a&c CURTAIN CALL
WaNTS YOU TO
Where to Go for a Summertime Show
WIN STUFF!
BY RICK PENDER
during August. Merry Wives, with the comic braggart Falstaff as its central character, will be this summer’s new production. Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati, which stages its big productions at downtown’s immense Taft Theatre during the school year, is doing something new this summer. Using the 152-seat theater in its new office/classroom building on Red Bank Road in Hyde Park, they’ll present Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat between June 2 and July 9, includ-
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Damn Yankees’ William Jackson and Rachel Perin P H O T O : m i k k i s c h a f f n e r photo g r a ph y
ing 10 a.m. performances on Fridays, as well as matinees on Saturdays and Sundays. Community theaters, produced by enthusiastic, talented volunteers who love to put on shows, are busy in the summer. Here’s a list of local productions to consider at various neighborhood venues: It’s Only a Play (June 2-10) by Middletown Lyric Theatre; The Music Man (June 8-17) by East Side Players at the Blue Ash Amphitheatre; Seven Deadly Sins (June 30-July 2) by Village Players in Fort Thomas; Godspell (July 7-23) by Mariemont Players at its Walton Creek Theatre; The Toxic Avenger (July 7-22) by Sunset Players at the Dunham Recreation Center; The Wizard of Oz (July 14-22) by Mason Players; the regional premiere of Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach (Aug. 4-12) at Beechmont Players at Anderson Center Theatre; Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Aug. 10-19) by East Side Players at the Blue Ash Amphitheatre; and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Aug. 11-27) by The Drama Workshop at its Glenmore Playhouse in Cheviot. That’s a full slate of summer theater! CONTACT RICK PENDER: rpender@citybeat.com
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Wondering where to get your theater fix when several Cincinnati theaters go dark over the summer? The annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival, produced by Know Theatre, offers an avalanche of theatrical creativity to keep you occupied during early June. And the Over-the-Rhine company actually keeps at it during the summer, with a full-scale production of Marian: The True Story of Robin Hood (July 29-Aug. 19), a gender-bending reinvention of the legend. Know’s zany Serials! will also be around on Monday evenings in August. For more standard fare, head to Cincinnati Landmark Productions’ Warsaw Federal Incline Theater in East Price Hill for its Summer Classics Season, kicking off this week with the 1955 baseball-themed musical Damn Yankees (through June 18). Besides the regular cast, featuring William Jackson and Rachel Perin, both Pete Rose and Marty Brennaman have recorded cameos — Rose as the voice of the baseball commissioner; Brennaman as a sportscaster. “If you’re doing a musical about baseball on the West Side of Cincinnati, you had better get the baseball parts right,” says Rodger Pille, communications/development manager for Cincinnati Landmark Productions. “So who better to infuse the show with Cincinnati baseball credibility than the Hit King and the Hall of Fame voice of the Reds?” Also at the Incline are Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit, a light-hearted ghost story from 1945 (June 28-July 23), and the delightful tongue-in-cheek musical The Drowsy Chaperone (Aug. 2-27), a 2006 Broadway hit spoofing a fictional extravaganza from 1928. At the Otto M. Budig Theater at The Carnegie in Covington, you can see another audience-pleaser, The Full Monty (Aug. 12-27), about some laid-off steelworkers who decide to do a strip act at a local club to make ends meet. Based on a popular 1997 film, the musical was an award-winning Broadway show in 2001. Northern Kentucky University’s summer dinner theater, Commonwealth Theatre Company, presents two shows (preceded by meals). First up, the hilarious retelling of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (June 7-25), enacted by four frenzied actors. It will be followed by Burgertown (July 5-23), a musical about the fast-food world written by NKU theater professor Ken Jones with music by his colleague Jamey Strawn. These productions often sell out well in advance, so reservations should be made early. Cincy Shakes is not staging a summer show, but it will present its annual Shakespeare in the Park Tour. Outdoor performances of trimmed-down, portable productions of Romeo and Juliet and The Merry Wives of Windsor will be performed for free in parks all across the Tristate