Sunday, September 02, 2001
New theater season opens amid changing scenes
By Jackie Demaline
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The 2001-02 theater season has the makings of a thrill ride.
• Will Fifth Third Bank Broadway in Cincinnati (formerly the Broadway Series) look as good onstage as it does on paper? Its season is filled with the area debuts of Aida, Blast! and international sensation Mamma Mia!
• The season's most scintillating line-up of regional premieres can be found at Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival. Can the bold festival find an audience beyond the Bard?
• Will small Cincinnati theaters feel the impact when Shadowbox Cabaret South opens at Newport on the Levee in October? At its Columbus home base, the much-desired twentysomething demographic is a mainstay for the cabaret's mix of sketch comedy and rock 'n' roll.
• Will the third time be the charm for a Black Theater Festival in Cincinnati? Scheduled for April, two more questions: Can organizer Don Sherman whip up corporate and foundation support? Will the city's uneasy state of racial relations be a plus or a minus?
• When SPRING STAGES debuts in April, with new plays by proven playwrights presented by some big players in local theater, will it be the start of something big?
Along with those twists and turns comes a real hair-raiser:
Will Ensemble Theatre, just off Central Parkway on Vine Street, overcome ongoing scary headlines and draw audiences to the edge of Over-the-Rhine?
To answer that last question first, Ensemble artistic director D. Lynn Meyers says, “We're repeating the mantra "fully committed' ” (which is, conveniently, the title of Wednesday's season opener).
Ms. Meyers is encouraged. Summer shows Hedwig and the Angry Inch and The Last Session sold extremely well; subscriptions are running slightly ahead of last year (at 1,300); Fully Committed is selling so well that it already has been extended a week, until Sept. 30.
“You can't buy into a neighborhood and only be here when it's nice,” she says.
New Broadway shows
There's no crystal ball to predict quality, but Broadway audiences like the look of this season's mostly new shows.
Subscription numbers had been steadily dwindling over the past few seasons from a one-time high of 22,000 in 1995-96. Last season's number was a bit less than 19,000. With a season of fresh titles, Broadway rep Nancy Parrott reports the national touring season is on track for at least 20,000 subscribers.
It might go higher. Renewing subscribers will have first dibs on tickets to The Lion King, which will be part of the 2002-03 season. Renewals are scheduled to begin in January.
It looks like the start of a good run. Other tours waiting in the wings: The Full Monty, Suessical and smash hit The Producers.
Completely different
For something completely different: Shadowbox Cabaret South opens at Newport on the Levee on Oct. 3. It's an offshoot of a successful Columbus operation that combines raucous entertainment, snack food, alcohol (but no fancy drinks) and a raw, warehouse atmosphere.
General manager Stacie Boord says 80 percent of Shadowbox audiences never have set foot in a theater. Her guess is that the Shadowbox fan probably also favors “movies, video games, Dave & Buster's, professional sports. We have a game kind of feel.”
The opening show, which continues through Dec. 1, is a “best of” compilation of what has worked well in Columbus. A holiday show will follow. Ms. Boord promises “Santa Babes” will invite audience members to join the fun.
Recent shows in Columbus have been Sex at the 'Box, Play with Me and Dirty Little Secrets. Management's conservative estimate is that 12,000 people will check out Shadowbox during its first three months in Newport.
Ms. Boord firmly states that Shadowbox is both art and entertainment. She expects the cabaret to be an active part of the professional theater community.
League of Cincinnati Theatres president Nicholas Korn isn't expecting Shadowbox to be much competition for audiences. “It's a different kind of entertainment,” he says, although as a Newport resident, he's delighted to welcome it to his tax base.
If you're near the Serpentine Wall today, Shadowbox is on the Third Federal Riverfest 2001 entertainment line-up. They'll be demonstrating their comedy and music chops starting at 2:30 p.m.
Regional premieres
The current count of regional premieres (extending north to Dayton) is nearing 50, with more announcements expected between now and the end of May. That's more than one a week, startling stuff for a town with a super-conservative reputation.
Cincinnati Shakespeare has the line-up that should have savvy theatergoers salivating.
Artistic director Jasson Minadakis is mining for gems from around the nation. The Beard of Avon had its world premiere in May at heralded South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa, Calif. Cincinnati will share follow-up honors with Philadelphia.
Mr. Minadakis also has nabbed the rights to Nocturne so recently that it didn't make it into the season brochure. The chilling, thrilling one-man drama by breakthrough playwright Adam Rapp will have its first post-New York production at the festival, opening in February.
The season opens Thursday with wacky and scary Fuddy Meers, a New York hit and a popular play on the U.S. regional theater circuit this season, although its issues are not for kids.
Mr. Minadakis feels no need to defend his classics festival's devotion to new work. There was a time, he points out, when Shakespeare was a new playwright.
