Tag Archives: Hit The Lights Theatre Co.

Hit the Lights! Theater Co. Presents HORSETALE at Cincinnati Fringe Festival

CFF21_Hit the Lights logoStreaming online June 4th – June 19th, 2021
For tickets visit cincyfringe.com/horsetale/

Hit the Lights! Theater Co. (HTL!) is pleased to stream its original shadow musical as part of the 2021 Digital Cincy Fringe Festival. In HORSETALE, two musicians share their story of love and heartbreak through the adventure of a horse and its tail that become separated and in their search for each other, find themselves. HTL! weaves together handmade shadow puppetry, six vintage overhead projectors, original folk/rock music, Looney Tunes homages, and American iconography to tell a story as wild and expansive as the West itself.

HIT THE LIGHTS! THEATER CO. is an award-winning company created out of an artistic agreement to tell simple stories in unconventional ways. Hit the Lights! follows the motto ‘Less Talk, More Rock.’ This motto drives the creative process, culminating in work that is hyper-theatrical in nature: performers multitasking onstage in real time to create the technical, musical, and narrative components of a story simultaneously. Believing that motion, color, sound, and atmosphere are more evocative and experiential than spoken text, a heavy emphasis is placed on dialogue-less, action-oriented storytelling. Consequently, this allows the work to connect with audience members of varying theatrical experience, physical ability, cultural background, and age.

Past highlights include original works DUNGEON (Audience Pick of the Fringe at the Cincinnati Fringe and Editors Pick at the Minnesota Fringe), WHALES (nominated for three New York Innovative Theater Awards including Outstanding Innovative Design, Outstanding Original Music, and Outstanding Premiere Production of a Play, Artist Pick and Venue Award Minnesota Fringe), an original site-specific immersive theater experience in collaboration with the Know Theatre of Cincinnati THE OTHER RHINE, developing original shadow puppets for Vogue Magazine’s March 2021 cover shoot featuring Gigi Hadid, a live cinematic puppet adaptation of Gimlet Media’s hit podcast The Habitat, a collaboration with New York Botanical Garden’s Spooky Pumpkin Nights; a live music video for Grammy Award-nominated Sammy Miller and the Congregation, and being nominated for an Off-Broadway Alliance Award for “Best Family Show” for their theatrical adaptation of the book TASTE THE CLOUDS commissioned by New York City Children’s Theater. HTL!’s Off-Broadway credits include performances at Dixon Place, La MaMa ETC, New Victory Theater Lab Works, The Flea Theater, Franklin Stage Company, and Ars Nova in NYC where they were Company in Residence in 2018 and 2019.

More info: hitthelights.org

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Just in Time for Halloweeen: Discover a New Horror in THE OTHER RHINE

A world premiere collaboration between Know Theatre of Cincinnati
and Hit the Lights! Theatre Co.

Taking place at The Mockbee
October 21-31, 2016

“Don’t Drink the Water…”

ktc_the-other-rhine-logoKnow Theatre of Cincinnati brings an all-new collaboration your way this Halloween with The Other Rhine – a Lovecraftian Horror.

The invitation seems innocent enough: You’ve been invited to join a special tour of an old abandoned brewery, right in the heart of Cincinnati’s Brewery District. It says “With your help, we can bring the Bellevue Brewery back to its former glory!”

But things may not be what they seem – and sometimes, buildings are abandoned for a reason.

Discover the horror where truth and fiction blur in this world premiere collaboration between Know Theatre and New York’s Hit the Lights! Theatre Co.

Inspired by New York’s hit immersive theatre experience Sleep No More and the classic horror writing of H.P. Lovecraft, The Other Rhine begins as a one-hour walking tour, where along the way a story of horror unfolds all around you.

Through this theatrical journey, you’ll discover a whole new side of The Mockbee, the recently reopened performance and events space that was home to the Bellevue Brewery more than 100 years ago (and, more recently, the setting for Walk The Moon’s Anna Sun video).

Winding through dark corridors, up and down darkened stairwells, you discover the story of The Other Rhine, uncovering dark legends buried deep beneath the streets of Cincinnati.

The Other Rhine has been a work in progress for more than three years now – but it wasn’t until Know Theatre Producing Artistic Director Andrew J. Hungerford saw HtL’s 2015 Cincinnati Fringe Festival hit dungeon that he knew how his dream of an immersive Lovecraftian horror performance should come to life.

Says Andrew,

“HTL! has such a unique theatre making aesthetic, one built on the work of an ensemble and expressed through the use of light and shadow: I immediately realized they were exactly the artists to build a totally unique theatrical experience inspired by the works of Lovecraft. And it’s such a privilege to give this young theatre company a laboratory in which they can stretch their artistic muscles to create their largest work to date.”

The Other Rhine is a homecoming for Hit the Lights! — all but one of this New York-based ensemble are alumni of University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music (UC-CCM).

And Hit the Lights! is most excited to be creating work that is hyper-specific to its location, right here in the Queen City. Says HtL’s Casey Scott Leach,

“Cincinnati is an incredible city with a long and unique history, which HTL! hopes to bring to life and twist ever so slightly to send chills down the audience’s spines. Due to the nature of the story, the history of the city, and the building it is presented in, The Other Rhine truly can only be told to and for Cincinnati.”

This production has given HtL! the chance to bring their unique style of devised theatre creation to a new generation of CCM students, as several current students have become joined the project as performers.

If you want to experience The Other Rhine, beware: Tour capacity is very limited, so get your tickets early!

The Other Rhine tour lasts a little under an hour, and features multiple timed entries per night: 7:00pm, 8:00pm, 9:00pm.

You’ll select your start time after you select the show date at time of purchaser.

The Mockbee’s bar will open at 6:30 on each performance night, so feel free to come hang out before your showtime and enjoy this truly unique gem of Cincinnati architecture and brewing history.

Please note: Because The Other Rhine involves 45-60 minutes of walking through dimly lit spaces with uneven ground and numerous stairs, performances are not accessible to those with limited mobility. All patrons will be required to sign a waiver before entry. Audience members under 18 must be accompanied by an adult.

Created and performed by: Hit the Lights! Theatre Co.

Also featuring: Sarah Durham, Ryan Garret, Spencer Lackey, Marissa Mishi, Julia Netzer, Josh Reiter, Michaela Tropeano

Calendar Listing

Production:   The Other Rhine by Hit the Lights! Theatre Co.

When:          October 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31

Show start times: 7:00 PM, 8:00 PM, and 9:00 PM

Where:         The Mockbee, 2260 Central Parkway Cincinnati, OH 45214

Tickets:        $35 regular Price

$25 Student tickets available for the October 22 performances only

Tickets can be purchased by visiting knowtheatre.com or calling                                              513.300.5669 (KNOW).

About the Artists:
Hit the Lights! Theater Co. is an award-winning artistic agreement based in New York City.
We make theater.   We make music.  We make online content.
We are committed to telling simple stories in unconventional ways that explore the profound, and the profoundly silly. the disciplined and the irreverent. creative and mundane. goofy and delight.

We’ll do that by making knee-slapping, gut-wrenching, brain-bending, heart-pounding, and ultimately entertaining entertainment.  We are inspired by anime, by video games, by hip hop and indie rock, by reality television and literature, mythology and cat videos, world politics and pirate jokes. but mostly less talk, more rock.

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.

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 Carol Ann & Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation, helping to change our communities for the better through collaboration and innovation, and 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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