There were numerous excellent theater productions during 2025 on Cincinnati stages. CityBeat writers single out several they found that were especially memorable.

Primary Trust, Feb. 1-23, 2025, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park

Since winning the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Eboni Booth’s Primary Trust has been one of the most produced plays in the country. In an era of extreme incivility, Booth creates a lovely world populated with sweet, thoughtful characters. The strong Playhouse cast featured DeShawn Harold Mitchell and Shane Taylor admirably supported by chameleons Lilian Oben and Peter Bisgaier inhabiting multiple roles. The set embodied the magic and whimsy of the story. The kindness of these characters helped Kenneth along on his journey to adapt to unexpected changes and find his place in a challenging world. Watching him connect with his new coworkers and neighbors generated much laughter and a few tears. When Kenneth says, “I don’t believe in God or Heaven or Hell, but I do believe in friends,” it’s impossible to disagree. (Julie Carpenter)

English, March 1–30, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park

On its intimate Shelterhouse stage, the Playhouse’s production of Sanaz Toossi’s 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning play portrayed four Iranian citizens struggling to develop fluency in a difficult foreign language, English. Their patient teacher, with her own set of concerns about her nationality and her language, connected with each of them. Her students had individual reasons to become certified by TOEFL, the “Test of English as a Foreign Language.” Toosi’s ingenious script had them speak halting English as they sought proficiency, often shifting into fluent, conversational English during moments of frustration. The story had no singular dramatic moment; rather the personal arcs of each character revealed basic human needs — a qualification for a job, a generational family connection, a desire to appreciate pop culture — that audience members could fully relate to. This thoughtful 95-minute play used warmth and engagement to explore how personal identity is embedded in the language we speak. (Rick Pender)

A Room in the Castle, March 4-April 6, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company

Shakespeare’s Hamlet found its way twice into Cincy Shakes’ season, from a 2024 summer touring production and a fall staging of Fat Ham, James Ijames’s 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner, prior to staging this show by prolific American playwright Lauren Gunderson. Her 85-minute script was commissioned by Cincy Shakes and co-produced by Washington, D.C.’s venerable Folger Theatre. The three-character play was set in a room in Elsinore Castle: Manipulative Queen Gertrude (Oneika Phillips) advised Ophelia (Sabrina Lynne Sawyer), Hamlet’s on-again, off-again fiancée. A new character, Anna (Burgess Byrd), Ophelia’s lady-in-waiting, served as the young woman’s constant confidante. Guest director Kaja Dunn reinforced the script’s feminist perspective. Snatches of Shakespearean dialogue were used, but most conversations were in contemporary English. It was an intriguing extension of these women, reimagining them in ways that made sense in today’s world. (RP)

Mrs. Dalloway: A New Musical, May 23-June 15, 2025, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company

Lindsey Augusta Mercer wrote the book, lyrics and music for this adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel into a world premiere musical. I was not a fan of the novel, so I came to this production with a bit of trepidation but enjoyed it immensely. Christiana Cole, Byron St. Cyr, Bex Odorisio, Noah Berry, Courtney Lucien and Robby Clater brought their roles to life through strong performances and exceptional singing. The musical numbers drew on a wide range of styles, from folk to rock to rap. Mercer cleverly repeated themes and images which gave the disparate musical styles continuity and cohesiveness. I loved the pairing of the characters for unexpected duets and scene partners. The emphasis on the importance of human connection and celebrating life resonated in these post-pandemic, highly fragmented times. (JC)

Tea TIME, May 29-June 13, 2025, Cincinnati Fringe Festival

Full disclosure: I am a tea drinker who has spent 30 years frustrated at the normalization of terrible tea in the United States. As Dame Maggie Smith in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel said, “Everywhere I’ve been in this country, they slap down a cup of tepid nonsense, you know, with the teabag lying beside it, which means I’ve got to go through the ridiculous business of dunking it in the lukewarm piss, waiting for the slightest change of color to occur.” So with joy and delight, I watched Erika MacDonald’s Cincinnati Fringe Festival show, Tea TIME, one of the fringiest of Fringe shows. Storytelling and performance art, singing and some serious topics — it was weird! But as colonists dumped tea in Boston Harbor 250 years ago, I dumped my expectation of a linear plot at the door and steeped myself in this charming, wandering contemplation on the world’s best caffeinated beverage. MacDonald was an engaging storyteller and performer, and her show was as brisk and refreshing as a proper cup of tea. (JC)

King James, Sept. 11- 27, Know Theatre

Two NBA fans, one Black, one white, come together (and nearly pull apart) around the early career of professional basketball star LeBron James. Rajiv Joseph’s play offered four scenes, termed “quarters,” from 2004 to 2016. But the sport was really the context and metaphor for the ups and downs of this unlikely friendship between the pair of Clevelanders, Matt (Kieran Cronin) and Shawn (Phillip Latham). Staged with insight and feeling in Know’s intimate Underground Bar — doubling as a struggling wine bar — by Darnell Pierre Benjamin, this two-hander offered a highly believable, deeply felt portrait of two young men learning more about what’s truly important in life. The production was a strong and promising kickoff for Know’s new management team, led by Artistic Director Bridget Leak. (RP)

Honorable Mention: Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, May 31-June 22, Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati

Thanks to Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, I learned a lot about what goes on in hair salons catering to Black women. Jocelyn Bioh’s recent Broadway hit was a 90-minute lesson in the artistry, socializing and humanity of women in this unique universe. Director Torie Wiggins led a top-notch cast through an entertaining and thoughtful story. (RP)

Honorable Mention: Die Hard is a Christmas Movie, Nov. 28-Dec. 21, Know Theatre

This is my new favorite holiday show. In addition to hitting all the best lines/iconic scenes from Die Hard, the show perfectly balances parody and tribute. Maybe its popularity will convince the CSO to screen the film with live orchestration? Please? (JC)

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Dec. 24 print edition.

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Coming up next at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park is Lloyd Suh’s The Heart Sellers. Suh is one of the most produced playwrights in America today. In 2023, the Playhouse staged Suh’s The Chinese Lady, about Afong May, the first Chinese woman who entered America and was toured around as an attraction across the United States in the 19th century. The tour stopped for several days in Cincinnati in 1834. Like The Chinese Lady, The Heart Sellers, a heartfelt comedy, explores being a “stranger in a strange land.” It’s been one of the most produced plays in the U.S. since its debut in Milwaukee in early 2023. Ten theaters staged it a year ago, and eight more are offering it during the current season. 

