RuPaul's Drag Race Werq the World Tour

Aronoff Center, Cincinnati, October 18

By David Lyman

“I auditioned for pit crew,” Kameron Michaels said when she made her grand entrance at the top of Season 10 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” The pit crew, for the uninitiated, is made up of hunky guys in underwear who decorate the stage, but don’t compete. Then, glancing over at the half-dozen queens who were already onstage, she added: “But this is going to be waaaaay more fun.”

Was she throwing down a challenge? Already?

“Hardly,” says Kameron, speaking by phone from her tiny Nashville apartment. “I was petrified. Not being a full-time drag queen and walking into a room with all that talent. I mean, I was a hairdresser. That was very intimidating.”

Kameron Michaels / Provided

Kameron and a crew of other drag queens will perform in Cincinnati’s Aronoff Center Thursday night, October 18 as part of RuPaul’s “Werq the World Tour 2018.” The show is reminiscent of the TV show’s “Battle of the Seasons,” a spectacle that brings together queens from past seasons into a glamorous one-night throw-down.

The show is hosted by Bob the Drag Queen, winner of the Season 8 competition. Joining her are a small army of crowd favorites. There’s Season 10 winner Aquaria, along with runners-up Asia O’Hara and Eureka, along with some drag-world luminaries like Kim Chi, Valentina and Violet Chachki.

Kim Chi / Provided

From the outset, we knew that Kameron would be a different sort of performer. Her first entrance wasn’t a particularly outrageous one. Not like Monét X Change, who you just knew was going to own the stage. Or Aquaria, with her cheeky sass. For all her over-the-top performances, Kameron is often soft-spoken and reserved.

What we do remember, though, is that look. Those arms. Those shoulders. Tattooed and bulked up. There was nothing wispy about her. She quickly earned the nickname “The Bodybuilder Barbie.”

“What can I say,” says Kameron, speaking from her tiny apartment in Nashville during a 36-hour break from the tour. “I stepped away from drag for a relationship. Between doing hair and the gym and the relationship, drag wasn’t that important to me.”

After three years, though, she decided to return to drag. Maybe it was the humdrum of the daily routine that got to her. Cutting hair, no matter how satisfying or profitable, could hardly have matched the excitement of life on the stage.

But after three years in the gym, she cut a distinctly different sort of figure than she had before. The goal of so much Southern drag, you see, is to be as feminine as possible. Somehow, those severely cut triceps didn’t fit into the traditional image.

Kameron Michaels / Provided

“People made me very self-conscious about it,” she says. “For a very long time, I wouldn’t show my shoulders. I wouldn’t wear sleeveless dresses or show my shoulders. But when I started Season 10, I thought ‘what the hell. This is who I am.’ I wore sleeveless and I didn’t look back.”

With her new-found confidence, she roared through the season, doing everything from an evil queen festooned with feathers to a 1960s Cher. She was Season 10’s Lip Sync Assassin. And even though she didn’t win, she was on top of the world.

Even before the “RuPaul’s Drag Race” finale in late June, she had been touring with the “Werq the World Tour.” Between that and her own touring act, she’s been on the road almost constantly since May.

You could forgive the girl a little exhaustion. But Kameron isn’t complaining.

“The response has been amazing everywhere we go,” she says. “I like the camaraderie of being around the other girls. This has been a great move for me. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Tickets are on sale now at www.CincinnatiArts.org, 513-621-2787 or at the Aronoff Center Box Office, 650 Walnut St., downtown.

Of Love and Logic

"Fly By Night," at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, through September 29.

 By David Lyman

It’s been three weeks since I saw “Fly By Night” at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati. Not a long time, really.

But it’s been a tumultuous three weeks. A dear friend died. I’ve had waaaay too much work-related travel. I haven’t gotten enough sleep. And I feel like I’ve done nothing but see shows, do interviews and write. And write and write and write.

But I still haven’t written about “Fly By Night.” And that’s unfortunate, because of all the shows I’ve seen these past few weeks, “Fly By Night” is the one refuses to leave my mind.

It’s odd, because as I watched the show, I found many things to be problematic. The narrator was used too much. At two hours and fifty minutes, it felt too long. And I can’t count the times that I felt “OK, this is it – the show should end here.” And then it didn’t.

Normally, that would be the kiss of death. But every time writers Kim Rosenstock, Will Connolly and Michael Mitnick added another scene, I found myself liking it. A lot. Every time, I was thankful they hadn’t ended the show earlier.

