By Jackie Demaline
The Cincinnati Enquirer

In the Boston premiere of Cincinnati playwright Theresa Rebeck's Bad Dates, Julie White portrayed a restaurant manager and shoe connoisseur. (T. Charles Erickson)

What makes a great regional theater?

What better time to consider the question than when Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park sets a strong schedule for 2004-05, featuring Shakespearian comedy, the regional premiere of a potential nominee for this year's Tony Award for best play, The Retreat from Moscow, and Cincinnati native Theresa Rebeck's bright, contemporary comedy, Bad Dates, among its array of new work?

"A successful theater," says Ben Cameron, executive director of national service organization Theatre Communications Group, "has a clear sense of its guiding values, of its aesthetics. It has a deeply grounded commitment to artists."

Playhouse 2004-05 season

• Comedies, musicals dominate Robert S. Marx Theatre Sept. 7-Oct. 8, Twelfth Night Oct. 19-Nov. 19, The Crucible Dec. 1-30, A Christmas Carol Jan. 25-Feb. 25, Bad Dates March 15-April 15, The Retreat from Moscow April 26-May 27, Crowns Thompson Shelterhouse Theatre Sept. 25-Oct. 24, A Picasso Nov. 6-Dec. 31, Plaid Tidings Feb. 12-March 13, World premiere, TBA April 2-May 1, The Underpants May 14-June 12, The Last Five Years

Tickets

For the 2004-05 season, Playhouse single ticket prices will increase by $1.50. Subscriptions to the season, ranging from $152.50 to $230 for the five-play series and $252 to $399.50 for the 10-play series are available at the box office. Discounts are available for full-time students and educators, senior citizens and young professionals. Information: 421-3888.

"A successful theater wants to find new work," suggests playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, who has had Playhouse hits with Scotland Road and The Turn of the Screw and claims Playhouse as one of his theatrical "homes." ("Like mistresses," Hatcher suggests slyly, theatrical homes, "should be scattered across the country and not bump into each other too often.")

Hatcher returns in 2004-05 to open the Shelterhouse season with A Picasso, winner of the 2003 Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play for its Philadelphia premiere last year. "There's pride in discovering a new voice, a terrific play."

Cameron says that only a fraction of theaters in the United States meet all the criteria for success. "A sense of adventure permeates the entire organization," Cameron says of such theaters. "There's a commitment to risk - I don't mean irresponsibility."

Defining a great theater is never about money, although fiscal responsibility is part of the equation. A big budget isn't necessarily better than small. Attendance numbers aren't a fair measure because theaters in large metro areas hold an unfair edge over companies in smaller towns.

Playhouse in the Park makes the measure of one of the nation's most successful resident theaters on many of these counts:

• There has been at least one world premiere every season for 16 years, including the current Hiding Behind Comets, one of three world premieres this season. For the last five years, Playhouse has expanded to include a commissioning program and prize for new plays for young people. This year's winner, Life in the Fat Lane, is touring to schools.

• Directors Kenny Leon and Mark Wing-Davey, both with current New York shows, have worked at Playhouse in the last year. Tony Award-nominated designers from the last two seasons include costumers Paul Tazewell and Catherine Zuber and set designers Riccardo Hernandez and Kevin Rigdon.

• Recent productions that have been presented internationally include Nixon's Nixon and The Syringa Tree. Playhouse productions of King Lear and God's Man in Texas represented American theater design in Prague in summer 2003, at a quadrennial international exposition.

The most essential measure of regional theater isn't even its main stage season. America's "resident" theaters place a high importance on living in their communities and making a contribution as an institutional citizen in those communities.

"A successful theater," says Cameron, "is strategic and curious about what it means to be a theater, beyond its productions. It asks what its role is in bringing people together."

The answers successful theaters find are defined by the communities in which they reside.

It's not surprising to find American Repertory Theatre devoted to re-exploring classics with avant-garde directors in Cambridge, Mass., tucked between Harvard and MIT. South Coast Repertory, in California's Orange County, is aware of both its wealthy conservative and Latino populations.

For Playhouse, it means knowing Cincinnati.

Playhouse producing artistic director Ed Stern talks about "partnering" with this community.

"We have to do more than plays we like to do for people who like to see them," he says.

Partnering, to Stern, includes a commitment to outreach - to children and students (Playhouse reaches 81,000 annually throughout the Tristate); to young adults with programs like the alteractive performance series and the new Stage Left behind-the-scenes events.

The main stage season is overall sunny and young feeling for 2004-05 with many musicals and comedies anchored by Shakespeare and Miller.

Stern agrees, put says it wasn't a conscious choice.

The conscious attempt was to "reach out to everyone and saying, 'There is adventure to be had.' "

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com