Yearly Archives: 2013

DRIVING MISS DAISY Runs Feb. 15-24

FFL_Driving Miss DaisyDRIVING MISS DAISY
Presented by Fairfield Footlighters
Feb. 15-24
Fairfield

Directed by Heidi Schiller

Cast: Chessie Vigram as Daisy, Brian Roberts as Hoke & David Moak as Boolie

Daisy Wertham, a rich, crusty and sharp-tongued widow, is informed by her son, Boolie, that henceforth she must rely on the services of a chauffeur. He hires a thoughtful, unemployed black man, Hoke, whom Miss Daisy immediately regards with disdain and who, in turn, is not favorably impressed with his employer’s patronizing tone. But, in a series of absorbing, revealing scenes, spanning 25 years, the two grow ever closer and more dependent on each other.

  • Fri-Sat, Feb. 15-16 at 8pm
  • Sun, Feb. 17 at 2pm
  • Fri-Sat, Feb. 22-23 at 8pm
  • Sun, Feb. 24 at 2pm

Official page | Online ticketing |

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SWISS CHEESE, SWEETHEARTS and SHENANIGANS Runs Feb. 15-23

VPSSaSSWISS CHEESE, SWEETHEARTS and SHENANIGANS: A Festival of New, Short Comedies
Presented by Village Players
Feb. 15-23
Fort Thomas

Directed by Steve Myers

Cast of HOLEY SWISS DUET: Arny Stoller as Moise & Sheila Mudd Baker as Mrs. Goldstein

Cast of POWDER PUFF HEIST: Traci Taylor as Teller & Kristen Lundberg as Bank Robber

Cast of ONE FREAKY AFTERNOON IN THE OFFICE LUNCHROOM: Patrick Downey as Larry, Doug Bruening as Mike, Jef Brown as Birthday Fairy & Teresa Myers as Sheila/Claudia

Cast of BAD CONNECTION: Eric Day as Tim & Traci Taylor as Lydia

Cast of BREAKING AND ENTERING: Carrington Rowe as Penny, Ray Smith as Burglar & Dan Maloney as Darryl

Cast of SUNNY SIDE UP: Arny Stoller as Seamus & Sara Hamel as Dolly

A Max’s Deli customer kibitzes about Swiss cheese. A bank robber gets advice from the teller she’s robbing. A married couple’s attempt to spice up their relationship is thwarted by an intruder. Two conference attendees wake up in a hotel room together. An office worker is visited by a birthday fairy. And an elderly widow plays hard-to-get. Six short comedies by two up-and-coming Fort Thomas playwrights!

  • Fri-Sat, Feb. 15-16 at 8pm
  • Sun, Feb. 17 at 3pm
  • Thu-Sat, Feb. 21-23 at 8pm

Official page | FaceBook event |

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Thompson House Announces Ticket Sales for World Premiere of Local New Musical

TH_VariablesNEWPORT (KY.) – Tickets are now available for the world premiere production of the new musical VARIABLES – running Feb. 21, 23, 28 and March 2, 2013 – at Thompson House Newport, Greater Cincinnati’s live music and creative hub.

Tickets cost $12 each and are available exclusively online via TicketWeb (www.ticketweb.com). All seating is general admission. Thursday and Saturday evening performances are at 8 p.m. with doors opening at 7 p.m. Saturday matinee performances begin at 2 p.m. with doors opening at 1 p.m.

Full bar service will be available before curtain, at intermission and after each performance.

VARIABLES is the rock musical story of five friends out for a night on the town whose evening is interrupted by disturbing news. Local composer Jered S. Ryan conceived the comic story with serious undertones and wrote the score; Mark D. Motz wrote the book and lyrics. VARIABLES is their first collaboration and features such songs as “Smoke,” ”Drink,” “Missing,” “Lost,” “Hey” and “Understand.”

VARIABLES also marks the first time Thompson House has ventured into producing an original theatrical work.

For more information on Thompson House Newport, please visit www.thompsonhousenewport.com.

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TDW Selected for Midwest Play Festival

Bonnie Emmer as Beth Finnegan & Nate Netzley as Brian Dowd.

Bonnie Emmer as Beth Finnegan & Nate Netzley as Brian Dowd.

