Look for Tim Perrino in New York, where the impresario of Covedale and Cincinnati Young People’s Theatre will be wearing his Showboat Majestic captain’s hat, for the Grand Showboat Weekend hosted by The Theatre Museum of New York.

Perrino is one of the two-day event’s distinguished guests for the Theatre Museum’s “Showboat ‘Round the Bend!” As the guy who keeps the longest-running showboat afloat, Perrino will participate in panel discussions and take a look at the showboat exhibit, which continues on view until May 2008.

Jackie Demaline

posted by CinStages Buzz  # PermaLink 1:31 PM 0 Comments

West Sider Lori Betz is on the road this year. She left her job with Cincinnati Public Schools to tutor the six moppets that inhabit the orphanage in “Annie.” Betz is delighted to be making a week-long stop in her hometown, with performances of the non-Equity tour starting Tuesday at the Aronoff. “Annie” is a season special of BroadwayAcrossAmerica-Cincinnati.

“I love ‘em,” Betz laughs. Grades 4 to 7, the girls have individual curriculums and while classroom work is 15 hours a week “we try to get in 20.”

The biggest challenge is teaching in the back of the bus. Yup, this “Annie” is a true bus-and-truck with stints of one- and two-night stands between longer engagements. The girls work on their individual lessons simultaneously, often as the miles role by.  

“I’m excited to have the United States as my classroom,” Betz says. The tour will hit 37 states before it wraps early next summer. Betz researches the upcoming stops, and so do the parents who tour with them.

In Cincinnati, Betz will take them the the Cincinnati Museum Center and she’d like to get to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center if a time window opens up.

Betz has only seen the show three times since it began, getting her chance to explore while the kids are onstage. Betz is having a ball and she’ll likely sign on for another tour when this one ends. “I’ve had the best time!”

Find more information at CinStages.com. If you see the show, look for NKU grad Justin Glaser as the laundry man.

Jackie Demaline

posted by CinStages Buzz  # PermaLink 9:55 AM 0 Comments

There’s a confession box in the lobby at Playhouse in the Park these nights, where the “Altar Boyz” are holding forth on the Marx stage. To get audiences in the mood, Playhouse applied to local celebs for their confessions, which are on display.

A couple favorites: Cincinnati Symphony maestro Paavo Jarvi writes, “Sometimes when I turn around to the audience following a performance I hear Elvis’ voice in my head saying, “Thank you, thank you very much.”

Cincinnati Ballet artistic director Victoria Morgan is equally mischievous: “At home when I have a hot flash I take my clothes off. I think about it sometimes when I’m in a meeting and I get one, but so far I’ve kept my clothes on. But really I’d prefer to take them off.”

Jackie Demaline

posted by CinStages Buzz  # PermaLink 11:00 AM 0 Comments

“Cymbeline”?! What the heck is “Cymbeline”?! It’s a demented – but nasty – little fairytale by Mr. Shakespeare which has its grimmer than Grimm moments. “Cymbeline’ opens tomorrow for a Halloween run at Cincinnati Shakespeare, a premiere for Cincy Shakes. This leaves the company only six plays away from completing Shakespeare’s canon. (I, for one, can’t wait for “Two Noble Kinsmen”…)

 The company’s tireless Rebecca Bowman took time out from her November wedding plans to fashion this “Cymbeline” primer, which includes plot and production information.

Thanks, Rebecca! (And find production information elsewhere at CinStages.com.)

First, here’s an intro, more or less straight from the Cincinnati Shakespeare press release: When King Cymbeline’s only daughter Imogen secretly marries against his wishes, the king banishes his daughter’s young groom, Posthumus, from court. In Rome, Posthumus runs into lecherous Iachimo, who tricks him into believing his bride is unfaithful.Posthumus orders his servant Pisanio to kill Imogen then sinks into despair. Meanwhile, Imogen flees from her wicked stepmother and the queen’s loathsome son into the wild forests of Wales – where she discovers her father’s long lost sons.

Snow White: In the original story, the wicked Queen creates a poisoned apple that sticks in Snow White’s throat causing her to fall into a death-like slumber.  In “Cymbeline,” watch the “poisoned apple” closely:  the Queen thinks that the doctor has given her a poison, which she gives to Pisanio (a servant to princess Imogen’s husband) in order to get him out of the way.  She tells Pisanio the potion is a “restorative.”  BUT the doctor knows the Queen is up to know good and switches the poisoned potion (black apple) for a potion that will make the drinker fall into a death-like slumber and awaken later (red apple).  Pisanio gives the potion to Imogen (thinking it is a “restorative”) who takes it when she is feeling ill.  She falls into a dead-faint and is found by Belarius and his sons, who mourn her in a loyal, seven dwarfs fashion and lay her to rest (unburied) in the woods.

