Cincinnati Blog

Cincinnati’s fall theater season is in full swing. Here are excerpts from my reviews of three productions at Know Theatre, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and Falcon Theatre.

MAKE BELIEVE

Know Theatre of Cincinnati’s artistic director, Bridget Leak, landed a plum offering with Bess Wohl’s Make Believe, and she has personally staged a bravado production to kickstart the scrappy Over-the-Rhine theatre company’s 2026-2027 season. Wohl, who recently won a Pulitzer Prize for her play Liberation, has written an intriguing, 80-minute script about family dynamics and how parents shape their children’s lives.

Make Believe is not an easy play to bring to life. Its first half is a collection of scenes depicting the four kids of the Conlee family sometime in the 1980s. They are hanging out in a steep-roofed attic playroom (designed by Samantha Reno and evocatively lit by Marly Wooster) littered with toys, soccer balls, a computer game console, strings of colored holiday lights, costumes, and a makeshift fort draped with sheets and a quilt (Drew Homan is the properties designer).

Leak has shaped believable performances with four age-appropriate young actors who spend some of their time role-playing a “make believe” family. 

READ MY FULL REVIEW: https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/regional/cincy/cincy613.html

NETWORK

As its name implies, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company is focused on producing works by the great playwright. But they don’t stop there: Plays with exceptional writing by other writers that have demonstrated lasting qualities are now routinely included in the company’s annual offerings. Its upcoming season has kicked off with Lee Hall’s stage adaptation of the classic 1976 film, Network, which earned a 1977 Academy Award for Best Screenplay for writer Paddy Chayefsky. Playwright Hall claims that almost every word of his adaptation is actually Chayefsky’s. And they are persuasive, foreboding words, startlingly timely a half-century later.

The Cincy Shakes production, staged by Artistic Director Brian Isaac Phillips, maintains the frantic, frenetic pace of the movie’s TV newsroom and the programs produced there. Multiple screens display the UBS network test pattern logo and take us to and from the story’s cinematic moments.

READ MY FULL REVIEW: https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/regional/cincy/cincy614.html

EUREKA DAY

At Eureka Day, a progressive private school in Berkeley, California, a politically correct, left-leaning executive committee is discussing a menu on its website where applicants can express their ethnicity, theoretically enabling the school to be open to and attract a broad-based, diverse student body. The troublesome entry under consideration is “Transracial Adoptee.” Differing opinions are expressed, and Don, the idealistic head of school, reminds his four colleagues that the school’s bylaws require full consensus to implement policies.

It’s the opening of Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day, the 2025 Tony Award-winning play currently onstage at the intimate Falcon Theatre in Newport, Kentucky. The committee’s conversation is full of “woke” statements that belie numerous microaggressions that fester just beneath the surface. They set aside the controversial term, deeming it not an ethnicity.

READ MY FULL REVIEW: https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/regional/cincy/cincy615.html

It’s a busy week for Cincinnati theaters, with no less than four openings immediately following Labor Day. On Wednesday evening, Sept. 9, the first official performance — and the world premiere — of Corner of the Sky: The Songs of Stephen Schwartz as at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati. A full house at ETC was treated to a round-up of songs by the veteran musical theater composer and lyricist. More than 30 songs from 14 shows (produced from 1971 to 2025) were performed by a cast of seven singers accompanied by solo pianist John Boswell.

The revue takes its title and concept inspiration from Schwartz’s song, “Corner of the Sky” from his 1972 show, Pippin. Lines from the number were projected on Brian c. Mehring’s evocatively lit, multi-level rooftop set. They served as prompts for various songs — on themes Schwartz has returned to in many of his shows about living to one’s potential and thriving in a nurturing world.

The singers, many of them current students or recent alums of UC’s College-Conservatory of Music, all had the pipes to deliver Schwartz’s impassioned tunes. Scott Coulter, a 1993 CCM musical theater who today is a Broadway mover and shaker crafting concert casting for symphony and pops orchestras, conceived and created the show — he’s been associated with Schwartz and had his permission to assemble a program like this. He was surely responsible for Schwartz’s personal attendance on opening night. (ETC’s D. Lynn Meyers read a proclamation from Mayor Aftab Pureval that Sept. 9 was “Stephen Schwartz Day” in Cincinnati.)