(Cheviot, Ohio) The Drama Workshop’s production of “Jerry Finnegan’s Sister”, by Jack Neary, has been selected to be the State of Ohio representative to the American Association of Community Theater Division 3 regional play festival. The festival will host community theaters from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. It will be held in April at the Schauer Arts & Activities Center in Hartford, Wisconsin.

The two-person comedy was named as the Ohio entry in the regional festival after TDW presented a one-hour excerpt at the Ohio AACT Festival, held this past weekend at Seton High School in Cincinnati. Additionally, Nate Netzley and Bonnie Emmer both received acting awards, and Gretchen Gantner and Bonnie Emmer received an award for costuming.

Supporting Netzley and Emmer at the state festival was a TDW production crew including director/producer Ray Persing, stage manager Tobie Braverman, sound designer Jason Cox, and backstage crew Elaine Volker and Cindy Emmer.

“Jerry Finnegan’s Sister” recounts the relationship between Brian Dowd, played by Netzley, and Beth Finnegan, played by Emmer. Ever since the Finnegans moved in next door, Brian has wrestled with an unrequited ‘something’ for his best friend’s sister. The trouble is that every time he’s spoken with her for more than 30 seconds, he’s ended up with his foot in his mouth. Now 23 and a junior in college, Brian has learned that Jerry Finnegan’s sister is planning to get married – and he knows that his time has now run out. The audience follows along as he relives his past encounters with Beth, while he tries to work up the courage to finally tell her how he feels.

“Jerry Finnegan’s Sister” was enthusiastically received by audiences over its opening weekend. The final three performances will be at the Glenmore Playhouse, 3716 Glenmore Avenue, Cheviot, over this coming weekend. Show times are 8 pm on January 25 and 26, and 2 pm on January 27. Seating is limited, and reservations are strongly encouraged. All seats are $15, and may be reserved by phoning the TDW ticket line at 513.598.8303, or online at http://www.thedramaworkshop.org.

For additional information, please contact Gretchen Gantner at 513.470.5516 or at groose1876@aol.com.

THE DRAMA WORKSHOP was founded in 1954. TDW is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to advancing education and promotion of theatrical arts. Based at the newly renovated Glenmore Playhouse in Cheviot, The Drama Workshop is widely recognized as one of greater Cincinnati’s most accomplished community theater organizations, garnering dozens of awards annually from the Association of Community Theaters. TDW productions have been regularly selected to represent the Southwest Ohio region at the Ohio Community Theater Association annual conference. Prospective members, and individuals or businesses interested in helping to advance TDW’s mission are encouraged to contact the group through our website at http://www.thedramaworkshop.org or by phone at 513-598-8303.

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Who Ya Gonna Call? Cincinnati’s Award-Winning Stage Musical Parody of ’80s Movie About Ghosts Return Home

DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS THE CEASE AND DESIST MUSICALCINCINNATI, OH- A popular ‘80s movie about ghosts and the people who bust them becomes a stage musical. Then the lawyers find out.

Falcon Theatre and Hugo West Theatricals proudly present DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS: THE CEASE AND DESIST MUSICAL, playing March 15 – 23, 2013 at the Monmouth Theatre (636 Monmouth Street) in Newport, KY. Recent smash hit of the Cincinnati and Indianapolis Fringe Festivals, and recipient of the League of Cincinnati Theatres “Outstanding Ensemble” award, DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS is now slimier than ever in a full-length evening of theatre. Tickets are $17 ($14 for students) and are available at www.falcontheatre.net or by calling (513) 479-6783.

DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS is presented as part of Falcon Theatre’s “Fourth Wall” series. It is intended for mature audiences only.

