Category Archives: Press Releases

March 2, 2013 · 5:54 pm

PIP Presents THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL March 9-April 7

PIP_A Trip to Bountiful(CINCINNATI) – The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park will continue its Marx Theatre season with Horton Foote’s THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL. An African-American cast offers a subtle new perspective on the universal themes of this life-affirming play, which begins previews March 9 and continues through April 7.

Trapped in a cramped Houston apartment with her son and his self-indulgent wife, Carrie Watts fantasizes about realizing her greatest ambition: returning to the Gulf Coast town of Bountiful and seeing her beloved childhood home one last time. Armed with her latest pension check, a wily stubbornness and limitless determination, Carrie embarks on the inspirational journey of a lifetime.

Foote, who died in 2009 at the age of 92, was described as “a writer’s writer” in his New York Times obituary. Texas-born, he always retained his identity as a chronicler of small-town values. Foote’s career, which spanned more than 60 plays and films, began with acting and quickly gravitated to writing. THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL was originally produced in 1953 as a NBC-TV teleplay starring Lillian Gish as Carrie Watts. It has since appeared on Broadway, in London and in an off-Broadway revival, as well as the 1985 film version which brought Foote an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay and Geraldine Page an Oscar as Best Actress. Foote’s film career brought him two Academy Awards, for the screenplay adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and his original screenplay for Tender Mercies.

According to Artistic Director Blake Robison, “Horton Foote is one of the great American playwrights. His plays display the same complexity as his screenplays for To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies. He writes characters and situations with great depth and pathos. I believe that all audiences will respond to this moving story – and see it with new perspective because of our casting choices.”

The cast for THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL features Lizan Mitchell as Carrie Watts. Mitchell has appeared on Broadway in Electra, Having Our Say and So Long on Lonely Street. Other cast members include Stephen Bradbury as Sheriff/Ensemble, Doug Brown as Roy/Ensemble, Shannon Dorsey as Thelma, Tyrone Mitchell Henderson as Ludie Watts and Rachel Leslie (You Can’t Take It With You) as Jessie Mae Watts.

Timothy Douglas, who was recently appointed as an associate artist for the Playhouse, will direct the THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL. The play was originally conceived by Douglas with an African-American cast as a co-production in 2011 for Round House Theatre, where Blake Robison was producing artistic director, and The Cleveland Play House.

According to Douglas, “This production of The Trip to Bountiful was first and foremost inspired as a project for the specific talents of Lizan Mitchell.”

He continues, “However, this Horton Foote classic has universal richness and depth to spare, so that channeling its timeless coming-of-age journey through the black-American experience – along with all the social relevance and challenges that accompany it – such an event teases even deeper layers of nuance out of the play, which adds meaningful impact while still confidently contained within the boundaries of the playwright’s original intent.”

The design team for THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL includes Set Designer Tony Cisek, Costume Designer Karen Perry and Lighting Designer Christopher Studley.

Prices for THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL range from $30 – $70, depending on day and seat location, and are subject to change. Tickets are just $30 for the preview performances at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 9; 2 p.m. Sunday, March 10; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 12; and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 13. Some restrictions apply. The official opening night is Thursday, March 14 at 8 p.m.

Performances take place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sundays.

Tickets to THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL are on sale now. For more information, call the Playhouse box office at 513-421-3888 (toll-free in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana at 800-582-3208) or visit http://www.cincyplay.com. Call 513-345-2248 for TDD accessibility.

The Playhouse is fully accessible. Audio enhancement receivers, large print programs and complete wheelchair access are available.

The Playhouse is supported, in part, by the generosity of the tens of thousands of individuals and businesses that give to ArtsWave.

The Ohio Arts Council helps fund the Playhouse with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.

The Playhouse also receives funding from the Shubert Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Special Performances

Meet the Artists
These free programs allow audiences to interact with cast members and others associated with the production following the show.

  • 2 p.m. Sunday, March 17
  • 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 20
  • 8 p.m. Thursday, April 4
  • 2 p.m. Sunday, April 7

Audio Described Performance

  • 4 p.m. Saturday, March 30 

Signed Performance

  • 2 p.m. Sunday, April 7 

Playhouse Perspectives
A free, pre-show lecture series featuring theatre artists and experts. Funding provided by Roderick and Barbara Barr. The featured speaker will be The Trip to Bountiful Director Timothy Douglas. Time: Sunday, March 24 at 6 p.m.

Dining Options

Karlo’s Bistro at the Playhouse offers full-service dining prior to most evening performances. Dinners include salad, entrée and dessert. Reservations are required by noon on the day of the show. The price is $27. Karlo’s Casual Fare offers busy theatre patrons an alternative light, quick bite prior to the show. Options include salads, sandwiches, soups, pasta and desserts. No reservations are required. Credit cards are now accepted.

