Sunday, July 29
Where in the world is our favorite composer/conductor Steve Reineke? Flying home from weekend concerts at the Hollywood Bowl, starring Wayne Brady. (No wonder Reineke’s hair was looking so Left Coast last week.)
Turns out Brady, the very funny guy of the self-titled syndicated talk/variety show and “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” (to say nothing of many sitcom guest gigs) sings, too. When he was looking to put together an act, Peter Frampton recommended Reineke and what he came up with was a salute to Sammy Davis, Jr. Don’t be sad – the show is playing Cincinnati in October. As for Steve -- we knew him when!
Monday, July 30
Where in the world are Victoria Morgan, Mishic Marie Corn, Janessa Touchet and six more members of Cincinnati Ballet? Working very, very hard in Honolulu mounting Morgan’s “Cinderella” for Ballet Hawaii on Aug. 11-12. They are joined by New York City Ballet principal dancer Joaquin De Luz as The Prince.
Talk about an off-season gig.
There will not be ukelele accompaniement; Ballet musical director Carmon DeLeone will conduct the Honolulu Symphony. Touchet dances the title role, Corn is setting much of Morgan’s choreography, as well as dancing the Fairy Godmother. (Surely Morgan is researching in her spare time.)
Other company members cast in featured roles are Cervilio Amador, Sarah Hairston, Gema Diaz, Kristi Capps, Zack Grubbs and Dmitri Trubchanov.
And if you’re wondering where in the world are Joseph Gatti and Adiarys Almeida, that would be Japan.
The Gatti/Adiarys “Don Quixote” pas de deus continues to wow judges in international competition. Gatti took a gold medal earlier this month in world competition in Orlando. Now they’re taking their act to the Land of the Rising Sun.
Tuesday, July 31
Where in the world is Sandy Foreman? (Are you starting to get the feeling nobody’s left in town?)
The Northern Kentucky University theater prof and overseer of the biennial Y.E.S. Festival is in Colorado, exercising her acting muscles as Eleanor in “The Lion in Winter” for the Bas Blue (that’s “bluestocking” ) theater company. Rehearsals begin today, the historical drama runs through September.
Wednesday, August 1
Gone but definitely not forgotten. Doug Lowry, departed Dean of CCM starts with Eastman School of Music today. He promises he’s not all that easy to get rid of. Once again he’s collaborating with Playhouse in the Park’s Ed Stern, writing original incidental music for Shelterhouse opener “Othello.”
Lowry is also working on a piano concerto for Michael Chertock and chatting with Victoria Morgan of Cincinnati Ballet about a possible collaboration, possibly for 2009-2010. It will be a short piece, so might it show up in the annual “New Works”? He’s also written a trio (French horn, oboe, piano) for CCM faculty who will perform in the International Horn Society conference in Denver 2008.
Thursday, August 2
The New York Times called Eric Bogosian’s “suburbia” “A scathing study of rootless youth” and director Gina Cerimele-Mechley is working hard to create an intense production for Cincinnati Actor’s Studio, opening tonight (and playing weekends through Aug. 11) in pay-what-you-can performances at Essex Studio, studio 272.
The entire run is a fundraiser for Cerimele-Mechley’s home company, Clear Stage Cincinnati, which lost its sets, props and hardware in the Cincinnati Costume Company fire.
Cerimele-Mechley’s youthful cast is a long way from rootless. The company includes lots of recent high school grads heading for university theater training in fall: Seven Hills grad Brooke Howard is on her way to the Experimental Theatre Wing at New York University; Talia Amatulli, also Seven Hills, is going into Theatre Concentration at Sara Lawrence. Jeff Batchler is entering CCM’s tech theater program.
Lakota West grad Aaron Epstein is en route to Miami-Hamilton and then Miami University, where castmate John Baca is a graduate. Batavia grad Britt Spurlock has signed up for theater at Columbia College in Chicago and Joshua Pikar is an theater major at Northern Kentucky University.
The play, Cerimele-Mechley reports happily, “is very in-your-face. I literally have the audience and the actors sharing the same space.
“I’m sure people will wonder why the show needs to be this extreme, but the more we work on it the more frighteningly accurate it is.”
Tickets available at the door.
Friday, August 3
Talented actress Mahogany Scott, who first came to Cincinnati a few years back to join the Young Company of Cincinnati Shakespeare (then Festival), has been zipping in and out of town for the last few years, never onstage, doggone it, one more Equity actor who has a hard time finding paid work here.
Scott is here this weekend, and keep your fingers rossed because she has a doozie of an idea if she can pull it off (with no $$$).
Tomorrow and Sunday Scott will be madly planning, casting, and handing out scripts for a week-long series of staged readings of August Wilson’s 10-play 20th century cycle at the Greenwich Cafe. It was a monumental life’s work and the opportunity for local theater fans to be introduced and re-introduced to his work, and to see many of our gifted African-American theater artists sharing a stage, invites a lot of save-the-dating.
(Just to make it all a real challenge, Scott leaves again and doesn’t return until the day before the readings are scheduled to begin, on Sept. 28.
While the plays, which look at the African-American experience decade by decade, weren’t written in order, Scott plans to present them in order, starting with “Gem of the Ocean” on Sept. 28 and proceeding nightly through Oct. 6. (If you’re counting, a matinee on Sept. 29 brings the total to 10.)
Capping the Wilson marathon, Scott will moderate a forum for Cincinnati Council candidates, on the topic of strategies for Cincinnati neighborhood revitalization, at the Greenwich. Scott thinks Wilson’s Pittsburgh and our Cincinnati have plenty of parallels.
Even as on-the-fly readings, I’ll take it. There are too many years between Wilson revivals in Cincinnati; it’s been a decade since The Children’s Theatre produced “Fences” and “The Piano Lesson” and five years since Know Theatre’s “Two Trains Running.”
Saturday, August 4
Terry LaBolt returns to the orchestral podium for the first time since recuperating from his successful liver transplant a couple of years back. Come to Devou Park and help him mark the occasion as Cincinnati’s Musical Man conducts the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra for a “Sing-a-long Sound of Music.” And it’s free!
The cast of the Covedale Center production will lead the fun; song lyrics projected on a large screen should help the rest of us. Of course there’s a costume contest and nuns from local convents will have VIP seating.
The concert starts at 7:30 p.m., a $5 donation happily accepted. Blankets, lawn chairs and picnics welcome.
Jackie Demaline