Critical Acclaim for DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS

  • “’Don’t Cross The Streams” defines Fringe: clever, loopy, messy, ambitious, well-performed, smartly directed….” – Jackie Demaline, Cincinnati Enquirer
  • “…a full-house audience clearly knew the film and shrieked with laughter as the tale spun wilder with each passing moment… [Tom Highley’s] performance is a comic tour de force.” – Rick Pender, Citybeat
  • “… the stageworthy verve of the actors, their quicksilver shifts of attention and comic focus and complementary costuming and lighting that never looks cheesy.” – Jay Harvey, Indianapolis Star
  • “Simply put, the entire show is hysterical… the cast comprises a phenomenal ensemble. Sean Mette’s performance as lovable doof Corky is uproarious.” – Myrydd Wells, Indianapolis Monthly 

“Who ya gonna call? The… Spirit Fighters.”
In DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS, a popular early ‘80s film about ghosts and the people who bust them is receiving a stage musical adaptation by a New Jersey theatre company. When their world is shattered by a “cease and desist” letter from the lawyers of Columbia Pictures, the cast and crew give the show a new title, make delirious changes to an increasingly unrecognizable script and recruit a handsomely clueless soap opera actor to play the role of Peter Venkman. Silly string ion streams are unleashed and a giant Twinkie kicks a man in groin in a madcap theatrical farce a la “Waiting for Guffman.”

Bigger, Longer, Slimier for Newest Production
Debuting at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival in May 2012 as produced by The Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center, DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS enjoyed a nearly sold-out run and popular and critical acclaim, including an “Outstanding Ensemble” nod from the League of Cincinnati Theatres. The show was subsequently invited to the August 2012 IndyFringe, becoming a festival highlight.

The Monmouth Theatre production will premiere an extended version of the musical, with several new scenes and musical moments. Jared Joplin* (Simon), Eamon Hill (Robert Duke) and Brad Myers (Leroy Fields, Guitarist) make their DCTS debuts among the rest of the original Cincinnati Fringe Festival cast.

A full list of performers and production team members is at the end of this release.

*Actor appears courtesy of the Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States.

Back off man, we’re playwrights
DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS is the first playwriting venture by co-writers Mike Hall and Joshua Steele. On an escalating dare, the two set out to write a faithful stage adaptation of a cinematic cultural touchstone. Shortly after undertaking the project, a conversation with a real-life intellectual property lawyer squarely dashed their hopes. Not to be denied, Steele and Hall fell back to the old creative adage: “write what you know,” and decided instead to tell the story of actors who set out to write the musical in question and are ordered by a Hollywood law firm to “cease and desist.” The result was the interpolation of silly string rifles, metal detectors, kabuki theatre, interpretive dance, a gospel choir and Stone Mountain into a raucous parody depicting the self-destruction of the American movie-based musical.

Tickets and Performances
Tickets to all performances of DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS are $17 for adults and $14 for students, and can be purchased online at http://www.falcontheatre.net, or by calling the box office voicemail (checked regularly) at (513) 479-6783.

Performance dates and times are as follows:

  • Friday, March 15, 8:00pm
  • Saturday, March 16, 8:00pm
  • Sunday, March 17, 2:00pm
  • Thursday, March 21, 8:00pm
  • Friday, March 22, 8:00pm
  • Saturday, March 23, 8:00pm

All performances take place at the Monmouth Theatre, 636 Monmouth Street, Newport, KY.

FT_Dont Cross the Streams

Photo from 2012 Cincinnati Fringe Festival production featuring Phillip Webster, Rodger Pille and Randy Lee Bailey.

DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS Cast and Production Team List

Cast

Cast Member Role

  • Randy Lee Bailey Sam
  • Lauren Carr Heidi
  • Cameron Jamarr Davis Clarence
  • Emma Greer Sharon
  • Tom Highley Hugo West
  • Jared Joplin* Simon
  • Sean Mette Corky
  • Brad Myers Leroy Fields
  • Eamon Hill Robert Duke
  • Rodger Pille Barry Matthews
  • Chris Stewart Teddy

*Actor appears courtesy of the Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States.

Production Team

  • Artist Capacity
  • Mike Sherman Director
  • Jay Goodlett Choreographer
  • Tim Schmall Lighting Designer
  • Jim Stump Costumer
  • Hunter Spoede Sound Designer
  • Ben Baczenas Asst. Sound Designer
  • Chakse Haverkos Video Designer
  • Erin McCoy Stage Manager
  • Mike Hall Playwright
  • Joshua Steele Playwright, Producer, Pianist

For More Information
Contact Joshua Steele at joshuatsteele@gmail.com, or (513) 293-6063.

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