Tag Archives: Know Theatre of Cincinnati

The Know Theatre of Cincinnati Begins 23rd Season with FEAST. by Megan Gogerty

KTC_Feast promoAugust 7 – September 20, 2020
You are cordially invited to an on-line performance.

The Know kicks off their upcoming twenty-third season, “We Can Rebuild It,” with FEAST., a bespoke-online production. 

You are cordially invited to break bread, virtually, with one of the seminal monsters of literature: Grendel’s Mother, from the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf. Share in her hard won victories and shattering griefs. Turn your collective gaze upon the wreckage of the 21st century, and find what it takes to maybe build a better world.

And have a little treat. You deserve it.

FEAST. comes from playwright/actor/comedian Megan Gogerty, whom Cincinnati audiences may remember from her solo show Lady Macbeth and Her Pal, Megan, which nabbed the Audience Pick of the Fringe Award at the 2017 Cincinnati Fringe Festival. Although a version of FEAST. existed in the pre-pandemic era, Megan has retooled the script to be an explicitly made-for-digital product.

The Know’s Associate Artistic Director, Tamara Winters, who will direct the production, offered this thought on creating this exclusively digital product:

“First off, not to disrespect Zoom theatre, but this is not that. This is a story you’ll experience from the screen of your choice, but it’s not shoehorned into the medium. Megan’s script invites you in to a specially designed experience. You’re being invited into a space designed for you, by a character who has had millennia to stew and plot and plan and rage before she opens herself up to you, in this moment. Because she needs something from you. Because she has an ancient wrong to correct. Are you brave enough to accept the invitation?

The role of Agathae will be played by local stage star Jennifer Joplin. Jennifer has lit up theatres all over the region, but Know audiences will remember her as Virginie, the woods-witch/taxidermist of The Man-Beast (2018), and as Terry, the hard-bitten mother of The Girl in the Red Corner (2019). Her autobiographical solo show, The MILF Also Rises, premiered at the 2019 Cincinnati Fringe Festival to critical acclaim and packed houses.

These online performances will begin at 8 PM on Wednesday through Saturday and 3 PM on Sunday matinees. To allow for any unexpected internet outages, dead batteries, or similar technological inconveniences audience members might potentially encounter, the footage will remain available to ticketholders for 24 hours after the beginning of the performance.

The Know has heard audiences say that they miss the interactive nature of live theatre. Although the Know isn’t quite ready to reopen its Jackson Street mainstage, the production team has devised a special at-home treat to keep that in-the-room magic alive. For a small upcharge, audiences can purchase a ticket that comes with a special “party favor” that will be delivered by mail. Agathae, as the evening’s hostess, will direct those audience members with the party favor on when and how to open the package as a part of the performance. To allow for shipping time, the Know requests that tickets that include the party favor be purchased at least one week ahead of the performance date.

A major part of the Know Theatre’s mission has been its Welcome Wednesday performances, which offer discounted and free tickets every Wednesday of a show’s run. The Know is very pleased to continue to offer Welcome Wednesday programming for this online performance. Wednesday tickets are available for advance purchase for $5, with the possible add-on of the party favor. All remaining tickets for the Wednesday performances will be available for free beginning at 7 PM the day of the performance, just like regular Welcome Wednesdays at the Know. (Please be aware that due to the necessary shipping time, the party favor is not available to purchase with the free Welcome Wednesday tickets.)

FEAST. is an uncompromisingly brash reflection on devotion, grief, and the communal responsibility to stoke the fires of revolution. It’s a bold mash-up of a classical story with bracing modernity, painting a world where mythology comes crashing into pop culture.

If your blood calls out to build a better world in the names of those you love, you’ll love FEAST., running August 7 to September 20, online from the Know Theatre. 

Tickets are available now at knowtheatre.com

CAST

  • Jennifer Joplin* as Agathae
    *Member of Actors’ Equity Association appearing under a Guest Artist contract 

PRODUCTION TEAM

  • Director: Tamara Winters
  • Scenic and Lighting Designer: Andrew J. Hungerford
  • Costume Designer: Noelle Wedig-Johnston
  • Props Designer: Kayla Williams
  • Stage Manager: Meghan Winter
  • Technical Director: Henry Bateman

CALENDAR LISTING

Production:               FEAST. by Megan Gogerty

When:                        8:00 PM August 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, September 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19.

3 PM August 16, 23, 30, September 6, 13, 20.

Where:                       Online streaming.

Tickets:

  • $20 regular price tickets (no “party favor”)
  • $30 regular ticket plus party favor
  • $35 “Living Wage” ticket supporting working artists in Cincinnati, party favor included
  • $15 rush tickets, beginning one hour before performance when available.
  • FREE tickets are available on Wednesdays one hour before the performance as part of the Know’s Welcome Wednesday experience.
  • Advance tickets to Welcome Wednesday are $5, or $15 with the party favor.

FEAST. is made possible through the support of its Production Sponsor, the Morse and Betty Johnson Foundation. 

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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Tickets for FEAST. Opening Aug. 7 at Know Theatre Are Now Available

KTC_Feast promoKnow is giving you two different ways to experience this bespoke online production.

Option one: just a ticket, no frills, that gets you access to the performance date of your choice.

Option two: you can purchase a ticket with a … let’s call it “a special party favor” that we’ll ship to the address you enter when you purchase your ticket. It will add a special interactive element to your evening with your hostess (she’ll tell you when and how to open it up).

