Friday, March 31, 2000
ETC turns 15 with 10 premieres
BY JACKIE DEMALINE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Ensemble Theatre will celebrate its 15th anniversary with a 10-play season of Cincinnati premieres. ETC's biggest season ever opens Sept. 6 with Glimmer, Glimmer and Shine, a new play by Side Man's Warren Leight.
Other highlights will include:
• Regional premiere of Love, Janis, a Joplin salute by the co-author of Appalachian Strings and Broadway's Nothin' but the Blues.
• The return of the Off-Center/On-Stage series to regular season slots and including off-Broadway's provocative hit Bash.
• The addition of a six-part Theatre of the Mind international play-reading series, hoped to develop into an international festival for 2001-2002.
• Another mini-festival anchored to Playhouse in the Park, this time featuring work by great American playwright Lanford Wilson.
“It's our 15th anniversary,” producing artistic director D. Lynn Meyers says. “It's never been easy to do this theater and it would be easier not to do this season, but there are just too many things we want to do.”
As a follow-up to this year's mini-Martin McDonagh festival (Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Cripple of Inishmaan), ETC will take advantage of a Playhouse booking.
As the Playhouse's celebrates the 20th anniversary of Talley's Folly, ETC will produce Mr. Wilson's recent A Sense of Place.
“It's nice to be working on the same playwright in the same town,” Ms. Meyers notes.
The 2000-01 season
• Glimmer, Glimmer and Shine, Sept. 6-24: Warren Leight's follow-up to Side Man, which opened the currrent season to big box office and an extended run.
Glimmer is a love story in which parents' passions, choices and compromises settle upon the next generation. While not as musical as Side Man, “Jazz is part of the fabric of what (Leight) does,” Ensemble producing artistic director D. Lynn Meyers says.
• Lettice & Lovage, Oct. 18-Nov. 5: A former Maggie Smith vehicle, Lettice will showcase Cincinnati's premier hometown actress Dale Hodges (who recently gave ,Wit at Playhouse in the Park its particular shine), in a comedy from Peter (Equus, Amadeus) Shaffer.
• Sleeping Beauty, Dec. 6-30: The annual holiday musical from Joe McDonough and David Kisor. These two men have had a string of popular family entertainments at Ensemble with Frog Princess, Alice in Wonderland and Around the World in 80 Days.
• Three Days of Rain, Jan. 17-Feb. 4: Richard Greenberg's haunting strikes some of the same chords as Glimmer.It, too, explores how parents' passions and choices visit their children. It's widely held to be one of the best plays of the 1990s.
• Love, Janis, March 14-April 1: Randal Myler takes Joplin's original letters to her family and combines them with the songs of her life. He is co-creator of last season Playhouse hit, Appalachian Strings,and Tony nominee Nothin' but the Blues.
• A Sense of Place, May 2-20: Friends find themselves at personal points of departure and discover if friendships of the past can survive the future. Ms. Meyers calls it “Big Chill-esque.”
Off-Center/On-Stage
Next year, Off-Center retreats from its recent practice of showcasing new local work at the end of the season.
“There are a lot of smart things to do,” Ms. Meyers says. “A new play festival in June may not be one of them. It's difficult for the staff, and our subscribers aren't around.”
This year's Off-Center will go forward as planned. Next season, four plays will be folded into the season, many of the titles chosen to fit ETC's acting intern company.
The series' big name is Bash (Oct. 26-30), an off-Broadway hit for Neil (In the Company of Men) LaBute last season that starred Ally McBeal's Calista Flockhart. It's a collection of dark monologues that give a contemporary spin to Greek tragedy.
The other titles are:
• The Last Session, Jan. 25-29.
• Love's Fire, Feb. 14-18.
• Miss Something, April 5-9.
Theatre of the Mind
Theatre of the Mind moves from the Mercantile Library to under the ETC umbrella next season. Series Windows of the World will focus on contemporary work from around the globe. Dates are Sept. 18, Oct. 16, Nov. 20, Feb. 19, March 19 and April 16. Titles will be announced by May.
Playwrights to be included in the six-play reading series will include Nobel laureates Derek Walcott (West Indies) and WoleSoyinka (Nigeria) and acclaimed Quebecoise playwright Michel Tremblay.
Grants are under review that would provide study guides for local university English departments and to bring one or more playwrights to Cincinnati.
An ultimate goal, Ms. Meyers says, would be to see a reading move to a full mainstage production in a future season.
How to get tickets
Subscriptions are on sale: Mainstage Series and Versatile Pass, $120; Senior and full-time Student Series, $96; Super Saver Sundays, $99.
Individual tickets: $25 mainstage, $10 Off-Center/On-Stage, $5 Theatre of the Mind.
Ensemble Theatre is at 1127 Vine St. Box office: 421-3555.
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