And finally, when it did end, it was completely unexpected. And shocking. And sad as hell. But then, I don’t know how else the playwrights could have ended it. Sorry. That’s probably too much out-loud reminiscing while trying to avoid spoilers.

From left; Brooke Steele, Michael Gerard Carr. Photo: Ryan Kurtz.

The plot does a little does a little time-hopping. But at the heart of it is Nov. 9, 1965, the day a massive power outage left more than 30 million Americans and Canadians in the dark.

Of course, several of the musical’s characters are in the dark long before that, especially Harold (Michael Gerard Carr), an aimless shmoe of guy. His life consists of trying to write a song – it’s taken him months to complete a couple of measures – and making sandwiches for the cranky Crabble, a deli owner played with an oddly appealing zest for meanness by Michael G. Bath.

There’s a love triangle, too, with Harold at the center of it. Somehow, he manages to fall in love with two recent arrivals from North Dakota. They are, of course, sisters. Daphne (Maya Farhat) is convinced she will be a Broadway star. Miriam (Brooke Steele) wants to be a waitress in a diner.

From left; Michael G. Bath, Nathan Robert Pecchia, Michael Gerard Carr. Photo: Ryan Kurtz.

There is so much more that goes on in this story. There’s Harold’s Dad (Phil Fiorini), a recent widower who has begun carrying around a record player in order to give spontaneous performances of “La Traviata.” And a loony producer (Patrick Earl Phillips), determined to make Daphne star. And, of course, there is music director Scot Woolley.

And a Gypsy fortune teller, played by narrator Nathan Robert Pecchia. That’s where the magic comes in. Literal-minded audience members would probably call them coincidences. Or quirky happenstances. But the playwrights, I bet, would disagree. This is a plot – an entire show, in fact – that is touched by magic.

“Fly By Night” is touching and joyous, heartbreaking and downright tragic. It has more emotional upheaval than any one show should. And when the peaks and valleys of real life aren’t enough, the playwrights take us on fanciful side-trips, some of them achingly poetic, others that rely on improbable dramatic twists.

From left; Maya Farhat, Brooke Steele, Phil Fiorini, Michael Gerard Carr, Michael G. Bath, Patrick Earl Phillips. Photo: Ryan Kurtz.

Is all this unlikely? Of course it is. There’s nothing logical at all about it. So the playwrights wrap their musical its own universe of logic. And because we like these characters so much – and the performances are all so uniformly exquisite – we are willing to buy into it.

ETC is the only theater in Cincinnati that could possibly do this show. It’s not that our area’s other professional and near-professional theaters aren’t capable of it. But D. Lynn Meyers, who directed this production, has never been one to let logic have its way. Working with a team of designers willing to teeter on the edge reality with her – Brian c. Mehring (Sets, lights), Reba Senske (costumes), Matt Callahan (sound) and Shannon Rae Lutz (props) – Meyers regularly dares logic to outwit her. Things don’t always work out the way she wants. But with “Fly By Night,” it does.

The result is enchanting.

“Fly By Night,” Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati; 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday matinee. Tickets: 513-421-3555 or www.ensemblecincinnati.org/

Know Theatre receives award for gender equity in playwriting.

I just received this press release from the International Centre for Women Playwrights announcing the winners of its 2018 50/50 Awards.

The only Cincinnati-area theater on the list is The Know Theatre of Cincinnati. In fact, it's the only theater in Ohio. Or Kentucky. Or Indiana. Or Michigan.

Congratulations to the Know and to the 61 other theaters on the list.

Awards Announced for Theaters Around the World Promoting Gender Equity

Industry still has a long way to go, Centre for Women Playwrights finds

NEW YORK, USA, JUNE 11, 2018

The International Centre for Women Playwrights (ICWP) today announced its 2018 50/50 Applause Awards, honoring theaters that produce plays written in equal measure by women and men. At the same time, the Centre finds that the vast majority of theaters around the world are coming up short in terms of gender equity.

The Centre received 103 nominations and only 62 qualified for the award.

The awards honor theaters at least half of whose productions in their July 2017- June 2018 seasons are written by women. Further, a theater must have staged three or more productions during the season and have plays authored by both male and female in their season. For the 2018 Awards, only Main Stage productions were taken into account, as that is where most theater budgets are spent and where playwrights receive the most media attention and career advancement.