Sponsors

Production Sponsors: 

  • Bartlett & Co.
  • Moe and Jack Rouse

Artist Sponsor: Mardie O’Connor in memory of Dave O’Connor

The 2012-2013 Marx Theatre Series is presented by The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation

The 2012 -2013 Robert S. Marx Season Design Sponsor is Macy’s.

Leave a comment

Filed under Press Releases

Tagged as

February 28, 2013 · 8:23 am

NKU’s LEGALLY BLONDE Earns Two LCT Nominations

The cast.

The cast.

Panelists for the League of Cincinnati Theatres (LCT) have recognized Northern Kentucky University’s production of LEGALLY BLONDE with two LCT nominations for Choreography (Roderick Justice) and Ensemble in a Musical, as well as distinguishing it as a recommended production.

This hit Broadway musical is adapted from the motion picture and follows sorority star Elle Woods. Elle doesn’t take “no” for an answer, so when her boyfriend dumps her for someone “serious,” Elle puts down the credit card, hits the books, and sets out to go where no Delta Nu has gone before: Harvard Law. Along the way, Elle proves that being true to yourself never goes out of style.

Panelists praised Roderick Justice’s choreography as “humorous and clever”, “perfectly suited to the cheesy-licious songs”; “some of the best dancing I have ever seen at NKU.” The ensemble “committed 110%” and “kept this bon-bon of a show always lively, energetic, and enjoyable.” The panelists overall recommended the production, as one panelist aptly summed up:: “OMG! This was super fun! It totally, like, uplifted the audience. When a play MOVES, like, a whole audience to feel happy and smiling, that is like, awesome! It was a great confection of a play that exceeded my expectations.”

Legally Blonde continues through March 3rd. Tickets can be purchased at http://artscience.nku.edu/departments/theatre/boxoffice.html.

Final LCT awards will be determined at the end of the season and announced at the LCT gala in the spring.

The League of Cincinnati Theatres was founded in 1999 to strengthen, nurture and promote Cincinnati’s theatre community. LCT provides its member companies and individual members with education, resources and services to enhance the quality and exposure of the theatre community in Cincinnati and increase community awareness, attendance and involvement. More information about the League can be found at www.leagueofcincytheatres.com.

Leave a comment

Filed under Press Releases

Tagged as ,

February 25, 2013 · 1:21 pm

CCM’s Kurt Weill Festival Continues With Iconic Musical THREEPENNY OPERA

Running Feb. 28 through March 10, this dynamic new production features set designs by Tony Award-winning guest artist John Arnone

Sophomore Hannah Zazzaro as Sukey Tawdry & junior Max Clayton as Macheath. Photography by Mark Lyons.

Sophomore Hannah Zazzaro as Sukey Tawdry & junior Max Clayton as Macheath. Photography by Mark Lyons.

CINCINNATI, OH —The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music’s (CCM) year-long Kurt Weill Festival resumes this month with a dynamic new production of the iconic musical The Threepenny Opera. Composed by Kurt Weill with book and lyrics by dramatist Bertolt Brecht (adapted into English by Marc Blitzstein), The Threepenny Opera weaves the riveting tale of notorious bandit and womanizer Macheath (“Mack the Knife”) and his seedy companions in London’s underworld. Weill’s innovative score invented a new form of musical theatre, leading the way for such shows as Chicago and Cabaret.

CCM’s Mainstage Series production of this jazz-infused musical is directed by Robin Guarino, with musical direction by Roger Grodsky, choreography by Patti James and scenic designs by Tony Award-winning guest artist John Arnone.

The Threepenny Opera runs Thursday, Feb. 28, through Sunday, March 10, in UC’s Patricia Corbett Theater. Tickets are on sale now. This production contains mature subject matter.

Premiering in Berlin in 1928, The Threepenny Opera is a satirical take on traditional opera and operetta, perhaps best known for its opening ballad “Mack the Knife,” which has since been recorded by countless artists including Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra. The Threepenny Opera exhibits a segment of Weill’s eclectic body of work that is totally distinctive from the one audiences saw during CCM’s acclaimed revival of Weill, Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice’s opera Street Scene this past November.

THEATRE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS
Adapted from an 18th century ballad opera by John Gay (which itself was a parody of baroque composer George Frideric Handel’s operas), The Threepenny Opera is a work of “epic theatre,” designed to challenge conventional notions of property and art. A theatrical movement from the early to mid-20th century, epic theatre is characterized in part by keeping viewers aware that they are watching a play. “Brecht deliberately takes an ‘anti-naturalistic’ approach,” Guarino explains, “making the audience conscious that they are experiencing art, often by breaking the fourth wall and inspiring social action by disrupting the expectation of simple ‘threepenny’ entertainment.”