More Snow White: Pisanio, Posthumous’ servant, is instructed to kill Imogen in the woods, but takes pity on her and tells her to run away (a la the kind-hearted huntsman.)  He even creates a bloodied handkerchief to give to Posthumous in order to convince him that Imogen is dead. (In the original story, the huntsman gives the wicked Queen the heart of a deer.)

Little Red Riding Hood: When Imogen travels into the forest as the boy Fidele, she dons a red cape and hood as part of her disguise.  Some of the first people she runs into are wearing wolf skins (her long lost brothers, as it turns out.)

The Three Bears: Imogen takes refuge in the cave of Belarius and his sons (who are wearing wolf and bear skins in this production) and eats their food.  The men are at first taken aback to find a young person stealing their food, but then take her in as a younger brother. 

Rapunzel: Imogen is imprisoned in the castle by her wicked stepmother, the Queen.

Trojan Horse: The scheming Iachimo sneaks his way into Imogen’s bed-chamber by hiding in a trunk, which he asks Imogen to keep safe in her room.

Happily Ever After Ending!

Inspirations for this Production:

Grimm’s Fairy Tales

Fellini’s Satyricon

“Sleepy Hallow” film with Johnny Depp

Tim Burton

The Lord of the Rings

Classic Disney animation especially “Sleeping Beauty” and “Snow White”

Vertigo comic book series “Fables”

Cymbeline has been called “Shakespeare’s self-parody” by Harold Bloom and includes all of these Shakespearean plot conventions:

Father who refuses to recognize Daughter’s choice of suitor

Long lost family members who miraculously turn up in the  last act

Girl disguising herself as a boy

Loyal servant who refuses to commit murder on behalf of his master

Potion that feigns death

Spouses who think each other is dead only to be reunited in the last act

Last minute reprieve of prisoners

Husbands who lose/give away rings given by their wives with dire consequences

Betting on a woman’s virtue

Which Shakespeare Plays Has CSC Left to Produce After This?

King Richard II

King John

King Henry III

Timon of Athens

Two Noble Kinsmen

All’s Well that Ends Well

Other Tidbits:

This is the largest cast we’ve ever had: 18 people in all.  It would not have been possible before the renovations last year that created access between the backstage and the dressing rooms.

Wolf and bear head costumes are built on the same foam model heads used by taxidermists.

Over 300 gromets are used in the costumes for all the lacings in the shoes, dresses, etc.

Converse high-top sneakers with the toes removed (and painted gold) make excellent Roman sandals.

posted by CinStages Buzz  # PermaLink 10:06 AM 0 Comments

Just finished a phone chat with Tom Smedes, the first-time Broadway producer committed to getting “Ace” to Washington, D.C.’s National Theatre in March – and then hopefully on to Broadway. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life – that a) it will happen and b) it will be successful.”

“Ace,” of course, is the musical about a troubled kid who discovers his heritage in his dreams. It’s by Cincinnati native and CCM grad Richard Oberacker and Robert Taylor and had a successful run at Playhouse in the Park a year ago.

Smedes fell in love with “Ace” when he saw it in its San Diego run at the beginning of 2007. Smedes already has Off-Broadway’s “Naked Boys Singing” on his list of credits. When he saw “Ace,” Smedes knew it was a winner. “It appeals to everyone.”

“It’s the right season, both on Broadway and politically” (“Ace” is, after all, about America at war), says Smedes, to make his first foray onto the Great White Way. He means to sneak in between monoliths “Young Frankenstein” and “The Little Mermaid” with a little-show-that-could.

Smedes is fearlessly raising “$7-8 million.” At the moment he’s “creeping toward $1 million,” but some good news is that Live Nation (that’s the company that owns BroadwayAcrossAmerica) made an investment. Of course, now Live Nation is changing hands, but that’s another story.

While the price tag is “daunting,” Smedes says, “I’d like to have it all raised by the end of the year. But that’s probably unlikely.“ He figures he just has to have the money collected by the show’s D.C. opening.

The reason he’s telling me all this is he wants me to tell you. Any investors out there? E-mail or call me, I’ll connect you.

