Here’s what the Fringe community cheered into additional time on stage
The 21st Annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival has showcased jaw-dropping talent and artistic innovation from across North America in all of its 36 productions, but the artists, critics, and Festival producers were given a chance to vote three Primary Lineup shows into one additional performance at the Know Theatre MainStage on the Festival’s closing day, June 15.
Let’s meet the winners!
At 5 PM on June 15, we begin with Songs Without Words (or, the Mendelssohn Play) from Jennifer Vosters out of Chicago, IL. Songs Without Words is the humorous, heartbreaking true story of one artistic soul inhabiting two very different artists. Solo performer Vosters brings composers Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn to life with a tour-de-force performance that wrestles gender and genius, family and fame, siblinghood and the power of art.
18th-century composer Fanny Mendelssohn is having a moment. She’s the subject of a recent documentary (Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn) plus a West End world-premiere comedy simply titled Fanny. Songs Without Words offers an intimate portrait of her, her famous brother Felix, and their very different destinies. Vosters was awarded the 2024 American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) Osborn Award for the script.
Next on the schedule at 6:45 is The Last Witch in Ireland: The Story of Bridget Cleary, from InBocca Performance out of Cincinnati, OH. In 1895, Michael Cleary declared his wife had been replaced by a changeling whom he’d burned and buried as he waited for his real wife to be returned. Who was Bridget Cleary, the last witch burned in Ireland? Who are we women – the wife or the changeling?
Bridget was a woman whose autonomy was stolen from her by the person she should have been able to trust above all others. In 2024, when so many communities are having their rights to physical autonomy stripped away, this story of power and legacy is both important history and deeply of-the-moment. InBocca Performance is a Cincinnati company with a celebrated history of innovative, collaborative multidisciplinary art, and Cincy Fringe audiences hail this show as “stunning” and “badass.”
The final encore performance of the 2024 festival is 1-Man No Show, from Isaac Kessler out of Toronto, ON, at 8:30. This riotously funny solo clown-show-meets-performance-art piece is described by Kessler himself as “the most theatrically anti-theatre show you’ve ever seen.”
Kessler is a 4-time Canadian Comedy Award nominee, and one half of the award-winning ClownProv juggernaut 2-Man No-Show alongside Ken Hall. Kessler says of his work that “the art of Clown & Bouffon unifies us in joyous rebellion, striking down hate with love,” while Cincy Fringe audiences have described 1-Man No-Show as “the funniest thing I’ve seen in years” and “I didn’t stop laughing the whole time – I laughed until I cried.”
Visit cincyfringe.com for more details and to purchase tickets, or phone the box office at 513-300-5669.
Know Theatre is Cincinnati’s Theatrical Playground. The Know showcases unexpected voices, new works, and plays that embrace the inherent theatricality of the live experience. Know Theatre seeks to be a place where artists and audiences feel welcome to take artistic risks, creating work that is cutting edge and accessible.
The 19th Annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival is made possible by a generous partnership with our neighbors, the Art Academy of Cincinnati and 3CDC.
Know Theatre’s work is made possible, in part, by the generosity of community contributions to the ArtsWave Campaign.
The Ohio Arts Council helps fund Know Theatre with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence, and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.
Know Theatre is also supported by the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, which provides a simple, powerful, and highly personal approach to giving.
Know Theatre is a member of Theatre Communications Group and an Associate Member of the National New Play Network.
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