Mr. Minadakis is only partly kidding when he says, “King Lear (opening at Playhouse in the Park the same night) is about a family destroying itself hundreds of years ago, and Fuddy Meers is about a family destroying itself today, or tomorrow.” And Fuddy's funnier.
His point that art has to be given a chance to stand the test of time is a good one.
Mr. Minadakis isn't just pleased with his own line-up, he's delighted with the long list of premieres at theaters throughout the region.
“It's an amazing list,” he says, with a lot of titles that are only seeing limited release nationwide. “If you've ever wondered about the vitality of our contemporary theater and the potential of our contemporary dramatists — this is the season.”
African-American theater
Already there are interesting developments in African-American theater, which will have a significant presence in the new year.
Look for returns of past luminaries. Hal Scott, Playhouse artistic director in the early '70s, returns to direct Pearl Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky.
Luther Goins, still much admired in the African-American theater community 15 years after his departure for Chicago, may make a pair of visits. His award-winning Love Child, which took Windy City honors for best new work last season, is set for ETC in October. It's a social comedy that takes a hard look at unwed teen mothers and illiteracy.
Mr. Goins also has been in conversation with Don Sherman, organizer of the Midwest Black Theatre Festival.
Look for future announcements: The Black Theatre Festival, set for April, will announce details in mid-October. Arts Consortium will celebrate its 30th anniversary with special events, including the festival. And there's more to come.
Look for established, provocative work to make a regional bow including work by controversial Suzan-Lori Parks and docudramatist Anne Deveare Smith.
Start of something big?
The embryonic SPRING STAGES has the potential to grow into something extraordinary.
“I like the idea of spring, fresh and green, everything budding and growing,” says mastermind Norma Jenckes, University of Cincinnati faculty member and director of the Helen Weinberger Center for the Study of Drama and Playwrighting.
The two-week festival of new plays by established midcareer playwrights grew out of the search to fill the first-ever playwrighting residency at UC, which will begin in late October.
“It was an embarrassment of riches,” Ms. Jenckes says.
Among entries were two-time Humana Festival of New Plays winner Mayo Simon; Rosenthal New Play Award winner Caridad Svitch; Turkish-American writer Sinan Unel, who had a success at London's Royal Court last spring and an opening at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Conn., this month; and Lucy Wong, who has been successfully produced across the nation, including off-Broadway.
“The diversity was one of the things that excited me,” Ms. Jenckes says. “Hispanic, Asian-American and Turkish-American playwrights — it adds something to (the city's) theater season.”
A few phone calls later, and Ms. Jenckes had agreements from Playhouse in the Park, Ensemble, Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival and UC's College-Conservatory of Music to take on a playwright and a reading, workshop or studio production.
Ms. Jenckes is a long-time proponent of local playwright development. She teaches playwrighting at UC and founded Cincinnati Playwrights Initiative five years ago. “I hope it will help infuse fresh energy into the local playwriting scene.”
She is planning educational opportunities as well as workshops with local playwrights. She's hoping the Ohio Theatre Alliance will schedule its annual conference in Cincinnati to coincide with SPRING STAGES (April 25-May 5).
As to the future, “Of course I'd like to see it go on. The playwright residency is ongoing, and we will embark on a national search each year.
“A lot depends on the support from the community and seeing how it's received.”
Theater in the 'burbs
Theatre projects will continue in city neighborhoods and suburbs.
Two enterprises pronounced dead last spring have sprung back to life.
• In Clifton, when promising IF Theatre Collective lost founder Benjamin Mosse to Yale University's prestigious master's of fine arts directing program, it looked like the end. Clifton will keep its hip theatrical outpost at the University YMCA. Husband-and-wife team Ed Cohen and Dee Anne Bryll, admired community theater veterans, are stepping in as producers.
“This isn't about one more group doing plays,” Mr. Cohen says. “Benjamin's work was coming out of his heart. You'd see less well-known work by substantial playwrights, edgier, less commercial work. We think that's worth saving.”
• The Janus Project will return to Oakley, with artistic director Jay Apking making an unexpected but welcome return to town. Janus will pare back to its children's theater roots.
• In Covington, the Carnegie at long last broke ground for an elevator and building connector in late July. A theater rehab is planned for the future, but management and board are leaning away from pursuing a performance schedule in favor of arts education programming.
• Loveland Stage Company has to raise $10,000 more (by December) for its renovation of the Crist Theatre. Its long-term goal is to create a community arts center for Loveland, as well as a permanent performing space for themselves.
• In Georgetown, an interested group has come together to re-open the Gaslight Theatre. Watch for a call for a managing director later this fall.
• Rising Phoenix, the reborn Actor's Rep, tests its wings in Middletown, opening its first season later this month with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
Theater schedule through December
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