Sunday, May 07, 2000
Playwright Athol Fugard at UC this fall
Weinberger Center celebrates 10 years
By Jackie Demaline
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A big September, theatrically speaking, just got bigger. Acclaimed South African playwright Athol Fugard will come to town for two days, closing a month that already includes Warren (Side Man) Leight's latest at Ensemble and the regional debut of Shakespeare's R&J (Playhouse in the Park).
Mr. Fugard, internationally renowned author of Master Harold...and the Boys, Valley Song and Road to Mecca among many, many more will come to the University of Cincinnati Sept. 25-26 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Helen Weinberger Center for the Study of Drama and Playwriting.
He'll perform a reading and lead a conversation on directing and playwriting during his visit, both open to the public, according to center director Norma Jenckes.
“When Mrs. Weinberger first broached the idea of a center, it was in part because she wanted to bring to the university community and the Cincinnati community plays and playwrights that they wouldn't normally see,” says Ms. Jenckes. “The idea was there can always be more.”
The center was launched in April 1990 with a mini-festival featuring the work of Edward Albee and Michael Weller, but the intention was always that it be international.
Ms. Jenckes, who teaches playwriting and literature courses at UC, is also one of the powers behind play reading series Theatre of the Mind. Its second season will be devoted to international work with the series Windows on the World (“the title comes directly from Mrs. Weinberger,” she says) and debut at Ensemble Theatre with a reading of Mr. Fugard's Playland on Sept. 18.
“Fugard is a playwright who has found a way to dramatize anti-apartheid. He has a politically charged vision that's also a strong aesthetic vision, and there's a real appreciation for him here because of the fine work of the Playhouse,” says Ms. Jenckes.
One of the area's greatest activists for grass-roots professional theater development, Ms. Jenckes also founded Cincinnati Playwrights Initiative.
What she'd like to see next includes a playwrights center, “and a series of workshops, which Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival will be doing next year.
“Cincinnati needs to have a festival. I'm happy about the Lanford Wilson festival next year. It's more and more apparent there's a critical mass here.”
Fresh back from Houston, where she was continuing to research her upcoming book on the work of Edward Albee, “I kept running into groups from Washington, D.C. and Pittsburgh who had come to Houston specifically on that weekend to see a series of performances including an Albee play and an opera.
“Cincinnati needs more of a vision of itself as an arts center where people would come. That's clearly where we're heading in terms of quality,” says Ms. Jenckes.
“That would certainly help in creating a condition for some of the wonderful students being trained at College-Conservatory of Music to stay and work in town.”
Southern inspiration: Randall Cook was living in Japan and read a news item about a decision by an Alabama town council to ban The Diary of Anne Frank from local libraries because it was “a real downer.”
He was moved to write a play, Southern Discomfort, about a very dysfunctional family of Southern women at Christmas.
Romanian actress/director/playwright Cerasela (pronounce: chair-a-sella) Stan had recently arrived in New York after long living under the Ceausescu regime. She was digging through scripts and fell in love with Discomfort.
Then her husband Cristian Gramiceno was hired by Cincinnati Symphony this season and off they came to the Queen City. Ms. Stan brought along the script and found a home for it at the newly formed New Edgecliff Theatre.
Discomfort will have its world premiere here Oct. 26-Nov. 5, but first it will be read Friday at Cincinnati Art Museum's Alms Auditorium to benefit Women Helping Women. For reservations and information call 662-5654.
Also on the calendar next season is Naked by the River by Michael Foley, a play Mr. Shooner discovered via Internet. In the old days (like last year) theaters largely paid fees for production rights to two giant licensing companies.
No more. There is, says Mr. Shooner, a whole new world (or Web) of work out there to be discovered for anyone willing to explore.
Get on the list: Theater folks! Mark your calendars for 5:30 p.m. May 15. The League of Cincinnati Theatres will host Enquirer listings writerJason Nebel, City Beat's Rick Pender, the Cincinnati Post's Jerry Stein and me at Ensemble Theatre (1127 Vine St.)
We'll be explaining the best way to get the word out about your show (and into a local newspaper).
You don't have to be a member of the league to attend. As the performing arts scene explodes around us (and it is), there's going to be — by necessity — less and less elasticity about bending deadlines. Everybody wants to hear your good stories, but you need to do your part, too.
I cannot urge you strongly enough to send a member of your organization (who will still be a member of your organization a year from now. Continuity is a topic that will come up that evening.) Find out what we need, and the best ways for you to help yourselves to coverage.
Call ETC at 421-3555 to reserve a spot and for details.
Local girl makes good: Diana Maria Riva is going to be so hot when the fall TV season arrives, but we can't tell you why. For now, all we can say is that you knew her as Deanna Uhlenbrock when she was a student at UC's College-Conservatory of Music, and in a couple of shows at Ensemble Theatre.
She moved to L.A. three years ago and TV viewers could have spotted her this year on Everybody Loves Raymond, The X-Files, The Drew Carey Show and City of Angels. She's just wrapped filming on the feature What Every Woman Wants starring Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt and Marisa Tomei.
She's in town for a wedding this week and will use the occasion to give a free performance of her one-woman show Besame Mucho...OK, That's Enough (featuring five Latin women, four wedding dresses, three Abuelitas and two crying jags...) at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Robert Werner Recital Hall on the UC campus. Richard Hess directs and is taking reservations at 556-9575.
head Short stuff:
ăLatest on Ten Years Apart that debuted at Playhouse in the Park last year: Kevin (Rent) McCollum is taking the show, about a pair of mismatched musician brothers, under his wing. It looks like it will get a commercial test run at his home base in St. Paul, Minn., and, if all goes well, some kind of tour.
ăShowboat Majestic's longtime artistic director Tim Perrino will take to the stage from May 24-June 11 to play one-half of The Odd Couple. Resident music director Greg Dastillung will play fussy Felix to Mr. Perrino's slovenly Oscar Madison. Call 241-6550 for reservations and information.
ăLast time School for Creative and Performing Arts alum Rocky Carroll came home to direct for The Children's Theatre, he found himself commuting back and forth from Los Angeles where he was filming his TV series Chicago Hope.
When he comes home in May 2001 to direct (and star in) Wilson's The Piano Lesson, he'll be commuting from NYC, where he'll be filming Mr. New York with Christine Baranski.
Mr. Carroll is an old hand at The Piano Lesson. He was in the show's debut at Yale Repertory Theatre in 1987 (in a different, younger role) which won him a Tony Award nomination during its subsequent Broadway run.
Jackie Demaline is The Enquirer's theater critic and roving arts reporter. Write her at Cincinnati Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati OH 45202; fax, 768-8330.
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