CCM musical theater department head Vincent DeGeorge staged and choreographed the 100-minute production with lots of spirited movement involving raised hands, as if the singers were testifying to the virtue of the songs they were performing. A set from Godspell that opened the show (with a rousing rendition of “We Beseech Thee”) set the pace for the entire evening.

There was not a weak voice in the cast, but several stood out. Klea Blackhurst (a “mature” talent and not a CCM produce, has a clarion voice and a sense of humor) did a great job with some of Schwartz’s novelty tunes, especially the bouncy “No Time At All” from Pippin. Jordyn Amani Jones, entering her senior year at CCM, had some show-stopping moments, including “Meadowlark” from The Baker’s Wife. Gavin Poronsky and Chanduni Herath, both second-year students at CCM, also showed off their chops: He imbued the tuneful “Popular” from Wicked with a warm sense of humor, while she used her piercing soprano for multiple numbers. Kenneth Early, a familiar actor on ETC’s stage, brought some soulful gravitas to his numbers.

Truth to tell, the ensemble numbers were unfailingly engaging, from Pippin’s “Morning Glow” to Wicked’s “For Good.” John Boswell’s piano accompaniment (performed on a revolving platform at center stage) played without sheet music was astonishingly effective. He provided the continuity and  support for all the fine singing, sometimes fresh and light, other times powerful and profound. Boswell was the production’s music director, and also filled the role of “The Songwriter,” as a kind of stand-in for Schwartz and the beneficiary of the songs fulfilling the multifaceted messages conjured up in response to “Corner of the Sky.

While ETC prides itself as a “premiere” theater that typically means mounting productions new to Cincinnati audiences but having originated elsewhere. Mounting the world premiere of a revue of music by one of Broadway’s most successful creators demonstrates a serious commitment to advancing its reputation by seeking out its “corner of the sky.” Cincinnati is lucky to have ETC as a key player in its theater community.

Since 2021 I’ve been a member of the Literary Club of Cincinnati, an association of 100 or so people who love to write and share their writing with one another. Founded in 1849, the Club is the oldest continuously operating such organization in the United States. From September through early June we gather weekly for a member to read a paper he has written on a subject of interest to him. (I use the pronoun “he” because the membership is archaically all men, my least favorite aspect of the group. Nonetheless, I enjoy the company of these varied and serious writers, so I’ve participated in many of their activities.)

For several years the group has invited members to write personal essays to be published in a collected anthology. The 2026 publication, inspired by the prompt word “PLACES,” will have its launch in a public gathering on Thursday, Sept. 17, at 7 p.m. I’m one of eight writers who will read brief passages from published submissions in a program emceed by Cincinnati Poet Laureate Richard Hague, an esteemed member of the Club.

Our membership meetings at our historic home — loacated at 500 E. Fourth St., opposite Lytle Park in Downtown Cincinnati — are not open to the general public. However, this and other free Thursday events will welcome anyone interested in a taste of our output. I hope you’ll consider attending. No need to RSVP.

Here’s a link to further information about this event and the Literary Club.

I love movies and movie scores. It’s been ten years since La La Land captivated moviegoers with a modern movie musical, an art form all too rare in today’s world. It was nostalgic then, in a charming way, and that feeling hasn’t faded. Now coming soon to Cincinnati Music Hall — Sept. 5 and 6, to be precise — is a performance of the movie’s score by the Cincinnati Pops accompanying a big-screen projection of the 20th-century fairy tale about two aspiring artists — an actress (played by Emma Stone) and a jazz pianist (Ryan Gosling) — who have a romance then go their separate but successful ways.

Damon Gupton, the Pops’ veteran principal guest conductor, will match his musical leadership skills with a “click-track” to enable the orchestra to stand in for the movie’s original soundtrack. (He knows the movie well: Gupton is also an actor, and he had a small role in the 2016 movie!) For the concert performance, Gosling’s jazz piano performances will be covered by Julie Spangler, the Pops’ regular pianist, a virtuoso in her own right.

I recently wrote about this exciting program for the Cincinnati Business Courier. Here is the opening to my “Arts Front” feature from the business weekly’s August 21 issue.