One of the ways that CCM’s production will underscore this tradition is by placing the show’s musicians on stage and in costume. “Brecht wanted the music to actually interrupt the play,” says CCM Associate Professor of Musicology and Kurt Weill expert bruce mcclung. “The original production had two different lighting systems so that it would be obvious to the audience when the cast switched from spoken dialogue to singing. Brecht wanted to highlight the break between the two.”

A TONY AWARD-WINNING ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE HELPS SET THE STAGE
Set in an anachronistic Victorian London, The Threepenny Opera features set designs by John Arnone, a Tony Award winner whose impressive list of credits for theatre, film and television spans nearly 40 years. As a founding member of New York’s Lion Theatre Company, Arnone designed numerous critically acclaimed productions including Music Hall Sidelights featuring Kathy Bates as Colette and K: Impressions of Kafka’s The Trial for which he received his first Obie Award. With director Des McAnuff, Arnone worked on over 15 productions at La Jolla Playhouse beginning in 1984, including works by Shakespeare, Moliere, Checkov and new works. They returned to Broadway in 1993 with The Who’s Tommy, which earned five Tony Awards including Best Set Design for Arnone, and the revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which won a Tony for its star Matthew Broderick. In addition to being a Tony Award and O­­­bie Award winner, Arnone is the recipient of the Drama Desk Award, NAACP Award, Ovation Award, New York Theater Wing Award, and others.

Arnone will serve as a master teacher-in-residence at CCM for the two weeks leading up to The Threepenny Opera’s opening, but his work on this production actually began last summer. Arnone and Guarino devised an impressive industrial setting for this musical based on Caspar Neher’s designs for the original 1928 production of The Threepenny Opera. Students in CCM’s Department of Theatre Design and Production are in turn bringing these designs to life one piece at a time. CCM senior Michael Feldmann serves as Technical Director for this production, overseeing the realization of Arnone’s substantial designs. “The steel portion of this set alone easily weighs over three tons,” he says. “The finished structure will show signs of rusting and aging,” he adds, suggesting that The Threepenny Opera’s set will be as weathered and compromised as the show’s morally ambiguous characters.

FREE PRE-SHOW TALKS EXPLORE THE GENESIS OF THE ENGLISH ADAPTATION OF THE THREEPENNY OPERA

University of Houston Professor of Music and Kurt Weill Foundation grant-recipient Howard Pollack will present a pair of free talks about The Threepenny Opera on Friday, March 1. Pollack will discuss Marc Blitzstein’s historic English adaptation of the musical at 2:30 p.m. in conjunction with CCM’s Thinking About Music Lecture Series. Pollack will present a second talk at 7:15 p.m., leading up to the 8 p.m. performance of The Threepenny Opera. Both talks take place in the Baur Room of UC’s Corbett Center for the Performing Arts in CCM Village.

PERFORMANCE TIMES

  • 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28
  • 8 p.m. Friday, March 1 *
  • 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, March 2
  • 2 p.m. Sunday, March 3
  • 8 p.m. Thursday, March 7
  • 8 p.m. Friday. March 8
  • 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, March 9
  • 2 p.m. Sunday, March 10 

*Note: The March 1 performance of The Threepenny Opera will be preceded by a FREE pre-show talk by noted Kurt Weill Scholar Howard Pollack at 7:15 p.m. in the Baur Room of the Corbett Center for the Performing Arts.

LOCATION
Patricia Corbett Theater, CCM Village
University of Cincinnati

PURCHASING TICKETS
Tickets to The Threepenny Opera are $30 for adults, $19 for non-UC students and $17 for UC students with valid ID. $12 student rush tickets will be available for the Saturday matinee performances beginning at 1 p.m. on March 2 and March 9; limit two rush tickets per student ID. This production contains mature subject matter.

Tickets can be purchased in person at the CCM Box Office, over the telephone at 513-556-4183 or online at ccm.uc.edu/boxoffice.

PARKING AND DIRECTIONS
Parking is available in the CCM Garage (located at the base of Corry Boulevard off Jefferson Avenue) and additional garages throughout the UC campus. Please visit uc.edu/parking for more information on parking rates.

For directions to CCM Village, visit ccm.uc.edu/about/directions.

ABOUT THE KURT WEILL FOUNDATION FOR MUSIC
The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music Inc. administers, promotes and perpetuates the legacies of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya. It encourages broad dissemination and appreciation of Weill’s music through support of performances, productions, recordings and scholarship; it fosters understanding of Weill’s and Lenya’s lives and work within diverse cultural contexts; and, building upon the legacies of both, it nurtures talent, particularly in the creation, performance and study of musical theater in its various manifestations and media. Learn more about the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music by visiting www.kwf.org.