The Heart Sellers is about a pair of 20-something Asian women in an unnamed midwestern U.S. city in 1973. Brought to America by their med student husbands, they are more or less set adrift. Jane from South Korea is reserved and has a limited command of English; Luna from the Philippines is a chatterbox, given to oversharing. They meet on Thanksgiving Day in a K-Mart and bond during a lonely celebration as they struggle to make a traditional American meal in Luna’s apartment. Fueled by wine, they talk about their isolation, their hopes and the families they yearn for. They fear their heritage will be diluted or forgotten altogether by future generations.

The play’s title is derived from U.S. legislation passed in 1965. Luna explains, “My sister says they call it the Hart-Celler Act because somebody whose name is Hart and somebody whose name is Celler, they wrote this thing and it got made into law and stuff just a few years ago, and I guess before it happened hardly nobody could come from Philippines or from Korea or no place where there’s people like, you know, like us?” Luna and Jane recognize that their journey to a foreign land could mean they’ve sold their hearts for new lives and drifted away from beloved traditions. 

The Hart-Celler Act, or the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, as it was formally known, was signed into law by former President Lyndon B. Johnson. The act reformed the nation’s immigration system, doing away with a discriminatory quota system that had favored people from Northern and Western Europe and limited immigration by many from other countries. Its legal framework prioritized highly skilled immigrants, such as Jane and Luna’s med student husbands. In 1960, 84 percent of immigrants to the U.S. were from Europe or Canada. Immigration grew by nearly a half million people annually post-1965, and the law eliminated “national origins” quotas and shifted the balance of immigrants to Latin America, Africa and Asia. 

May Adrales, who staged the play’s first production in Milwaukee, said in a program note there: “The Heart Sellers speaks specifically about a Korean woman and a Filipina woman, but it’s a universal story about what it means to migrate when that may or may not have been your choice and to be thrust into a set of cultural norms and a language that you don’t quite understand.” She added, “This play reveals what it means to be isolated and try to find a community when there’s seemingly nobody who can understand your experience. … Anyone who has transplanted from one culture to another or has faced a loss of identity and started anew will relate to the experiences of these characters. My great hope is that audiences come away with radical compassion, that they see the humanity within another person whom they didn’t think they had anything in common with.”

Desdemona Chiang is staging The Heart Sellers for the second time at the Playhouse. (She directed it over the summer for the Virginia Theatre Festival). Her first name, Desdemona (the tragic wife in Shakespeare’s Othello), surely set her up for a career in theater, including several years with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. But her horizons expanded well beyond that. Of Taiwanese descent, she immigrated with her family to America when she was 3 years old. In college at UC-Berkeley, she was pre-med, but a basic acting class drew her to theater and a double degree in that discipline and biology. These days, she dissects and stages plays across the U.S. that resonate with her heritage.

The show’s cast will be two actors new to Cincinnati audiences. Bridget Kim graduated from the University of Louisville and earned her master’s degree at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Over the summer, she played Jane in Chiang’s Virginia production of The Heart Sellers. She’ll repeat that role at the Playhouse opposite Angeleia Ordoñez, a graduate of the University of Michigan, as Luna.

Suh is a little surprised at the geographical spread of The Heart Sellers, from the West Coast to Austin and Atlanta, as well as Chiang’s Virginia Theatre Festival staging. The playwright told an interviewer for American Theatre magazine, “The totality of it — to see it means this much to a much wider audience than I imagined — is so meaningful.” The Playhouse production is Cincinnati’s chance to join that audience.

The Heart Sellers, presented by the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park on its Rosenthal Shelterhouse Stage in Mt. Adams, opens on Oct. 30 and continues through Nov. 23. For more information, visit cincyplay.com.

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Oct. 29 print edition.

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The city’s vibrant theater scene will crank up another notch as the Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati (TCT), America’s oldest professional theater for young audiences, is about to move into a historic space: Over-the-Rhine’s Emery Theater. It’s a homecoming of sorts, since TCT’s shows for children were produced there from 1949 to 1969. In 1970, it moved to the Taft Theatre on Fifth Street, where thousands of local schoolkids came annually on yellow school buses to see four kid-friendly performances.

Now, thanks to  a $51.5 million renovation of the historic Emery space, TCT will move into what it’s calling “the most technologically advanced proscenium-style theater in the United States.” With a Gilded Age pedigree, the Emery opened in 1912 as a new home for the 17-year-old Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Leopold Stokowski, the CSO’s legendary music director from 1909 to 1912, compared the venue to New York’s Carnegie Hall. The CSO performed there until returning to Music Hall in 1936.

The adjacent classroom building (today’s Emery Center Apartments on Central Parkway), built for the Ohio Mechanics Institute, was absorbed into the University of Cincinnati in 1969. The theater ceased to be used regularly in the 1990s, after which it fell into disuse and disrepair. Starting in 1999, Cincinnati architectural firm GBBN worked with a few prospective buyers on plans for the theater’s possible renovation. Ownership eventually went to developers Dave Neyer and Chris Frutkin, who facilitated the sale of the entire building to TCT. 

The venerable theater company conducted a period of due diligence before acquiring the theater in 2023. Although some had deemed it beyond repair, TCT and GBBN, with considerable experience designing arts facilities venues across the U.S. (including the new homes locally for the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and Cincinnati Ballet), determined that the building was actually in good structural shape, just sorely in need of cosmetic improvement and modern technology.

According to Kim Kern, TCT President and CEO, in a conversation with CityBeat, “We could have gone out to the suburbs and built something new, but that didn’t feel right. Cincinnati’s theater district is downtown, and TCT has always been downtown. We were the only ones that could make the Emery work. As the oldest professional theater for young audiences in the country, we already had a model that worked.” TCT began providing theater for children and parents in 1919. Today, its annual attendance for Taft Theatre productions has exceeded 110,000.

“We are a professional theater,” Kern explained. “Our audiences are children, not our actors. Our productions are Broadway quality.” She said TCT’s shows are typically one-hour “junior” versions — including The Wizard of Oz: Youth Edition, the debut production in October. (It was also TCT’s very first stage production in 1919, 20 years before the 1939 movie.) “Our productions are designed for the attention span of a child,” Kern added. “We are inspiring and engaging children in theater in an age-appropriate way that we believe instills a love of the arts that will pay forward to our sister organizations in town and create future audiences for our city.”

