There's a fine art to building the perfect season of local theater
For the leader of just about any arts group, cobbling together the next season is a devilishly tricky business. It doesn’t make much difference what kind of group you’re running, a museum, a theater or an opera company. Just getting all those moving pieces together is like putting together a 15,000-piece puzzle without knowing what the final picture is supposed to be.
Every group has its own peculiar hoops to jump through. In the opera world, you might be working three or more years ahead to ensure that the right combination of singers is available. With a museum, it can take even longer to arrange loans of artworks as you put together a high-profile exhibition. For theaters, there’s the matter of securing the rights to perform a particular show at the optimal point in your season.
And then there is the D. Lynn Meyers approach. Meyers has been the producing artistic director at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati since 1996.
Ideally, she likes to announce the upcoming season in March or April. But if there’s a show that she really wants to put on ETC’s stage, she’ll pursue it doggedly, even if it means delaying the announcement of the season.
This year, she started teasing us about the 2022-2023 season way back in January. Not an announcement, mind you. Then, they set April 27 as “the day.” Then it was delayed.
It’s not that Meyers was indecisive. There was a show that she particularly wanted for the season. She won’t reveal which one had possessed her so completely.
“Let’s just say that it is a quintessentially ETC sort of play,” she said last week. “We had to have it.”
It helps that ETC has a remarkably faithful audience base. Upwards of 70% of the theater’s subscribers have been willing to purchase subscriptions even before Meyers announced what shows would make up those subscriptions. But they know Lynn. And they know what kinds of shows she likes.
So it was that the season announcement slid forward into May. Then to late May. And finally, to June 17. That’s when, at long last, Meyers & Co. announced the season. It’s a fine one. And, as those longtime subscribers knew all along, it is a singularly ETC sort of season.
Finally, time to exhale. After months and months of wheeling and dealing and begging playwrights, agents and others who have a part in releasing rights to a show, here is ETC’s 2022-2023 season.
“Sweat,” by Lynn Nottage
Sept. 17-Oct. 9
“I’ve been wanting to do this play for a long, long time,” said Meyers. “It’s about economic pressures and betrayal and race, but it’s not defined by any one of those themes.”
“The Dancing Princesses,” by Joseph McDonough and David Kisor
Nov. 30-Dec. 30
“Outwardly, this is a happy family musical,” said Meyers. “But all of those lighter things are disguising a much deeper theme about inclusion, about how we cannot win unless we open our hearts.”
“Grand Horizons,” by Bess Wohl
Jan 14-Feb 5
“I won’t say much about this except that we are going to bring together two very special actors – two actors that Cincinnati loves – to do this show.”
“Morning Sun,” by Simon Stephens
Feb. 25-March 19
The first regional premiere production following the show’s New York debut.
“Who All Over There?” by Torie Wiggins
April 8-30, 2023
A world premiere written by a much-loved Cincinnati actor.
“Maytag Virgin,” by Audrey Cefaly
May 27-June 18
“This is really a quirky, heartfelt piece about what will it take for us to learn to thrive again,” said Meyers. “A perfect show for right now.”
Zip over to the ETC website – ensemblecincinnati.org – to get all the details about the season.
CSO announcement
A couple of decades ago, you never would have dreamed of reading about Kick Lee and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra working together. But this is 2022. And though life is still a bumpy undertaking, there are a few signs that we are all learning to work together better than we used to.
This is one of them. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s Multicultural Awareness Council announced this week that Lee, a noted Cincinnati-based music producer and performer is the recipient of its 2021-2022 MAC Award for Diversity and Leadership in the Arts.
Over the years, you’ve heard oodles of his music supporting dozens of commercial clients, from Disney and Toyota to Puma and Xbox. Selfishly, though, Cincinnati has benefitted most from the group that Lee founded nearly two decades ago, the Cincinnati Music Accelerator. Like so-called accelerators in the business world, which help start-ups and would-be entrepreneurs find their way to success, this nonprofit does the same thing for those in the local music world.
Lee will be honored at the CSO’s Andrew J. Brady Neighborhood Concert in the West End at Laurel Park at 7 p.m. July 16, preceded by a musical presentation of live music from various local artists at 5 p.m.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: There's a secret to building the perfect season at Ensemble Theatre