CCM’s production of The Threepenny Opera is a contin­uation of a year-long festival funded in part by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music. Other upcoming festival events include “Into a Lamplit Room,” a cabaret night of the songs of Kurt Weill compiled and directed by CCM’s Patricia A. Corbett Distinguished Chair of Musical Theater Aubrey Berg and featuring students from the Musical Theatre program running at 7 p.m. on Sunday, March 3, and Sunday, March 10. The CCM Chamber Choir and Brass Choir will perform Weill’s Kiddush (Prayer for Sanctification) at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 10, and the CCM Chorale will perform “Ho Billy, O!” from Weill and Alan Jay Lerner’s 1948 musical Love Life at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, March 12.

For a full schedule of festival events, visit www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=16709.

Funded in part by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc., New York, NY

The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation: Season Presenting Sponsor and Musical Theatre Program Sponsor

ArtsWave: Community Partner

Macy’s: Mainstage Season Production Sponsor

The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) is recognized both nationally and internationally as one of the leading conservatories for the performing and electronic media arts, composition, scholarship and pedagogy.

CCM is the largest single source of performing arts events in Ohio with an annual calendar of nearly 1,000 performances and presentations, ranging from solo recitals to full-scale opera and musical theatre performances.

All event dates and programs are subject to change. For a complete calendar of events or to view CCM’s 2012-2013 season brochure visit our website at http://ccm.uc.edu.

UC’s College-Conservatory of Music – The Sound of Synergy

Leave a comment

Filed under Press Releases

Tagged as

February 22, 2013 · 3:32 pm

MPI Announces RED, WHITE AND TUNA

MPI_Red White and Tuna1

Danny Davies and Wayne Wright as two of the(ir) numerous citizens of Tuna, TX.

Mariemont Players presents RED, WHITE AND TUNA, a comedy by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard, at the Walton Creek Theater, 4101 Walton Creek Road (just East of Mariemont), March 8th through March 24th, 2013.

The third installment in the Tuna trilogy takes you through another satirical ride into the hearts and minds of the polyester-clad citizens of Texas’ third smallest town. The Tuna High School Class Reunion on July 4th sets the stage for a side-splitting spoof of life in rural America, several years after we left Bertha and Arles dancing at the end of A Tuna Christmas….!

RED, WHITE AND TUNA is directed by Norma Niinemets , produced by Cathy Lutts, and stars Danny Davies and Wayne Wright as the entire cast.

Performances will be at 8:00pm on March 7th (preview), March 8th, March 9th, March 14th, March 15th, March 16th, March 21st and March 22nd; at 7:00pm on March 10th; at 2:00pm & 7:00pm on March 17th; at 4:00pm & 8:00pm on March 23rd; and at 2:00pm on March 24th.

For more information or to order tickets for RED, WHITE AND TUNA call Betsy at 513-684-1236. All seats are reserved and cost $17 each; non-reserved seats for the preview only are $10 each.

Leave a comment

Filed under Press Releases

Tagged as ,

February 19, 2013 · 3:32 pm

PIP’s LEVELING UP Earns LCT Nomination

PIP_LevelingUp_1Panelists for the League of Cincinnati Theatres (LCT) have recognized Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park’s LEVELING UP with an LCT nomination for featured actor (Bobby Moreno), as well as distinguishing it as a recommended production.

Four 20-somethings struggle to transition from college to a “real” life that is rarely spent outside the glare of the video game monitors in their Las Vegas basement. What they find is a world of grown-up relationships that require levels of intimacy far beyond the social shield of technology. When one member of the circle is recruited by the NSA to pilot remote missiles, he’s ill-equipped to handle the moral ambiguities raised in this thought-provoking and often humorous world premiere about a generation straddling the fuzzy line between reality and virtual reality.

Panelists praised Bobby Moreno as Chuck, saying he gave the play “life and heart”; he was “the glue that held the show together.” Overall, the panelists thought the show was “an interesting look into the minds of today’s youth”: “thought-provoking”…”a tight and emotional ride”.

LEVELING UP continues through March 10th. Tickets can be purchased at www.cincyplay.com.

Final LCT awards will be determined at the end of the season and announced at the LCT gala in the spring.

The League of Cincinnati Theatres was founded in 1999 to strengthen, nurture and promote Cincinnati’s theatre community. LCT provides its member companies and individual members with education, resources and services to enhance the quality and exposure of the theatre community in Cincinnati and increase community awareness, attendance and involvement. More information about the League can be found at www.leagueofcincytheatres.com.

Leave a comment

Filed under Press Releases

Tagged as ,