A CityBeat conversation with GBBN architects Marcene Kinney and Steve Karoly revealed some of the ingenuity required to convert a century-old concert stage and auditorium into a state-of-the-art theater facility. “The ‘front of house’ features were in rough shape,” said Karoly. “There were no dressing rooms. The stage was just 36 feet deep. There was no wing space on either side.  … The stage was half the size that TCT typically used [at the Taft Theatre]. We addressed this by putting in a stage lift.” 

That required excavating a deeper basement to accommodate an innovative “elevator” with a built-in turntable, capable of pushing scenery up to the stage level. According to Kinney, “Creativity was essential. Our architectural design had to accommodate projection-mapping technology. To fit everything together, we worked with theater planners for projection locations. That meant coordinating with construction contractors, since these locations were in the arch and walls.”

All this was accomplished while honoring the Emery’s historic design. But with GBBN’s expertise as well as Apeiro Design (a national expert that designed the Michael Jackson Experience and the Beatles LOVE Theatre in Las Vegas) and acoustical designers, TCT’s renovation touched and modified virtually every aspect of the facility. A narrow lobby is significantly expanded; a new elevator makes three levels of seating fully accessible. The hall was originally designed for 2,200 people with benches on the third level; now there are over 1,500 contemporary seats on all levels with unobstructed views of the stage.

A new canopy now shelters the entrance, topped by a yellow crown that symbolizes TCT. The theater has been updated with 21st-century technology, including the automated stage lift, mechanical systems for moving scenery, a rear stage wall that’s a digital LED screen and projection-mapping lighting for the proscenium and walls, creating an immersive experience for young theatergoers.

TCT’s future seems bright: “We are eager to be an anchor in OTR,” said Kern. “In the past [at the Taft], we had only eight weekends of performances. Once we have year-round programming, we can be an attraction to tourists and area residents.” TCT’s production schedule for 2025-2026 is similar to past seasons. Following Wizard of Oz: Youth Edition, TCT will present Elf The Musical JR. (Dec. 5-21), Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Musical (Feb. 20-March 8, 2026) and How to Train Your Dragon: The Musical JR. (April 17-May 3, 2026).

Kern plans to slowly ramp up. “There will be a third weekend for each production,” she said, “so there will be 12 weekends, up from eight.” More shows will be added, one season at a time. The first year, there will be one for very young audiences, then one aimed at middle schoolers. In 2028, Kern anticipates adding a summer production. TCT’s long-awaited return to the renovated Emery marks an exciting new chapter for Cincinnati’s oldest theater company.

The Wizard of Oz: Youth Edition, presented by the Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati at the historic Emery Theater, will be performed from Oct. 10-26. More info: thechildrenstheatre.com. 

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Sept. 17 print edition.

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Two of Cincinnati’s exceptional professional theaters kick off their 2025-2026 seasons with powerful shows on Aug. 30 and Sept. 5. At the Cincinnati Playhouse, it’s Where the Mountain Meets the Sea by Jeff Augustin; Cincinnati Shakespeare Company is staging an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People.

On Aug. 30, veteran guest director Timothy Douglas returns to the Playhouse to stage Augustin’s play, a time-traveling duet about fathers, sons and the distances between them. His Playhouse productions — including last season’s Primary Trust, Clyde’s the season before and several of August Wilson’s “Century Cycle” plays — have repeatedly pleased audiences.

Augustin’s script tells two parallel stories: Jean, a Haitian immigrant father, is on a road trip from Miami to California in search of possibilities. Years later, after Jean’s death, his son, Jonah, an adult gay man, retraces his father’s journey, hoping to better understand a distant parent he never really knew. Their narratives are interwoven monologues. They never speak to one another directly, but as their stories unfold, common ground is revealed. Their bond across time deepens as their stories unfold, accompanied by folk-infused music created by The Bengsons. (The husband-wife duet is fondly remembered locally for their 2015 production of Hundred Days at Know Theatre in 2015.)

Augustin’s show debuted in 2020 at the Humana Festival in Louisville as a video concert during the pandemic; it had a fully realized off-Broadway production in 2022. A year ago, Douglas staged it at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia. Joanie Schultz, the Playhouse’s associate artistic director, saw it there and urged Blake Robison, the theater’s artistic leader, to include it in the upcoming season. This is the first time it’s been staged without the Bengsons’ personal involvement, but with their enthusiastic blessing. 

In a phone conversation with CityBeat, Douglas said the two musicians he has cast have been folded into the storytelling. He said the show defies description: “It’s not a play; it’s not a musical.” Instead, he terms it “storytelling,” more like musical versions of “The Moth” or “StoryCorps” on public radio. He also suggested, “The evening is really a meditation, in no way a traditional play.”

The 80-minute production will be performed on the Playhouse’s intimate Shelterhouse stage. With Douglas, a subtle director who understands the script’s silences as much as its songs, it seems likely to be deeply affecting. “I’m so sure that Cincinnati audiences are going to so fully embrace it,” he said, “I’m really excited to share it with them.”

On Sept. 5, Cincy Shakes opens An Enemy of the People, Amy Herzog’s new adaptation of Ibsen’s 1882 bitter and tragic play about local politics, staged by artistic director Brian Isaac Phillips. The show premiered in a limited 16-week sold-out run on Broadway in 2024 that earned positive critical assessment and five Tony nominations. The production won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. Actor Jeremy Strong, best known for his Emmy-winning role as Kendall Roy in HBO’s Succession, received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as Dr. Stockmann.

A small-town doctor in Norway has been an upstanding citizen of the community. But when he’s hired to oversee a spa and research shockingly reveals that the water is dangerously contaminated, he risks everything to expose the secret. He is not heeded and, in fact, is condemned by those in power, especially his own brother. A pair of Cincy Shakes veterans play the pair — Brent Vimtrup is the upright Dr. Stockmann and Matthew Lewis Johnson is the town’s corrupt mayor Peter Stockmann.

In a conversation with CityBeat, Phillips said not many classic plays address issues of climate, so he was drawn to this one after seeing it in New York last year. He was impressed by Herzog’s swift adaptation of Ibsen’s long, talky script, previously adapted in 1950 by playwright Arthur Miller. “Herzog’s version gets to the crux of the matter a lot quicker with a lot more urgency than Miller,” Phillips said. In fact, the production takes just about two hours.