Jackie Demaline

posted by CinStages Buzz  # PermaLink 4:31 PM 0 Comments

It’s a big month for Batavia’s Denise Stoner-Barone. Her full-length play “Mourning View,” tragedy and comedy about sisters arguing in a funeral home, will be read Tuesday as part of Cincinnati Playwright Initiative’s New Voices series at the Aronoff. And on Oct. 1 her first published novel, “Fantasy Daze,” was released, erotica set in downtown Cincinnati. (Pause and contemplate.)

We had an e-mail Q&A, and here it is:

Why did you decide to start writing plays?
Stoner-Barone: I was intrigued by the story about the cow that jumped over a slaughterhouse fence and was trying to fashion a story about her. 

I wrote it first as a dark novella in the vein of John Gardner's “Grendel,” the Beowulf legend told from the monster's point of view.  Then I wrote it as a children's picture book with my own primitive drawings. 

At the time, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park was looking for submissions of children's plays, so I entered the application process.  To learn how to draft a manuscript in playwriting format, I attended a workshop given by Kevin Barry at the Know Theatre Tribe when it was located at Gabriel's Corner.  I turned my novella into a one-act children's play, and that's when I also found out about Cincinnati Playwright Initiative's developmental workshop competition. 

I entered the competition and won a developmental workshop of my play, “A Moomoir.”  It was staged at the Contemporary Arts Center on May 17, 2005.  Tom Fox, who is directing my present play, “Mourning View,” directed “A Moomoir.”
 
What inspired this play?
STONER-BARONE: I was on top of the world when “A Moomoir” was presented at the CAC; I was starting to feel as if, finally, I was finally getting somewhere with my so-called writing career. 

That was on Tuesday, May 17, 2005.  On Saturday, May 21, I got a frantic call from my brother, calling to let me know that he and my parents had been in a terrible car accident and that I needed to come home right away. 

That was the beginning of the end for my father; the car accident isn't what killed him, but he'd been declining for months -- without my knowledge -- and all during that awful summer he went steadily downhill. He passed away on Tuesday, August 30.  Ironically enough -- and that was one of daddy's favorite phrases, “ironically enough” -- he would have been 81 years old if he'd lived to see August 31. 
 
So, my short answer is I'd been brooding a great deal about death when I started writing “Mourning View.”
 
How did “Mourning View,” which started as a one-act in 2006, become a full-length play?
STONER-BARONE: My ultimate goal is to see a play of mine make it to a full-blown production.  I may as well say it, I'd like to win a Tony!  And I felt that a one-act play wasn't going to make it to that level.  It has to be a two-act play if it's going to be taken seriously as the kind of play that a theatre company would want to mount as a production.  I also felt that a second act was necessary.
 
Is the play tragedy, comedy or something in between?
The play is set in a funeral home and there are sisters fighting.  It's a comedy.  It's a tragedy.  It's a little of both.  I was amazed at the audience reaction to the first staging. Audience members laughed and cried.  It was simply amazing.
 
Anything happening with your other plays?
No, not yet, but I've been thinking about “A Moomoir,” and I think it needs something more.  I was contemplating turning it into a musical.  One thing that I've learned about playwriting, is that it can take years to develop a play to the point that it's ready to be fully staged; in that respect, playwriting is very different from novel writing.
 
And what about this erotic novel? It’s the first book you've had published?
STONER-BARONE: I've been writing, off and on, for the past 19 years. Yes, 19 years. I jotted up a list while working on my answers to these questions, and “Fantasy Daze” is my 20th manuscript.  It's an erotica novel, set in downtown Cincinnati!  It was released by Liquid Silver Books on Oct. 1. You can visit my web site at www.GwenWilliams.net; my publisher's web site is www.liquidsilverbooks.com.
 
What are you working on now?
STONER-BARONE: I just sent off a full manuscript to an e-publisher who markets young adult novels.  I haven't heard from that editor yet, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  I'm also in the middle of edits for my next erotica, “Snow White and Rose Red,” based on the Grimm Brothers' Fairy Tale, but with an erotic twist!

Jackie Demaline

posted by CinStages Buzz  # PermaLink 12:13 PM 0 Comments

What a coincidence. German Theatre Abroad, on its mission of taking theater cross-country (16 states, seven weeks, 6,000 miles, 24 cities en route to L.A.), in its Road Theater USA project, made a scouting trip through Cincy during the Fringe, found a little Rhineland (who knew?) and hooked up with the Know Theatre folk.

Know artistic director Jason Bruffy used some of his spare time (that’s a joke) during the Fringe to take the company on a neighborhood tour and “they were pleasantly surprised” by the connections, from Over-the-Rhine, to btats and metts, to chicken dances. “They didn’t know the extent,” says Bruffy. “They were very excited.”

