Every other year, Northern Kentucky University's Year-End Series (Y.E.S.) Festival of New Plays begins with project director Sandra Forman and area theater director Mary Jo Beresford reading more than 400 plays.
For this 11th biennial edition of Y.E.S., Forman says, "There were a number of plays that were quite wonderful and were discussed at length" as theater department faculty whittled the field down to 40, then 16, to eight to three.
And the winners are:
Three Girls, Four Seasons by Kristine Namkung (opening Friday); The Bandmaster by Abe Polsky (opening Saturday); and Too Good to Say Goodbye by Jim Gustafson (opening Saturday). The plays will continue in repertory through May 4.
Both Three Girls and Bandmaster take their inspiration from an historical incident.
Three Girls examines the composition and public premiere of Antonio Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" by first-time playwright Namkung, a lawyer who lives on a sailboat off the California coast and is working on two more scripts.
The Bandmaster is set the night before George Armstrong Custer's date with history at Little Bighorn. Polsky, who has written for television westerns including Bonanza and The Virginian, is a pro at writing about the Old West, although he also wrote for The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Polsky is retired. The Bandmaster was written about 12 years ago, but he read about Y.E.S. about two years ago, decided to submit it "and forgot about it. I was pleasantly surprised" when the phone call came to say the play would finally get its first production.
Too Good, says Forman, is a "fall down on the floor comedy" a romantic comedy set in part at a tenure party, which, she laughs, should appeal to faculty members on every campus in the region.
Tickets $10 (seniors $8, students $6). NKU box office: (859) 572-5464.
'The Diviners': The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music will close its mainstage drama season with a revival of The Diviners, about a disillusioned preacher who arrives in an Indiana river town and has a fateful encounter with a disturbed young man with a pathological fear of water.
Director Terrell Finney has a ready reason for digging out the old script. "I chose it in part because I purchased a farm in Vevay, Indiana, about a year and a half ago and wanted to examine the culture, the values and the strong sense of community found in these small farming towns along the river.
"I've learned to respect the remarkably difficult life they have chosen and have a greater awareness of how the community can pull together to help those in need.
"I've seen how the county (Switzerland) is reacting to the arrival of increasing numbers of weekend residents, and the tensions that the influx of this more urban, part-time "recreational farmer" population has begun to create within this community.
Outsiders, says Finney, whether it's a preacher in a play or a weekend farmer in Vevay "cause change, both for good and for bad."
Some things don't change. "Just last week, I saw a gentleman making his way along Vevay on bike, and I was informed that it is his only means of transportation. So the world of Zion, Indiana, in 1932 and the world of Vevay, Indiana, in 2003 may not really be that far apart."
The cast is rehearsing the play outdoors at various sites on Finney's farm "In an effort to help them better understand the connection to water, the earth and nature that permeates this piece."
The Diviners plays Wednesday through Sunday in Patricia Corbett Theater. Tickets $23. Box office: 556-4183.
Close but no win: Showbiz Players' The Civil War finished a close First Runner Up at last week's regional American Association of Community Theatres competition.
Civil War director and Showbiz president Bunny Arszman acknowledged that the small army (of 40-plus) who took the bus to Wisconsin to perform were "a little disappointed" by the outcome but it was still a triumph.
According to the Ohio Community Theatre Association, says Arszman, Civil War went further in the competition than any Ohio community theater in 20 years.
"When we got home and unpacked the bus, all of us stood together one last time in the parking lot. No one wanted to leave.
"Then the cast began to sing 'For the Glory' - a cappella and very softly. It was sunset. It was a very appropriate ending. The bond and memories that we've shared will last a lifetime!"
Second time lucky? Showbiz will return to Civil War composer Frank Wildhorn in June 2004 with the Cincinnati non-professional premiere of Jekyll & Hyde.
'Tartuffe': Matt Johnson made his Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival (CSF) debut in February, as one of the twin servant Dromios in The Comedy of Errors.
He'll really flash his acting chops starting Thursday, in the title role of CSF's Tartuffe, Moliere's comedy masterpiece about hypocrites, opportunists and a scam artist who dons a mask of piety to bamboozle a wealthy, middle-aged white guy who doesn't ask for directions. (Yes, people were already making jokes about them in France hundreds of years ago.)
Johnson is that rare being, an artist moving to Cincinnati. He was lured here from Atlanta by college pal Brian Isaac Phillips, the festival's associate artistic director. Their first project was a collaboration on this season's Beowulf.
Johnson says things are looking good. "The character (Tartuffe) is fertile ground." He's also pleased with cost of living here and "the festival wants to do good shows."
Tartuffe, which also marks the festival return of veteran Anne E. Schilling, opens Thursday and continues through May 11 at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival, 719 Race St., downtown. Tickets and information: 381-2273 or www.cincyshakes.com.
Next up, Johnson will join another college pal, Elizabeth Harris, in Square One for New Edgecliff at The Artery in Newport.
Johnson, Harris and Phillips comprise the occasionally seen Pier Group, and Johnson says "we're trying to put something together for this summer."
Breaking the rule: Richard Oberacker breaks the "worked with Richard growing up" rule for performers in the April 28 In the Works cabaret at Plush (upstairs at Carol's on Main, 825 Main St.)
Faye Butler, who created the leading role in The Gospel According to Fishman to ecstatic reviews (and a Helen Hayes Award nomination for best actress in a musical) in Washington, D.C., will reprise her big numbers in Cincinnati.
In the Works benefits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and AVOC. Tickets: $25, call 624-8584.
Touring Ohio: The Cincinnati musical team of Janet Vogt and Mark Friedman is about to embark on an "all-Ohio tour" with their adaptation of Anne of Green Gables.
The show has had "quite a re-write" since its staged reading in Ensemble Theatre's Off-Center/On-Stage series a few years ago.
"We went back to about Square Seven," Vogt laughs.
First up will be a workshop production at Human Race in Dayton on May 4-5 that will feature CCM students Ashley Brown and Ben Magnuson, as well as actors brought in from New York by workshop series director Kevin Moore.
Then Anne will have a summer production in July as part of the Miami University summer season.
In September, Anne will open the 40th anniversary season of the Columbus Children's Theatre.
"We're very excited that there's interest at three different levels," says Vogt, "Equity, university and one of the best children's theaters in the state."
The team will squeeze in a May 9 reading of its Harriet Beecher Stowe project Harriet in Maysville.
E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com