As a parent, the director thinks about the world coming to the next generation. “This play talks about the idea of when greed and commerce become a priority over health and safety.” A man who chooses to stand alone and say, “Wait a second, this is wrong, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be,” is at risk. Phillips said, “For us as a people, it’s important to have this dialogue about something that is a prominent crisis.”

When rehearsals began, Phillips recalled, there was some joking comparing the play to the movie Jaws. “Dr. Stockmann is the Roy Scheider character saying, ‘You can’t go into the water,’ but the government, the mayor, the townspeople, they’ve got to make their money off the summer tourists.” Phillips compared the circumstances Ibsen imagined to “Dr. Fauci, looking out for public safety, public health during the pandemic, trying to make sure we’re being cautious. But it’s hurting business, and people would rather ignore a warning to make sure their livelihood is not threatened.” It’s a classic dilemma that Cincy Shakes will enable audiences to explore.

Phillips wants his production to inspire dialogue. “Using our recent history of going through COVID is a way to think about this. Where do you stand? With Dr. Stockmann or Mayor Stockmann? What are your plans? How would you address something like this? Would you have the courage to stand up if you were the one person standing alone?”

Where the Mountain Meets the Sea will be presented by the Cincinnati Playhouse from Aug. 30-Sept. 28. More info: cincyplay.com. An Enemy of the People will be onstage at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s Otto M. Budig Theater from Sept. 5-20. More info: cincyshakes.com. 

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Sept. 3 print edition.

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For the past several summers, I have traveled to an array of summertime theaters and reported back to CityBeat readers about what I’ve seen, encouraging them to travel elsewhere for some worthy entertainment. I’ve visited the Stratford and Shaw festivals in Canada and the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in West Virginia. This summer, I headed to Spring Green, Wisconsin, to take in five of the shows produced by American Players Theatre (APT) for its 2025 season, which opened in April and continues through early November. APT is nearly 500 miles from Cincinnati, making for a drive of close to eight hours. That’s a long trek, but it’s completely worth it.

APT has been around since 1980, when it was created on 110 acres of wooded farmland in rural Wisconsin with the intention of staging plays by Shakespeare in an open-air amphitheater. The first performance there was A Midsummer Night’s Dream. By the mid-1980s, it added other classic playwrights to its repertoire, and more recently, it has occasionally staged a world premiere. Each season offers nine productions in rotating repertory using the Hill Theatre, which seats 1,088, and the newer indoor Touchstone Theatre, a freestanding black-box with seating for 200. Both venues are reached by gravel paths that wind through the woods, and both are surrounded by a lush forest. The Hill Theatre is extremely flexible, often incorporating some of the surrounding vegetation when a play’s story needs a natural setting. 

A typical APT season plays to more than 110,000 people, who come from across the upper Midwest. An acting company of 40 professionals work throughout the season; many of them play multiple roles. The performers do not use body microphones; they are coached to project their voices, which are modestly amplified by area mics. Their voices often mingle with bird songs and nighttime insect sounds.

Here are some notes on the shows I saw:

ANNA IN THE TROPICS by Nilo Cruz. This 2003 Pulitzer Prize winner is the story of a family-owned cigar factory in 1929 Florida. In a tradition beginning in Cuba, a “lector” is hired to read novels to the women employees who roll cigars. In this story, he shares Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina with a Cuban-American woman and her daughters who are soon swooning over — and identifying with —this passionate, romantic tragedy. As the play unfolds, the events of the novel become uncannily parallel to the lives of the characters, for better and for worse. It’s a beautiful, poetic piece of theater, full of music and steamy interactions. Lector Juan Julian (Ronald Román-Meléndez) charms each woman, much to the dismay of a husband of one daughter and an uncle who wants to be rid of the distraction and automate the daily work. The clash is tempestuous, but there’s always time for some sinuous cigar smoke to waft through the night air at the Hill Theatre.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM by William Shakespeare was APT’s very first Shakespeare production back in 1980, and it’s been produced several times to satisfied audiences. It works perfectly at the Hill amphitheater, since most of the story of romantic mismatches and confusion happens in an enchanted Athenian forest. Director David Daniel made an interesting casting decision: Puck, the sprite who carries out the bidding of the fairy king Oberon (Jim DeVita) is played by a pair of rambunctious, high-energy actors who race up and down the theater’s aisles. Joshua M. Castille performs using American Sign Language. He and Casey Hoekstra sometimes speak together, sometimes separately, as playful halves of the mischievous role. The “rude mechanicals” who amateurishly stage a skit are the comic heart of the production, especially Sam Luis Massaro as the preening goofball Bottom who ends up with an ass’s head. (He was the ill-tempered uncle in Anna in the Tropics.)

THE BARBER AND THE UNNAMED PRINCE by Gavin Dillon Lawrence. A world premiere commissioned by APT is being staged indoors in the intimate Touchstone Theatre. It’s the story of a gentrifying neighborhood in Washington, D.C. in 2012. The story swirls around Kofi (David Alan Anderson), a stubborn, proud Black barber who refuses to give up his shop even as the African American businesses around him are disappearing, replaced by upscale residents and businesses, mostly white. His son Prince (Jonathan Gardner), a good student, is eager to move on, but he’s also being drawn into bad behavior. Others frequenting the shop offer opinions and recollections, especially Smitty (Cedric G. Young), who has visions about ancestors captured in Africa and brought to slavery in North America. The death of an actual local D.C. musician, funk/go-go band leader Chuck Brown, is a sign of changing times; his music pervades the show. Lawrence’s script features wry humor, but a pervading air of sadness and a tragic ending make this a memorable production — one certainly inspired by playwright August Wilson.

THE WINTER’S TALE by William Shakespeare. This infrequently produced play was written toward the end of Shakespeare’s life. It opens with a tragic tale about the foolishly jealous King Leontes (Nate Burger), who wrongly accuses his pregnant Queen Hermione (Laura Rook) of an affair. His obsession leads to a disastrous trial and then her death following her daughter’s birth. Following intermission, the story jumps forward 16 years when the repentant, guilt-ridden Leontes surprisingly reunites with his teenaged daughter Perdita (Molly Martinez-Collins), thought abandoned but raised by some very comic shepherds (David Daniel and Josh Krause). It ends happily with an unlikely magical twist. This was another Hill Theatre production that took special advantage of the forest growth around and behind the stage.

