional premieres for 1999-2000 anchored by the work of hot Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, longtime ETC pal Lee Blessing and current Broadway hit Sideman.
“I just looked for good plays,” says D. Lynn Meyers, producing artistic director of the Over-the-Rhine small professional theater. “We're having a good season, and we're trying to be better. We're listening to what people like.”
The 1999-2000 season:
• Private Eyes, Sept. 8-26.
• Earhart, Oct. 20-Nov. 7.
• Around the World in 80 Days, Dec. 8-Jan. 2.
• Chesapeake, Jan. 26-Feb. 13.
• The Cripple of Inishmaan, March 15-April 9.
• Sideman, May 3-21.
Private Eyes by Steven Dietz is a “relationship thriller” with the audience as detective. Never staged regionally, it premiered and was the hit of the 1997 Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville.
Earhart, by Seattle playwright Katherine Christianson, will make its world premiere at ETC. It looks at the life, loves and legacy of the aviator.
Also making its world premiere, Around the World in 80 Days will be ETC's annual holiday musical. By Joseph McDonough and David Kisor (The Frog Princess), it will bring international music and dance onto the ETC stage, as Jules Verne's Phineas Fogg traverses the globe on deadline at the end of the 19th century.
Chesapeake (world premiere) is a one-man show by award-winning playwright Lee Blessing (A Walk in the Woods, Cobb). An artist fights back in the political battle against the National Endowment for the Arts. A dognapping gone wrong powers the action.
Irish playwright Martin McDonagh is being hailed as one of the most important new voices in the English-speaking theater. The Cripple of Inishmaan is set in 1934 in a mean-spirited town where villagers learn that a Hollywood director is coming to a neighboring island to make a film.
The ETC run (regional premiere) of Cripple will overlap with Mr. McDonagh's other major hit, The Beauty Queen of Leenane at Playhouse in the Park.
Look for Sideman by Warren Leight to add a Tony Award nomination in May to cap a collection of Broadway play-writing honors. It will be a regional premiere for the autobiographical drama about a young man looking back on the life of his musician father.
The season will close in June with the annual Off-Center/On-Stage Festival reconfigured into a showcase of three works by local playwrights, titles to be announced. There is an April 25 deadline for scripts.
Next year's ETC budget will remain at $850,000. Ticket prices will increase slightly, with a six-play subscription set at $120 (increasing from $108). Subscriptions for 1999-2000 are now on sale, call the box office for information at 421-3555.
"Voilet' subs out "Young Man'
The regional premiere of Off-Broadway hit Violet will replace The Young Man from Atlanta as Ensemble Theatre's 1998-99 season closer. Play dates will remain April 28-May 16.
A multiple award-winner, including the New York Drama Critics' Circle nod for Best Musical of 1997, Violet is a bluegrass fable about a physically and emotionally scarred young woman and her adventures on a journey through the South to a famous faith healer.
Bluegrass, gospel and soft rock score a heartfelt musical about living in the South and feeling abnormal in a culture obsessed with physical perfection.
Ensemble will offer one free ticket to Violet to renewing and new subscribers for the 1999-2000 season.
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