To keep our Welcome Wednesday spirit alive, we’re still offering discounted tickets (both with and without the party favor add-on) for the Wednesday performance dates, and we’ll also have a very limited number of free Welcome Wednesday tickets, available one hour before Wednesday performances, just like always. (Due to the tight timing of the free Welcome Wednesday tickets, we are not able to offer the party favor option on the free tickets.)

Performances begin at 8 PM on the performance date, and the footage will be available to you for the following 24 hours, in case of sudden internet outages or similar inconveniences.

If you missed last week’s cast announcement of FEAST., you can check it out here.

Click here to purchase tickets.

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Cast Announced for FEAST at Know Theatre

HRTC_Joplin-Jennifer-2017

Jennifer Joplin.

Know Theatre of Cincinnati promised you that we’d bring you breaking news before the ink on the contract was dry, and we are so excited to deliver on that promise! Starring in our upcoming season opener FEAST will be local stage star Jennifer Joplin, who has appeared previously at the Know as Terry, the spiky, struggling mom in last season’s Girl in the Red Corner (pictured at left with the cast of the show), and as Virginie, the hermit/taxidermist of 2018’s The Man-Beast. Jennifer’s one-woman show, The MILF Also Rises, premiered at the 2019 Cincinnati Fringe Festival to much acclaim and sold-out houses.

FEAST is an invitation to break bread with one of the seminal monsters of literature: Grendel’s Mother, from the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf. As her companion, you share in her hard-won victories and shattering griefs, and as she gazes on the twenty-first century with the full power of her incandescent fury and all-consuming love, she becomes a beacon of the power it takes to burn away injustice and build a better wold.

We’re not quite ready to open our Jackson Street doors again, so FEAST will be only available to watch online. We know some of you have already been dabbling in the recent digital-theatre boom, but we’re pretty sure this show isn’t going to be quite like anything you’ve seen yet.

FEAST will be available to stream August 7 – Sept 20. Tickets will be available to purchase next week!

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CFF20: Fringe Encores/Pick of the Fringe

CFF_Orange logo text onlyDue to overwhelming artist and audience demand, we’ve extended our “Best of the Fest” Fringe Picks through Saturday, June 27. Tickets for will be available for PROXIMITY, LOVE AND OTHER LURES, KILLJOY, OH, FORBIDDEN CITY! and m-o-u-s-e, until 11pm that day. If you’ve already purchased access to any of these five titles: you can continue to watch them through that date.

The 2020 Cincinnati Fringe Festival slate of award-winners is:

  • Audience Pick – FORBIDDEN CITY from Martin Dockery
  • Fringe Next Pick – TALES FROM THE CUCKOO CLUB from Caldera Studios!
  • Artists’ Pick – m-o-u-s-e from Ink Blot Inc.
  • Critics’ Pick – PROXIMITY from Pones
  • Producer’s Pick – LOVE AND OTHER LURES from Dr. Dour and Peach!
  • All-Access Pick – KILLJOY, OHIO from Queen City Flash!

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Seven Years Later, the Creators of PETUNIA AND CHICKEN Return to Cincy Fringe

7 years later, married and still very much in love, the creators of PETUNIA AND CHICKEN return to Cincinnati. And this time, they’ve got live music

CFF20_Petunia and Chicken3

Since premiering this show at the 2013 Cincinnati Fringe Festival and winning the Artists’ Pick Award, Carrie Brown and Karim Muasher of Animal Engine Theatre Company have taken it to fringe festivals and schools across North America. After collaborating last year with violinist and composer Natalia Steinbach to add live music to the show, they’re pleased to present this 2019 recording of PETUNIA AND CHICKEN to Cincinnati audiences. The audiences that started it all!

CFF20_Petunia and Chicken2About the Show
Petunia and Chicken is a 4 time award winning play for audiences of all ages, inspired by the works of Pulitzer Prize winning author Willa Cather. It brings to life a heartwarming, funny, and thrilling story of immigration and love on the turn of the century prairie.

Petunia, a Czech immigrant girl determined to tame the wild land around her, meets Chicken, a Nebraska farm boy with dreams of great adventures. As the joys of their youth give way to the harsh realities of adulthood, they struggle to stay together. Performed by just two actors and a violinist in Animal Engine’s unique physical style. They create sprawling fields of wheat, bustling train stations, rain-soaked kisses and more with just their bodies, a hat, a scarf, and folk songs.

About Animal Engine
Animal Engine is the collaboration between Karim Muasher and Carrie Brown. We are two movement-based theatre artists who met while training at the London International School of Performing Arts, and found that we had a shared love of reading. Our mission is to make old stories new, by creating and performing uniquely physical plays that reimagine classic works of literature for the stage.

Working from a place of serious playfulness, we create our plays using research, improvisation, movement, and music. Fascinated with the simple act of storytelling, our plays are performed by just the two of us, with simple design elements, and are often accompanied by a live musician.

CFF20_Petunia and Chicken1We believe in healing, that the artistic experience can help people learn and grow, so the characters in our plays persevere and become better versions of themselves in spite of difficult and often tragic circumstances. Our plays are also written for multi-generational audiences, because healing is as necessary for a child as it is for a grandparent. Our plays have been called “hard to beat” by the Washington Post and “remarkably clever” by City Beat Cincinnati. We perform and teach in our hometown of New York City, across the United States, and internationally at theaters, festivals, and schools.

Where/When:
Online as part of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, May 29-June 13
Digital talkback Saturday, May 30 @ 6pm (facebook and youtube)

Tickets:
$10-$15, available at cincyfringe.com

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