FALLEN ANGELS by Noël Coward. The hilarious high point of the APT shows I attended was this classic farce by the erudite British playwright. It was onstage during a sunny Saturday matinee, so the Hill Theatre’s stage and part of the audience were shaded by a gauzy canopy over a swanky 1920s art deco London flat. It’s the story of two married women, bored with their mundane husbands, who learn that a suave Frenchman they each had premarital affairs with has come to London, seeking to reconnect. Phoebe Gonzalez (the naïve, romantic younger daughter in Anna in the Tropics) is petite, tart Julia Sterroll; Laura Rook (the wronged Hermione in The Winter’s Tale) is willowy, anxious Jane Banbury. Their antic performances of Coward’s witty, high-speed dialogue fuel this hurtling comedy, and it also features some very elaborate and well-executed physical slapstick. Colleen Madden played Saunders, a saucy Scots maidservant full of profound wisdom about any topic that arises, based on her seemingly endless (and unbelievable) series of life experiences. Amusingly, the sexy Maurice Duclos is played by Ronald Román-Meléndez, the lector from Anna in the Tropics. Two other familiar faces in this cast: Nate Burger (King Leontes in The Winter’s Tale) is Julia’s husband Fred, and Sam Luis Massaro (previously seen as the angry uncle in Anna in the Tropics and foolish Nick Bottom in Midsummer Night’s Dream) is Jane’s dense spouse. All in all, a bravura demonstration of the versatility of APT’s acting company.

More than two months of performances remain for anyone willing to head to Wisconsin. The shows I didn’t see: William Inge’s 1953 drama Picnic; Yasmina Reza’s three-actor comedy Art; and Nina Raines’s Tribes, about a young man who’s the only deaf member of a dysfunctional family. (It was staged here in Cincinnati back in 2014 by Ensemble Theatre.) 

Tickets and information: americanplayers.org. 

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Growing up in Cincinnati’s Northside neighborhood, being onstage came naturally for Kimber Elayne Sprawl. “I was always a performer,” she said in a recent Zoom interview with CityBeat. “As a family, we were active in dance together at the Arts Consortium with the Cincinnati Black Theatre Company. I knew right away I had a passion for the arts, and I wanted to be a performer for a living. I fell in love with musical theater there. I did The Wiz. I love to sing; I love to dance. It was just something that I gravitated toward.”

D’Andre Kamau Means, the Black Theatre Company’s director, encouraged her to audition for the Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati, a professional company that presents shows at the Taft Theatre for thousands of kids. By the seventh grade, Sprawl was enrolled at the Cincinnati Public School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA). She remembers, “There was never a time when I wasn’t writing or singing or being in a play.” 

Following her 2010 SCPA graduation, she landed in the venerable musical theater program at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). “I had no idea how competitive it was,” she says. An SCPA friend was fixated on CCM, and she followed his lead, not fully realizing that fewer than 20 students were enrolled after hundreds of nationwide auditions. “For me, it just made sense. It was in my backyard. I didn’t look anywhere else. Sometimes that sort of blind confidence gets you places.”

At CCM, Sprawl refined her professional skills. “What I learned at CCM was discipline, knowing how to work my skill set, knowing exactly what I could do, how I can do it and the best ways to package it and present it. I was by no means the best or the favorite, but it’s a conservatory that really sets you up, lets you develop your tools and know how to use them.” Soon after her UC graduation in 2014, she performed in The Addams Family at the St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre (commonly called “The Muny”). 

In 2017, she joined the national touring company of The Lion King. “It came at the right time for me, giving me time to figure out what kind of actor I wanted to be, what kind of part I wanted to play. The show requires a certain number of native African players, and they taught me the language and the music. They meditated with me. It was very spiritual. I left that tour closer to myself, closer to my roots. Lion King really gave me my sense of self as a Black woman.”

In 2015, Sprawl made her Broadway debut in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and was a replacement for Jane in A Bronx Tale in 2018. In 2020, she was cast in a key role in Girl from the North Country, which began its pandemic-interrupted Broadway run that year, then resumed in 2022. She played Marianne, the Black daughter of a white couple who ran a 1930s boarding house in Minnesota. That show convinced her that she could do more than musical theater. Working with a cast of serious actors, she says, “They just fed into me and taught me so much about what it means to study the craft. Bob Dylan was a genius. [Playwright] Conor McPherson was a genius. I really loved Marianne: She was this striking soul, she knew what she wanted but she didn’t know how to get there. That really resonated with me. It’s sad that we didn’t get the run that the show deserved, but I was very grateful for it.” It was recorded on video and distributed recently on PBS’s Great Performances series.

In 2023, she was cast as Nessarose in the long-running Wicked, the first Black woman to play the role. In 2024, she worked with Tony Award-winning director Kenny Leon, on a Roundabout Theatre Company production of Samm-Art Williams’ Home. This year, Leon cast her in his staging of Shakespeare’s Othello alongside superstar Denzel Washington. She played Emilia, Desdemona’s lady in waiting, her first Shakespearean role. She was eager to learn from Washington, “to be able to work with him, to be able to see into his eyes and sort of shine with him, it was an unreal experience.” The Actors’ Equity Foundation honored her with its 2025 Joe A. Callaway Award for her performance.

Leon, a nurturing veteran director, mentored her. “Working with Kenny is almost like working with an uncle. He is so personable, so giving — he shares so many things about his life and his past. Emilia isn’t usually played by a woman of color. He really wanted the voice of the show to be a Black woman. At the end, when she is really upset [by Desdemona’s murder], I was afraid to go there because I didn’t want to be seen as this angry Black woman. He encouraged me to really open my voice. He made me feel like my anger was nuanced and believable.”

In October at the Yale Repertory Theatre, Sprawl will perform in Spunk, a musical with material adapted from celebrated Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston. Sprawl’s career arc continues to ascend, but she hangs onto her Cincinnati roots with frequent visits to family — and to get a fix of her favorite Grippo’s Potato Chips.

To learn more about Kimber Elayne Sprawl, visit instagram.com/kimberelaynesprawl.

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Aug. 6 print edition.