The 62 recipients of this year’s awards are found throughout Australia, Canada, Finland, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, United States, and Wales.

For the 2017-2018 season, approximately 60% of the qualifying theaters are repeat recipients. For example, Here Arts Center has made the list for six years in a row, while off the WALL has made it for five consecutive years. Awardees range from community and college theaters to internationally renowned public theaters.

"We are pleased to see that there are some theaters that, year after year, provide opportunities for women playwrights. We salute their efforts," said 50/50 Applause Award Co-Chair Patricia L. Morin. "However, we will witness more economic discrimination toward women playwrights (smaller stages, less performances, less pay), as well as the constant promotion of male voices, unless more theaters step up and join the ranks to support 50/50 gender parity."

Academic and charity organization research continues to support the notion that there are gender inequities in theatrical companies around the globe.

For example, the League of Professional Theatre Women recently released the results of its 2018 "Women Count" study. The percentage of women playwrights represented by the theaters profiled in the study ranged from 29% in 2013-2014 and 2015-2016 to a season high of 37% in 2016-2017.  This looks like an upward movement to be welcomed, but a closer look at the figures shows that five theaters profiled in the study had no women playwrights at all in the 2016-2017 study season.

In late 2017, American Theatre magazine reported that, out of 513 not-for-profit theaters across the U.S., only 26% of their new plays and revivals were written by women, with 62% written by men and 11% co-written by women and men.

The Playwrights Guild of Canada reported that for the 2017 season in that country, productions by male playwrights continued to dominate -- 64%, which was the same as 2016 -- and shows by women playwrights still hovered around the 25% mark.

The National Voice, a publication of The Australian Writers Guild, reported that, of 95 shows surveyed for 2017 that included Australian playwrights -- including those staged by state theater companies -- 56% were written by men.

The 2018 50/50 Applause Awards come in the wake of a momentous year for women’s struggle for equality in many different arenas. The #metoo movement that began in October 2017 rocked the film, media and theater industries across the world. The movement has shown how a bullying and sexually abusive environment limits the participation and career success of women.

A majority of theater artistic directors do not stage the work of female and male playwrights in an equal proportion, and this has repercussions for society by suppressing women's stories and filling the theater stages with the male imagination. The male presence not only dominates artistic directors, it dominates the theater boards, governing boards, and public funding institutions throughout the world.

The bravery of those speaking out in the #metoo movement is echoed in the words of Millicent Fawcett, the early 20th century British suffragist who campaigned for women’s rights throughout her life, and whose motto was “Courage calls to courage everywhere”.

To have a professional theater scene that encourages, enables and celebrates women playwrights, governing boards, public funders and artistic directors around the world should ask themselves if the theater programs they are supporting are enabling gender discrimination in favor of men, and silencing the voices of the creative women who have equally valid things to say. The 50/50 Applause Award certificate should be as important as fire and public safety certificates, and their theaters should not be able to open their doors without it.

At the urging of feminist and journalist Caroline Criado Perez, a statue of Millicent Fawcett was placed in London’s Parliament Square in April. In the foreword to the Fawcett Society report “Sex & Power 2018", Perez writes: “Finally, we have to stop pretending that the path to equality is out of our hands. Power is never given freely. Liberty is never achieved by chance. It is achieved by design. So let’s start designing it.”

The 50/50 Applause Award recipients for the 2017-2018 season are: 

* Indicates a Repeat Recipient

* 16th Street Theater, Berwyn, IL   USA

Acadiana Repertory Theatre, Lafayette, LA   USA

* Alberta Theatre Projects, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Little Rock, AR   USA

* Aurora Theatre Company, Berkeley, CA   USA

Baxter Theatre Centre, Cape Town, South Africa

Belvoir St. Theatre, Surry Hills, NSW, Australia

Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Berkeley, CA, USA

Burning Coal Theatre Company, Raleigh, NC   USA

Capital Stage Company, Sacramento, CA, USA

Catholic University of America, Hartke Theatre, Washington, DC   USA

* Centenary Stage Company, Hackettstown, NJ, USA

* Central Works, Berkeley, CA, USA

Centre du Théâtre d'Aujourd'hui, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

* Checkpoint Theatre, Singapore, Singapore

* City Theatre Company, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Epic Theatre Company, Cranston, RI, USA

* Factory Theatre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles, CA, USA

* Globe Theatre, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

* Globus Theatre @ the LAB, Bobcaygeon, Ontario, Canada

* Great Canadian Theatre Company, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Griffin Theatre Company, Kings Cross NSW, Australia

