By Jackie Demaline
Enquirer staff writer

First there was the little pond, convenient for dunking, in the Eden Park-like setting for Much Ado About Nothing in 1999. Then last year, an entire pool filled Playhouse in the Park's main stage as gods and men underwent transformation in Metamorphoses.

Playhouse in the Park's love affair with water as a scenic element continues with season opener Twelfth Night, which will put the audience in the sea.

No need to bring your water wings, but 3,000 gallons will wrap around the downstage area, suggesting a barrier between players and audience.

For all that the subject is romance and there is a happily ever after. Shakespeare's comedy begins with a shipwreck and the island where heroine Viola washes ashore is initially inhospitable.

To show how inhospitable, the part of the stage not covered by water will be buried under eight tons of tumbled Pennsylvania slate.

"I do seem to see Shakespeare in elemental ways," says director Ed Stern. He also directed Much Ado and piled mounds of earth on the Marx Stage for a cataclysmic King Lear.

Twelfth Night opens Sept. 9, previews begin Sept. 7. For reservations and information, call the box office at 421-3888.

New leader for Tribe

Jason Bruffy, of Cincinnati Fringe Festival and Cincinnati Experimental Arts, is new artistic director of Know Theatre Tribe. He is pulling a switch with Matthew Pyle, who has stepped down to the associate artistic director post to get away from paperwork and spend more time on stage.

The 2005 Know season is filled with Cincinnati premieres and edge. The performance schedule has been reconfigured, adding an extra weekend at Gabriel's Corner, the company's Over-the-Rhine base.

It will also introduce "The Tribe" - a 10-member resident acting company that includes Pyle, Reggie Willis and Burgess Byrd, three of the best actors on the Cincinnati's alternative theater scene.

The 2005 Know Tribe season:

Jan. 6-29 - Streamers, David Rabe's scorching, Vietnam era military drama examines the effects of combat on soldiers even as differences in race, class and sexual orientation keep the men from feeling safe on the field or in camp.

Feb. 17-March 12 - 4.48 Psychosis introduces Cincinnati to Britain's dangerous playwright Sarah Kane. Kane's hypothesis is that 4:48 is the time most suicides take place. Kane committed suicide, adding an extra shiver.

March 31-April 23 - Iris, an absurdist comedy about artificial insemination - and what happens when your new boyfriend turns out to be your father.

May 5-28 - Good Boys brings black and white strangers together on a park bench to examine the act that links them - a Columbine-style massacre in which one son died by the gun of the other.

July 21-Aug. 13 - Sticks & Stones may ... will be a pair of one-act works by David Tucholski of Alexandria, Va., and new Tribe member Jennifer Spillane, a recent Chicago transplant. Details TBA.

The new performance schedule allows for an entire weekend of $10 preview performances.

For season and subscription information, call (513) 300-5669 (KNOW) or visit www.knowtheatre.com.

Next up for Know Tribe, Burgess Byrd will reprise the sell-out one-woman show Pretty Fire, playing Sept. 9-Oct. 2 at the Greenwich (2440 Gilbert Ave., Walnut Hills).

Acting showcase

Ensemble Theatre has assembled some of the area's best actors for season opener The Exonerated, a collection of interviews with death row inmates whose convictions have been overturned. Play dates are Sept. 8-26.

William Jay Marshall from the off-Broadway production will anchor a company that includes Michael Bath, Deborah Brock-Blanks, A.D. "Tony" Davis, Annie Fitzpatrick, Darryl Hilton, Jim Nelson and Greg Procaccino. Cincinnati native Tracy Shayne, whose Broadway credits include Chicago, A Chorus Line and Les Miserables, makes her ETC debut.

Barry Scheck, co-founder and co-director of The Innocence Project, will be guest speaker at the Sept. 7 preview. Scheck has represented defendants including Hedda Nussbaum, Louise Woodward and O.J. Simpson. For details, call the theater at 421-3555.

Scheck will also speak at noon Sept. 8 at the College of Law, Room 114, on the University of Cincinnati campus. The lunchtime appearance is free and open to the public.

Protesting apathy

Cincinnati Experimental Arts is inviting proposals for its 24-hour "artistic protest against apathy," Artists for Change, planned for Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 on Fountain Square. (The 24 hours are split over two days; in Cincinnati, artists and audiences prefer to get a decent night's rest.)

"The role of artists in society is to transcend and comment upon that society. Too often we find ourselves shouting in closets," says CineX Arts co-founder Jason Bruffy.

Artists for Change is looking for artists of all mediums. Contact Bruffy at 319-9385 or e-mail bruffy@cincyfringe.com to contribute. There's no cut-off date for proposals, but Bruffy says he'll schedule ideas on a first-come basis.

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E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com