Now Know presents, for one night only, on Oct. 19 (already the busiest week of the year on the theatrical calendar) the company’s Road Theatre USA. Five actors (three Germans, two from the U.S.) and two Austrian video artists and a GTA support team will perform Start Up, written especially for the project by Roland Schimmelpfennig, Germany’s most produced contemporary German playwright. For more info about the project, co-produced by NYC’s P.S. 122, check out  http://www.g-t-a.de/english/news/.

With The Pillowman up at Know, Start Up will be at nearby 1201 Jackson, which was also pulled into service for the Fringe Festival.

According to Bruffy, the comedy “deals playfully with US and German stereotypes, pioneer romanticism and cinematic myths.” He also remarks on the combination of the filmed “reality” of the tour and the theatrical “fiction” of the play.

Curtain time 8:30 p.m. Oct. 19, tickets $15, call the box office at 513-300-5669 or visit www.knowtheatre.com.

Jackie Demaline

posted by CinStages Buzz  # PermaLink 12:02 PM 0 Comments

CCM associate prof of musicology bruce d. mcclung (he uses lowercase and who are we to argue) has won the so-prestigious 2007 Kurt Weill Prize for outstanding scholarship on 20^th century musical theater for “Lady in the Dark: Biography of a Musical” (Oxford University Press, 2006.).

According to the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, “In his production history incorporating scripts, correspondence, clippings from Gertrude Lawrence’s scrapbooks, and other artifacts, mcclung traces a revolutionary and controversial work through its Broadway run, national tour and revivals.”

“Lady in the Dark” also received the George Freedley Award 2006 Special Jury Prize from the Theatre Library Association.

Jackie Demaline

posted by CinStages Buzz  # PermaLink 10:36 AM 0 Comments

Last summer I drove down to the first annual International Mystery Writers’ Festival in Owensboro, Ky., of all places and had a pretty good time – and had some darned good barbecue over a long weekend.

Mystery fans should be intrigued to find that the 2008 festival will be twice as long with 16 new works including a musical, full-lengths, one-acts, screenplays (last year performed as radio theater) but most keenly interesting is that the festival does go international in 2008, with a “lost” work by Agatha Christie, “Chimneys,” which apparently went missing in 1931 (according to festival organizers) for a few decades until it was unearthed in Calgary, Alberta (again I say, of all places) where it was premiered in 2003, followed by a European premiere in Scotland.

The U.S. premiere will be in Owensboro, and also on the bill is a new play starring Sherlock Holmes, “The Final Toast,” written by Edgar winner Stuart Kaminsky, With Christie, does give an international flavor to the proceedings.  

Alert to local playwrights with a mystery script in the drawer (or the computer): manuscripts are being accepted through Nov. 30. (Submit sooner than later, last year there were 1,000 entries. For more information visit www.newmysteries.org.

Jackie Demaline

posted by CinStages Buzz  # PermaLink 9:01 AM 1 Comments

Falcon Players has special offers and events attached to “The Diary of Anne Frank,” opening Oct. 12. There will be a nightly drawing for a free copy of John Lennon cover CD “Instant Karma: the Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur.” On Oct. 20, Holocaust survivor Conrad Weiner will lead a post-performance discussion.

Falcon is using the 1997 adaptation of “Anne Frank,” which includes some dairy entries not included in earlier versions and with a greater Jewish sense of identity restored.

According to Falcon artistic director Ted Weil, the more recent adaptation provides “more important insight and perspective….the characters, especially Anne, are more fallible and more human.”

In case you don’t know, Instant Karma is a new CD of John Lennon songs covered by artists including: Green Day, U2, Aerosmith, Black Eyed Peas and Christina Aguilera. Falcon is sponsoring the drawing, Weil says, to raise awareness of the genocide in Darfur.

Holocaust survivor Weiner was born in a small town in Bucovina, once part of Romania (currently part of the Ukraine) in 1938. His family marched for two months to a forced labor camp when he was four.

Weiner, says Weil, “is committed to educating the community about the Holocaust, his experience and the lessons, despite the difficulty of sometimes recounting it.”

“It must be done to keep our promise, ‘Never Again,’” Weiner states. “We must learn from history in order to not repeat it. We see many examples of intolerance everyday. It is unfortunate that today, in the 21st century, we still have wars, ethnic cleansing, poverty and hunger. Education and dialogue are key elements in sharing the world in peace and harmony. I believe that adversity, if it does not kill you, makes you stronger.”

“Anne Frank” will be performed at the Monmouth Theatre at (636 Monmouth Street) in Newport at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays Oct.