* HERE Arts Center, New York, NY, USA

* Horizon Theatre Company, Atlanta, GA, USA

Huntington Theatre Company, Boston, MA, USA

* Imago Theatre, Portland, Oregon, USA

Jungle Theater, Minneapolis, MN, USA

* Key City Public Theatre, Port Townsend, WA, USA

* Kitchen Theatre Company, Ithaca, NY, USA

* Know Theatre of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH   USA

La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla, CA, USA

Lab Theater Project, Tampa, FL, USA

* Magic Theatre, San Francisco, CA, USA

* Marin Theatre Company, Mill Valley, CA, USA

Marjorie Lyons Playhouse, Centenary Theatre Program of Louisiana, Shreveport, LA, USA

MCC Theater, New York, NY, USA

* Mildred's Umbrella Theater Company, Houston, TX   USA

New Jersey Repertory Company, Long Branch, NJ, USA

* Northlight Theatre, Skokie, IL, USA

* off the WALL Productions, Carnegie, PA, USA

* Open Stage of Harrisburg, Harrisburg, PA   USA

* Paul Robeson Theatre, Buffalo, NY, USA

People's Light, Malvern, PA, USA

* Plan-B Theatre Company, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

* Playwrights Horizons, New York, NY, USA

Portland Stage Company, Portland, ME, USA

* Prairie Theatre Exchange, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

* Rep Stage Howard Community College, Columbia, MD, USA

* Round House Theatre, Bethesda, MD, USA

Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

* Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

* Shelterbelt Theatre, Omaha, NE, USA

* Shotgun Players, Berkeley, CA, USA

* Signature Theatre Company, New York, NY, USA

* South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, CA, USA

Stages Theatre Company, Hopkins, MN, USA

* Synchronicity Theatre, Atlanta, GA, USA

* Teatro Paraguas, Santa Fe, NM, USA

The Other Room, Cardiff, Wales, UK

* University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Theatre, Chattanooga, TN, USA

Wasa Teater, Vasa, Finland 

More information about the awards and theatre productions can be found at: http://www.womenplaywrights.org/award

"Director's Cut: Musical Masters"

Cincinnati Ballet, Aronoff Center, Cincinnati. March 15-18, 2018

Sirui Liu (L) and Samantha Griffin are seen in an especially memorable scene in choreographer Garrett Smith’s “Façades.” The work is part of Cincinnati Ballet’s “Director’s Cut: Musical Masters” series March 15-18 at the Aronoff Center. Photo: Peter Mueller.

Review by David Lyman

“Façades” was supposed to be the other work on Cincinnati Ballet’s “Director’s Cut: Musical Masters” program at the Aronoff Center. You know, the one by the lesser-known choreographer, the necessary third work on a mixed-rep program that would have been too short without it.

And while it’s true that choreographer Garrett Smith is not as well-known as Jerome Robbins or George Balanchine – the other choreographers – “Façades” turned out to be the evening’s surprise hit.

That’s not to diminish the impact of Robbins’ “Fancy Free” or Balanchine’s “Rubies.” They occupy hallowed spots in the pantheon of American ballet. But “Façades,” with its stunning visual presentation and deliciously eccentric movement, had a freshness and a vivaciousness that the two much-studied (and much older) works couldn’t match.

For the record, “Fancy Free” premiered in 1944, while “Rubies” first appeared in 1967 as the second movement of Balanchine’s full-length ”Jewels.” “Façades” is just three years old.

Let’s look at those older ballets first. When it premiered, “Fancy Free” was an anomaly. It was the debut work of a young American choreographer. And the music was a jaunty, jazzy piece by equally young composer /conductor Leonard Bernstein. And for a nation three years into a world war, the robust and wholesomeness of the 100 percent American storyline could hardly be matched.

As the curtain opens, three young American sailors are beginning a long-awaited shore leave in Manhattan. Robbins’ choreography is filled with all manner of physical hijinks and cocky bravado. These are,  he seems to be telling us, all-American men, filled with optimism and an enviable youthfulness. They wander into a small mid-Century Modern bar – thank you, designer Oliver Smith – for a beer, but are quickly distracted when a stylish young woman wanders past.

The interplay is playful and, for the most part, quite innocent, at least in its original 1944 context. At times, though, it teeters on the edge of discomfort when viewed through the modern-day, #MeToo prism. But the performers save it from that fate. Cervilio Miguel Amador, James Cunningham and Edward Gonzalez Kay are agreeable presences on the stage, more playful than threatening.