The post From Cincinnati to Broadway: Kimber Elayne Sprawl’s Star Continues to Rise appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

If the name Lorraine Hansberry sounds familiar, it’s probably because her first play, A Raisin in the Sun, was a surprise hit in 1959. It was the first show on Broadway by a Black woman; it featured Sidney Poitier and won four Tony Awards, including Best Play. Two years later, it became a highly praised film, featuring many of the Broadway cast. More recently, it had a 2004 Broadway revival. Hansberry was just 29 when she wrote this searing tale about the plight of African Americans in Chicago during a time of racial segregation. 

Why, after Raisin’s success, didn’t Hansberry write more? She did write just one more play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, which had a brief Broadway run in 1964. However, Hansberry died from pancreatic cancer just as that show ended its Broadway run in January 1965. Her second script was surely a work in progress; she continued to tinker with it during its three-month run. Characterized as a “dramatic comedy,” it touched on a startling array of political and social issues, but it lacked the tight focus that had made Raisin such a success. 

Nevertheless, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window was the work of a brilliant playwright. It lingered in theatrical shadows until a Broadway revival in 2023. Cincinnati-based high school teacher and community theater director David Derringer saw that production. In a recent conversation with CityBeat, he recalled his experience. 

“As soon as I walked out of the theater, I knew I had to bring this play to Cincinnati. I didn’t even know that Hansberry had written another play, let alone one that is chock full of such emotional depth, strong characters and themes that are still as relevant today as they were 60 years ago.”

Derringer applied to several community theaters to stage the play. Mariemont Players, a venerable company on Cincinnati’s east side, agreed to do it. “They entrusted me with the vision and scope of the production,” Derringer said. “Not many community theaters would have the courage to tackle this epic play. I’m glad Mariemont wasn’t afraid to do so!”

The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window is built around the tempestuous relationship between Sidney, a disenchanted Greenwich Village intellectual, and his free-spirited wife, Iris, an aspiring actress. They are surrounded by a diverse array of friends, bohemian and conservative. Sidney has become the publisher and editor of a left-wing paper. Persuaded to support the election of a controversial candidate, he’s the focus of turmoil among the play’s other characters. Their argumentative stew blends divergent opinions about morality, ethics, interracial relationships, drugs, rebellion, conformity, global responsibility and the fragility of love.

Derringer feels Hansberry ran out of time to refine her play. “Early drafts were simply too wordy and too long,” he mentions. It’s possible that, aware of her own mortality, she includes every issue that concerned her. Despite her all-encompassing approach, her genius at creating characters and pushing them at one another is evident throughout The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.

CityBeat’s conversation with Derringer included actors Chad Brinkman and Anna Hazard, who play the central characters. Brinkman especially appreciates Hansberry’s notes setting up scenes. “Even more poetic than the lines are the things she says around them — the stage directions, the descriptions, her little inputs here and there about who these characters are and the world that they come from. She writes so beautifully and so poetically about these people.”

The show appealed to Derringer because every role is meaningful. “There truly is no bit part,” he said. “Every character, whether in one scene or five, has a story to tell and a moment or two where Hansberry has allowed them to shine. From a story aspect, while it is a play about race, art, addiction, mental health, sex positivity and politics, at its root is a story about marriage and how the individuals that make up that marriage change and morph over time.”

As Sidney, Brinkman said, “He’s one of my favorite kinds of characters, one of those lovable screw-ups who, in his desire to be liked and deal with his own demons, ends up doing some good.” 

Sidney and Iris constantly battle and make up. Hazard said Iris is “flawed in very relatable ways. We so often have an idea of what we want in life and will do whatever it takes to get there, only to realize that we might not have really wanted this thing in the first place. We meet Iris in the middle of her questioning about where she is, what she wants and what she is willing to do to get it — and whether or not she likes what she’s done to get where she is. If you’ve ever been a people-pleaser, even for a moment, you might find a kindred spirit in Iris.”

“These characters definitely know each other’s sore spots,” Hazard pointed out about Iris and Sidney. “I love finding the places where they are poking at something that isn’t comfortable, but then we see when the line is crossed. We’ve all been there in real life. That’s what makes Hansberry so incredible — the dialogue is something that everyone can directly relate to.” She added, “There is something so real about the interplay of comedy and drama … that translates to our lived experiences. Hansberry nails that so perfectly.”

“I hope audiences walk away with a reminder of how far we’ve come as a society and how far we still have to go, and that that change begins with us,” Derringer says. “To quote Sidney, ‘In order to do things, you have to do things.’” That’s certainly the message Lorraine Hansberry intended to convey in her thoughtful, entertaining play.

The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, presented by Mariemont Players at its Walton Creek Theater, runs from July 10-27. More info: mariemontplayers.com.

This story is featured in CityBeat’s July 9 print edition.

The post Lorraine Hansberry’s Overlooked Second Play Gets a Timely Revival in Cincinnati appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

I need to admit that I’m a white guy who knows next to nothing about beauty salons, especially those catering to Black women. But thanks to Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati’s current production of Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, a recent Broadway hit by Jocelyn Bioh, I’ve had a 90-minute lesson in the artistry, socializing and humanity of women who inhabit this unique universe. Bioh’s play is a funny, sassy comedy with a great deal of heartfelt contemporary relevance.

Bioh’s swift script runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on a very hot single July day in 2019. The shop is designed by Brian c. Mehring with hot pink walls and a neatly tiled floor. Each stylist’s personal station is decorated to the hilt with the help of Shannon Rae Lutz, including images of elaborate braid patterns. Jaja’s has the air of a business that has flourished due to hard work. It’s stylish, but with a slightly rough edge — starting with the heavy-duty grate at the door on Harlem’s 125th Street, tucked beneath an overpass and framed by a view of buildings with fire escapes. The salon’s cranky air conditioner can barely keep up with the summer heat. 

Jaja (Burgess Byrd) is a Senegalese immigrant who has established a successful business. She provides work for a handful of West African immigrants who are independent contractors — they step out onto the sidewalk to negotiate their fees — working in close proximity to one another, sharing stories and spats. Jaja doesn’t appear until late in the show because it’s her wedding day: Wearing an ornate white ensemble, she’s about to embark on a marriage of convenience to a white landlord, her ticket to legal immigration status.

Jaja’s fate affects her daughter Marie (Samantha Russell), a recent high school grad who actually runs the shop. She was the valedictorian of her class and has aspirations for further education. However, her immigration status — she came with Jaja to the U.S. as an infant — is an obstacle. While running the salon, Marie is busy buying supplies, refereeing arguments and fretting about her future.

