Know Theatre of Cincinnati Announces the
2024–2025 Season
MainStage Season 27 is the first under the helm of new
Producing Artistic Director, Bridget Leak
MAINSTAGE
CAMP SIEGFRIED by Bess Wohl
Directed by Bridget Leak
Regional Premiere
September 13–28, 2024
Two teenagers fall in love at Summer Camp on Long Island, while slowly being indoctrinated by the political right. It’s 1938, the world is on the brink of war, and this wholesome summer camp is exclusively for American youth of German descent. From the playwright of “Grand Horizons,” (sold out run at Ensemble Theatre last season), comes a new story about the terrifying allure of fascism.
First Love. Third Reich.
Rated: PG-13
DIE HARD IS A CHRISTMAS MOVIE by A.J. Baldwin & Alexx Rouse
Directed by Tatiana Godfrey
World Premiere
December 6–22, 2024
A shot-for-shot remake of the perennial action classic, set inside the suburban home of a family on the brink of collapse.
It’s Christmas Eve and Lane has invited her estranged husband, Mac, back home to provide a “normal Christmas” to their kids. But when Mac picks Die Hard for the family’s movie night, the classic “Is this a Christmas Movie?” debate takes on a life of its own.
It doesn’t take long for an R-rating and a bunch of blood to expose old wounds and rekindle arguments, and Mac and Lane must grapple with what’s appropriate for their family and the holiday. By the time the explosions start, life is mirroring art and soon an office building full of terrorists feels like a much safer room to be in.
This Holiday Season, one family will risk it all to make it to Christmas morning together … or die hard trying.
Rated: PG-13
A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD by Samuel D. Hunter
Directed by Piper N. Davis
Regional Premiere
February 7–22, 2025
In a cubicle in small town Idaho, two single dads unexpectedly choose to bring one another into their fragile worlds. Keith, a mortgage broker and Ryan, a yogurt plant worker seeking to buy a plot of land that belonged to his family many decades ago, realize they share a “specific kind of sadness.”
At this desk in the middle of America, “loan talk” opens up into a discussion about the chokehold of financial insecurity and a bond over the precariousness of parenthood. With humor, empathy, and wrenching honesty, Hunter commingles two lives and deftly bridges disparate experiences of marginality. From the playwright of the Oscar-nominated film, The Whale.
A story of hope in a world that feels out of control.
Rated: PG
BLERDS by J. Corey Buckner
Directed by Derek Snow
World Premiere
April 4–19, 2025
BLERDS follows three Black middle school nerds as they set off across Washington, DC, on a quest to reach a Star Wars Convention and meet the coolest Jedi in the galaxy: Samuel L. Jackson.
A world premiere coming-of-age journey in the spirit of The Goonies and Stand By Me from J. Corey Buckner. An adventure quest about Black family joy and the perils of the very real world around them, as told through the lens of Star Wars fandom.
Not so long ago… three young teens set out on a quest to meet their idol.
Rated: PG
The 22nd Annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival
May 30–June 14, 2025
A 15-day celebration of curated new work and uncensored live performance from local, national, and international indie theatre artists. The Cincy Fringe is Cincinnati’s Summer Theatre Party.
SERIALS!
January 27, February 10 & 24, March 10 & 24, 2025
15-minute episodes of five different plays, every two weeks, for a total of five installments. Follow five shows each week as they try to find an ending!
Performance Times
All evening performances are at 7:30pm, matinee performances are at 2pm.
Ticket Prices
- Mainstage Subscription : $250
- Grants one ticket for each MainStage production plus entry to all five Serials! performances. Subscribers also receive discounted drink prices, a MainStage ticket for one guest and discounted ticket prices for guests.
- “Under 35” Subscription: $100
- One entry to each MainStage show (must show ID to qualify)
- Flex Pass : $120
- Four MainStage tickets in any combination ($160 value)
- Single tickets : $38
- Welcome Wednesdays: Each Wednesday during a MainStage production we offer Free Walk-Up tickets and $15 advance reservation tickets.
We are Know Theatre of Cincinnati: where artists and audiences can come together to produce and experience work that you haven’t seen before. We strive to build a community around viscerally theatrical, exciting new works.
The 22nd Annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival is made possible by a generous partnership with our neighbor the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
Know Theatre is supported by the generosity of tens of thousands of contributors to the annual ArtsWave Campaign, the region’s primary source for arts funding 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.
UP THE AS*PIRIN: PAIN MANAGEMENT
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.
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?
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.”
Behind the Curtain Cincinnati 