Christina LaForgia Morse, along with (from L) Cervilio Miguel Amador, James Cunningham and Edward Gonzalez Kay in a scene from Jerome Robbins’ “Fancy Free.” Photo: Peter Mueller.

And the young woman, Christina LaForgia Morse, later joined by Melissa Gelfin, is self-assured and has an air of self-reliance. We sense that both women will manage just fine, thank you.

I may be reading too much into all of this, but I think it is the two women who give us permission to enjoy the ballet. Both Morse and Gelfin bring substantial acting chops to their formidable dancing prowess. They are, at turns, flirtatious, sociable and resolute that this lively encounter will be nothing more than a quick beer and a little dancing in the pub. Kathleen Dahlhoff appears at the very end of the ballet. Saucy and playful, her appearance promises that the sailors’ pursuit will continue well after the curtain falls.

It’s wonderful to see “Rubies” again. The last time Cincinnati Ballet performed it was in 2003, as part of a joint production of the full-length “Jewels” with BalletMet Columbus.

“Rubies” is, to my eye, a curious piece, an amalgam of several different styles that we don’t normally associate with Balanchine. On the one hand, it is filled with the interweaving patterns that are a Balanchine hallmark. But it is also sprinkled with pedestrian movement, as the men trot and prance and cavort.

And at times the stop-action angularity of Balanchine’s choreography for principal dancer Sirui Liu seems to beg her to channel a young Martha Graham. She succeeds marvelously, incidentally, in a role that is at times severe and at others downright majestic. Principal dancers Chisako Oga and Rodrigo Almarales are also featured in a series of short duets that are frisky, impish and, at times even teasing.

Principal dancer Sirui Liu is seen here performing in the “Rubies” movement of George Balanchine’s “Jewels” with other members of the Cincinnati Ballet. The work is being performed as part of the company’s “Director’s Cut: Musical Masters” series March 15-18 at the Aronoff Center. Photo: Peter Mueller.

And then there is "Façades."

Choreographically, it’s a visually arresting piece, made all the more striking by Travis Halsey’s costumes. They run the gamut from 17th-century frippery to elegant tutus – some black, others red or white – and long wispy white wraps that make the men who wear them look as if they’ve just come from posing for an Impressionist painting.

Watching Smith’s choreography is like studying the inner workings of an elaborate clock. Pieces move every which way. Just when you focus on one thing, something more fascinating unfolds on the other side of the stage. It’s a glorious confusion of movement. But it’s confusion that has order.

Moments later, a towering picture frame drops from above and two dancers – Liu and Samantha Griffin – do a mesmerizing mirror-image dance. It’s the sort of thing that some choreographers might play for laughs. Or to show the dancers’ discipline. But because Liu and Griffin are such compelling performers, this is nearly hypnotic.

In another movement, the women in the corps de ballet collapse to the floor. They roll onto their backs and all we see is a sea of slightly crunched tutus with disembodied legs extending upward. It’s bizarre. And when their feet begin to turn in and out and writhe in most ungainly ways, you’re not even certain you’re looking at feet any more. Maybe they’re the necks of swans. Or serpents. Or some unknown plant life rippling in the currents of the ocean floor.

Besides the wonderfully elegant Liu, “Façades” also provides a showcase for David Morse and Christian Griggs-Drane, as well as Almarales and Taylor Carrasco as a pair of delightfully foppish characters.

Of special note is Griffin, who has very quickly become one of the company’s must-see dancers. At one moment, she is a ferocious countenance, sharp and edgy. The next, she looks impossibly fragile, a towering presence caught in a swirl of unpredictable choreography. It’s hard not to watch her.

Accompanying all of this are Maestro Carmon DeLeone, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and soloist Michael Chertock – he plays both piano and harpsichord in the course of the evening. It’s almost as if they are giving us a crash course in western music.

There are more than a few bumps in Stravinsky’s “Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra,” which accompanies “Rubies.” But the ensemble gives Bernstein’s “Fancy Free” a rugged and robust performance. And the Vivaldi “Concerto for Harpsichord and Chamber Orchestra” that accompanies much of “Façades” is crisp, incisive and filled with every bit as much character as Smith’s choreography.

“Director’s Cut: Musical Masters” will be repeated at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 6:30 p.m. Sunday.