The competitive relationships between the stylists are always on the brink of explosion, for countless reasons. Veteran Bea (Keisha L. Kemper) is often outspoken about how things should be run and quick to express her dismay when a newer, faster braider from Nigeria lands one of her longtime clients. Bea spends much of her time gossiping and commiserating with charming and opinionated Aminata (Candice Handy), whose wayward husband James (Samuel Stricklen) gives her fits. She is committed to scratch-off lottery tickets, and a modest win sets off a dancing celebration. This pair is often glued to a TV screen showing Nollywood soap operas.

Miriam (Brianna Miller), a soft-spoken Sierra Leonean braider, has a past, including a child still in Africa and a distant romantic relationship. She slowly reveals details as she works a day-long job of styling for Jennifer (Elexis Selmon), an aspiring African-American journalist. Bea and Aminata push Jennifer off to Miriam, unwilling to take on the arduous job. Ndidi (Jasimine Bouldin) takes on ambitious styles for clients with high expectations, including Chrissy (A.J. Baldwin), who wants to look like Beyoncé. 

Actors Baldwin and Beasley (who uses a singular name) each portray three clients. In addition to the Beyoncé wannabe, Baldwin portrays Michelle, Bea’s former client, who gets anxiously caught in the crossfire when she books an appointment with Ndidi, as well as LaNiece, a DJ who likes to eat while she’s being styled. Beasley is hilarious as Vanessa, a rude customer no one wants; stuck with her, Aminata is surprised when Vanessa falls deeply asleep. Beasley also portrays Sheila, a loud-talking businesswoman, and Radia, a one-time high school classmate of Marie.

In addition to Aminata’s useless husband, Stricklen plays an array of distinctly different small-change entrepreneurs who frequent the shop. Franklin is a “sock man,” hawking colorful footwear; charming Olu sells jewelry and has a crush on Ndidi; and Eric, who sells DVDs and keeps his eye out for immigration trouble that might affect them.

This versatile cast is guided with directorial skill by Cincinnati theater veteran Torie Wiggins. She keeps the action ping-ponging between these vivid women and their hopeful customers. Kemper’s self-centered Bea is a standout, as is Handy’s ebullient Aminata, who keeps things light with dancing and a celebratory toast for Jaja’s wedding. The actors playing multiple roles are especially entertaining, donning an array of wigs designed by Tiara M. Jones and Aniya Williams. Jones is also responsible for the characters’ vibrant attire — especially Aminata’s vibrant orange-green shirt and skirt and Bea’s royal blue dress with African designs, as well as Jaja’s spectacular wedding ensemble.

The play is a satisfying slice of life that Cincinnati audiences might not know. These women work hard to make ends meet, struggling with the constant threat of immigrant enforcement, even more menacing today than in 2019 when the show debuted. But their spirited camaraderie, even in the light of momentary rivalries, reveals deep-seated caring and respect. Bioh’s script takes a dramatic turn at the end that underscores the firm, warm foundation behind these characters’ daily existence. That’s a lesson I’m very glad to have witnessed.

Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, presented by Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, continues through June 22. More info: ensemblecincinnati.org. 

This story is featured in CityBeat’s June 11 print edition.

The post Review: ‘Jaja’s African Hair Braiding’ Brings Harlem Salon Life to Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

For its 40th anniversary, Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati will revive its production of a rock musical that redefined musicals. The 2025-2026 season also features a gripping and lyrical one-person play, a witty and heartfelt comedy and a nostalgic coming-of-age musical based on true events in Cincinnati.

The upcoming season kicks off in September with a fresh staging of Next to Normal, the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning rock musical that explores the emotional complexities of a family living with mental illness. At its center is Diana Goodman, a suburban mother grappling with bipolar disorder, whose condition strains her relationships with both her determined daughter and caring husband. The production offers a raw, compassionate look at how love and resilience persist amid grief, instability and the search for healing. ETC previously offered Next to Normal in 2014 and it proved so popular that it was brought back within a year. (Sept. 13 – Oct. 5, 2025)

Last December Fiona: The Musical was a major hit, telling the story of the Cincinnati Zoo’s world-famous hippo. This year, ETC will offer a sequel: It’s Fritz, a story based on Fiona’s little brother, born in 2022. It’s another collaboration by playwright Zina Camblin and composer David Kisor. This will be another cute, tuneful and family friendly musical, telling how Fritz figures out who he wants to be. With a famous older sister stealing the spotlight, Fritz can’t help but wonder if there’s any room left to shine. This playful, heartfelt tale — complete with messy puddles and big emotions — follows his journey to discover where he belongs and how to make a splash all his own. (Dec. 3-31, 2025) 

ETC will begin 2026 with Donnetta Lavinia Grays’ regional premiere drama Where We Stand, an award-winning play from 2020, first at Chicago’s legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and then Off-Broadway by WP Theater. The script is a long-form poem with humor, heart and music about  a man standing before his town asking for forgiveness after he has made a deal with a mysterious stranger on the citizens’ behalf. A gripping blend of fable and modern-day storytelling, the show both engages and implicates the audience in determining the man’s fate. (Jan. 31-Feb. 22, 2026)

A comedy by Eric Pfeffinger with the unlikely title Fourteen Funerals will get its regional premiere at ETC in the early spring. When a woman is unexpectedly asked to give eulogies for long-lost relatives, what starts as an unusual obligation soon turns into a meaningful path of self-reflection — and a surprising friendship with an offbeat funeral home receptionist. Blending sharp humor with emotional depth, this new play examines how identity, connection and the legacies we carry shape who we are. (March 21-April 12, 2026)

The season will close with The House on Watch Hill by Cincinnatian Richard Oberacker and Robert Taylor, the Tony-nominated creators of the Broadway hit Bandstand. Full of nostalgic charm, it’s set in summer 1984 in a quiet Cincinnati suburb, where a group of teen misfits work to create a memorable haunted house from a grand old home in their neighborhood. As their journey unfolds, the characters find themselves facing fears that feel all too real — ones no imaginary monster can match. Framed by Cold War tension, the freedom of latchkey childhood and a pulsing ’80s-inspired soundtrack, this coming-of-age musical blends adrenaline with emotion. It’s a story about friendship, identity, loss and the boundless reach of imagination — perfect for fans of Stranger Things and The Goonies, and for anyone who remembers that fleeting moment between childhood and growing up. (May 9-31, 2026)

Subscriptions to the 2025-2026 Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati season are on sale now. Packages can be purchased by calling the box office at (513) 421-3555. For more information about Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati’s new season, visit ensemblecincinnati.org.