CINCINNATI POPS ENTICES NEW AUDIENCES WITH “LA LA LAND,” OTHER FILM CONCERTS

Robert McGrath, president and CEO of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, which also performs as the Cincinnati Pops, strives to make the 131-year-old classical music organization “the most relevant orchestra in America.” Growing attendance at Cincinnati Music Hall is a goal of a series of ongoing offerings designed to attract Gen X and millennial audiences. For more than a decade, part of that strategy has been to present classic movies accompanied by live performances from the Cincinnati Pops, the moniker that carries orchestra’s Broadway music, jazz scores and popular songs.

The 2026-2027 Pops Season kicks off Sept. 5-6 by screening the 2016 film “La La Land.” The melodic score of this modern musical will be provided by the orchestra, led by Pops Principal Guest Conductor Damon Gupton. The film’s memorable opening moments portray a Los Angeles freeway traffic jam with frustrated motorists dancing on their stalled cars. The award-winning movie, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, is the story of a promising pianist and an aspiring actress whose Hollywood careers cross paths. They fall in and out of love. “City of Stars” won the Academy Award for best song, and the film took home five more Oscars. Many critics call it one of “the best movie musicals of all time.”

According to Felecia Tchen Kanney, the CSO’s chief marketing and communications officer, “Film concerts are one of the clearest examples of how audience expectations around live entertainment have evolved. People increasingly want experiences that are social, familiar and memorable, and these concerts meet audiences where they are without compromising artistic experience.”

Ticket buyers might be enticed by a well-known title, she said, “but they’re actually experiencing a top-tier orchestra performing one of the most important elements of the film in real time. It’s often a first encounter with live orchestra music, and it has a way of changing people’s expectations about what an orchestra can be.” Roughly 35% of attendees at these film concerts are new to the CSO. The two most recent seasons have welcomed more than 5,000 new concertgoers.

If you’re a subscriber to the Business Courier, here’s a link to the full story.

I’m looking forward to this performance. How about you?

The Carnegie in Covington continues to be the go-to venue for excellent productions of musicals with its August 2026 staging of Jerry Herman’s La Cage aux Folles (onstage through Aug. 23). The tuneful 1984 Tony Award winner has been staged by CCM musical theater professor Rachel Stevens, and features Broadway veteran Josh Walden as Albin, who becomes “Zaza” in the cross-dressed club revue. Every aspect of this production is polished, downright gilttering and colorfully costumed.

Tyler Gabbard’s scenic design works perfectly on The Carnegie’s cozy stage, and rainbow of costume designs by John Faas — which are constantly being changed by the energetic cast — are dazzling. This is a don’ miss production.

Here’s a link to my Talkin’ Broadway review: https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/regional/cincy/cincy609.html

PHOTO ABOVE BY MIKKI SCHAFFNER

While many of Cincinnati’s professional theaters take a summer break, the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company has been working almost nonstop. In July it was a show derived from the Bard’s Much Ado About Nothing: Dogberry and Verges Are Scared. The central characters are a pair of bumbling clowns, minor characters now elevated to the foolish stars. It was a lot of fun. This one has come and gone — in fact, it’s now in Scotland as a production in the legendary Edinburgh Fringe, with the same cast the put it on here in Cincinnati. Here’s a link to my Talkin’ Broadway review: https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/regional/cincy/cincy607.html

In case you need to brush up on the actual Shakespearean work, Cincy Shakes is presenting a touring production in parks all over the Tristate. “Free Shakespeare in the Park” offers a brief rendition of the story Much Ado, perfect for an evening’s outing with young theater audiences. There’s a kind of magic to al fresco theater. It will be somewhere almost every evening through Sept. 6. Here’s the schedule: https://cincyshakes.com/on-stage/much-ado-park

If your taste runs to classics but with some merry pranks and a lot of tomfoolery thrown in, you’ll likely enjoy the current production on Cincy Shakes’ main stage in Over-the-Rhine is The Complete Works of Jane Austen (Abridged). through Aug. 23. Two actresses who love Austen’s 19th-century arch romances are set to show off the wonders of Regency England when the actor they need to play the romantic leads runs off. A willing actor steps up, but — alas — he doesn’t know the stories. So the actresses have to give him a quick brush-up, and things get a little wobbly … and very funny. Despite the silliness, it ends up as a rather nice tribute to Austen’s novels and to the fans who have kept them at the top of many literary fans’ lists. Here’s my review: https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/regional/cincy/cincy608.html

FOR INFORMATION AND TICKETS: https://cincyshakes.com/on-stage