Please join me in applauding Cincinnati Theater Year 2007. Below you’ll find a list of what I liked best – tell me what moved you to a standing ovation!

Note -- this is more stream of consciousness than in a particular order:

 

“Company” winning the Tony Award for revival of a musical. (Hated that Raul Esparza didn’t win for lead actor in a musical, but that’s another story.) I’ve been blissed by John Doyle’s production since the first time I saw it at Playhouse two years ago. Talk about a 30 year-old musical for our time. Remember – you can see “Company” on Great Performances on Feb. 20. (And fingers crossed for a Grammy nod.)

New Stage Collective opening its new loft space at 12^th and Main. I’m cheering for Alan Patrick Kenny and company because I love big ambition and young energy and artistic passion, which includes knowing good material when you see it. The gangbusters opening show was the regional premiere of Edward Albee’s “The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?” with big, luscious performances from Amy Warner and Brian Isaac Phillips – and I’ve never seen Phillips better. New Stage productions can skitter all over the board, but they’re never boring. That makes it consistently worth seeing and a welcome addition to a developing theater row that already includes Ensemble Theatre, Know and a new SCPA in the not-distant future.

New Director’s Competition at New Edgecliff. If there’s one thing Cincinnati needs, it’s visionary young directors. So good for New Edgecliff for opening a door with three nights of one-acts showcasing young directors’ work. Now if only we could lure a few recent graduates from major MFA programs to give Cincinnati a try…

Musicals: “Urinetown” at NKU – Bravo, Ken Jones! He delivered a wonderful ensemble production that was great fun and demonstrated just how far the NKY theater program has come in the last few years; “Calculus! The Musical!” at Fringe – What a hoot! Thanks to Mark Gutman for the best math class I’ve ever had. May he and partner Sadie Bowman return in future Fringes to offer remedial courses in algebra and trig.

Great Performances: This one is chronological and includes acting, directing and design. The production design of “1:23,” with its melding of video with highly theatrical forms was a stunner for Playhouse in the Park, and so was Eve Kaminsy’s performance as a killer; NKU’s delightful “Urinetown,” led by Roderick Justice and Denise Devlin and directed by Ken Jones with so-inventive choreography by Jane Green; Mikhail Roberts fearlessly bounding around the stage and beyond in farce “Charley’s Aunt” at CCM Drama, with spot-on direction by Terrell Finney in an overall swell production; director Drew Fracher, with stellar back-to-back entries “Opus” at Ensemble and “The Tempest” at Cincinnati Shakespeare; Amy Warner and Brian Isaac Phillips in “The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?” at New Stage (see above and below); Michael Shooner found his inner volcano in “Frozen” for Xavier Players; director Ed Stern and his acting ensemble in gloriously theatrical “Othello,” which played like Greek tragedy in Playhouse’s Shelterhouse; director Richard Hess, the design team and CCM Drama student ensemble for “Anon(ymous); terrific Taylore Mahogany Scott as an angry, poor, black single mother in the title role of “Caroline, or Change” at New Stage. 

Giles Davies – The Cincinnati Shakespeare company member is in a class of his own. How to choose between his monster Caliban in “The Tempest” and his monster “Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus”? Happily I don’t have to, we’re just lucky Davies makes Cincinnati Shakespeare his home base.

Favorite Twosome: Explosive category: Amy Warner and Brian Isaac Phillips as two-thirds of a romantic triangle in “The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?” at New Stage; Charming category: Mark Gutman and Sadie Bowman, “Calculus the Musical!,” Cincinnati Fringe

Favorite Threesome: Giles Davies, Jeremy Dubin and Chris Guthrie in “The Tempest,” Cincinnati Shakespeare

Favorite Foursome: Warren Kelley, Michael Bath, Kevin Crowley and David Arden Engel as the emotionally unstrung string quartet in “Opus” at Ensemble

Favorite Fivesome: In alphabetical order, these 2007 and 2008 grads from CCM Drama and NKU had a terrific year in 2007 on campus and beyond. We wish them well in their professional careers: Lauren Carter (CCM Drama ’08); Adrienne Clark (CCM Drama ’08); Anthony Darnell (CCM ’07); Denise Devlin (NKU ’07), Roderick Justice (NKU ’07); and Mikhail Roberts (CCM Drama ’08)l

Favorite Sixsome: The Mechanicals, led by Chris Guthrie’s Nick Bottom (or, Bot-TOME), in Cincinnati Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Guthrie shares the applause with (in alphabetical order): Billy Chace, Giles Davies, Jeremy Dubin, Justin McCombs and Josh Stamoolis.

Best New York Performance by a Cincinnati Native: Andy Blankenbuehler swept last year’s choreo awards for the Off-Broadway debut of “In the Heights.” Watch for the Broadway opening on March 9.