The post Ensemble Theatre Celebrates 40 Years with Powerful Plays and New Musicals appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

You get into your car, hit the ignition and tune into your favorite radio station. It keeps you company while you run errands or drive to work. It might provide you with entertainment and information. Numerous commercial stations are available across the FM spectrum. Many sound pretty much the same — pop tunes, sports talk, lots of advertising, maybe an occasional newscast.

But two choices, both non-commercial stations, are unlike anything else on the FM dial. WGUC-FM 90.9 offers classical music 24/7, while WVXU-FM 91.7 (and WMUB-FM 88.5) provide a steady menu of public affairs and news, local and international, including National Public Radio (NPR) — no ads, just occasional announcements that mention companies and organizations that support programming. Both stations are operated by Cincinnati Public Radio (CPR).

For years, much of local public radio has been hidden away on the second floor of a downtown building on Central Parkway, the Crosley Telecommunications Center, owned by WCET, Cincinnati’s PBS TV station. CPR’s stations have been all but physically invisible. As tenants, they were landlocked, despite steady growth, and increasingly crowded for space. That’s changed dramatically this spring.

As April winds down, CPR’s stations have begun to provide programming from a new, $32 million headquarters facility, designed specifically with their broadcast and recording missions in mind. Located at 2117 Dana Avenue in Evanston, the Scripps Family Center for Public Media is today home to a cadre of skilled broadcast professionals, news reporters and recording artists. They aim to supplement, serve and respond to the listening and informational needs of residents of Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, Southeast Indiana, and Dayton, Ohio.

Origins

These non-commercial stations trace their origins back to local universities. WGUC began providing classical music programming in 1960 at the University of Cincinnati, with its first studios at the College-Conservatory of Music’s Emery Hall. In 1971 it was a charter member of National Public Radio, adding the flagship news program, “All Things Considered,” to its broadcast offerings. It moved to the Crosley Telecommunications Center at 1223 Central Parkway in 1980. In 1994, UC handed over operations to a “community licensee,” Cincinnati Public Radio (CPR). In 2002, UC’s license was formally assigned to CPR.

Xavier University’s closed-circuit, student-run station started in the basement of Alter Hall. In 1970, it entered the airwaves as WVXU. Its eclectic programming included old-time radio comedies and dramas, jazz and swing music, and local call-in talk shows. In 1981, thanks to an agreement with WGUC, it became Cincinnati’s second NPR affiliate and began carrying “Morning Edition.” In 1986, it converted a one-time U.S. Shoe building on Herald Avenue on the edge of campus into its new studios. In the 1990s, it disseminated programming via the X-Star Radio Network to nearly a dozen translator frequencies across Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan. When Xavier University put the station’s license on the market in 2005, CPR acquired it for $15 million. 

That made possible two broadcast streams for CPR, with WGUC providing an all-classical music format and WVXU delivering around-the-clock news and public affairs programs. CPR hired Maryanne Zeleznik in 2005 as its news director. She had spent two decades overseeing news at WNKU, another NPR affiliate licensed to Northern Kentucky University. (NKU sold WNKU to a religious broadcaster in 2017.)

Miami University’s WMUB signed on in 1950 as a 10-watt training facility staffed by broadcasting majors. It eventually became another regional NPR station, serving Oxford, eastern Indiana, Dayton and its northern suburbs. In 2009, Miami agreed to have CPR operate WMUB, which now shares WVXU’s programming with those listeners.

Finding a suitable location

To learn more about CPR’s plans and decisions for its new location, CityBeat sat down with members of the team, including management and board leadership, broadcasters, architects and engineers.

Serving audiences with two broadcast streams, CPR delivered its offerings from the crowded rental space on Central Parkway. Rich Eiswerth, CPR’s president and CEO since 1998, said, “When we moved into the Crosley Telecommunications Center [in 1980], we were just one station. When we acquired WVXU [in 2005], we more than doubled our staff, plus we were getting involved in online streaming. With all the additional responsibilities and staff, we had literally run out of space and were putting people in converted closets.” 

Through careful financial management, by 2020, CPR paid off the loan it undertook for the purchase of WVXU — five years ahead of schedule. But there was no room to expand on Central Parkway. Conversations began to consider options for a new headquarters location. General priorities were proximity to Cincinnati Music Hall (WGUC records and airs concerts by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and performances by Cincinnati Opera), City Hall (where WVXU reporters cover local government activities) and downtown Cincinnati in general. Parking for staff and visitors was also desired. 

In 2018, a site on Plum Street north of Cincinnati City Hall seemed to address many of these needs for a price tag of $1.5 million. However, further research unearthed problems with the site that promised to double the expense. Architectural plans for a three-story building were put on hold.

Eiswerth explained, “When the City Hall lot became unfeasible, we looked around at real estate and began negotiations and stumbled on a lot in Evanston.” Developer Dan Neyer helped CPR acquire land that had served as a parking lot at 2117 Dana Avenue in Neyer Properties’ Keystone Park development. His experience with several nonprofits, including the Cincinnati Ballet’s new location on Gilbert Avenue, enabled CPR to obtain the property at 30 percent below its list price. It was a site without the logistical complications that made the City Hall site unsuitable.

Most of CPR’s wishes were met. Evanston, off the I-71 Dana Avenue exit, is just minutes from downtown. It’s close to Xavier University — in fact, barely a mile from the site of the old WVXU studio building on Herald Avenue. It offers ample free parking for staff and visitors. Awareness of CPR will be enhanced since the building is clearly visible from the highway.

CPR’s website lists additional benefits. “We’re excited about additional and updated studio spaces, including a professional recording studio for local musicians and a public podcast booth. We’ll have event space for more than 100 guests, so we can host concerts, debates, classroom visits and events with other non-profits. … This new building exponentially increases CPR’s ability to connect with our audience and to welcome new audiences in to learn more about what public radio offers.”

CPR already partners with numerous arts organizations and universities for performances and live broadcasts, in addition to educational offerings such as Classics for Kids and Democracy & Me. The intention with the new facility is to do even more, including hosting debates and roundtable discussions of broad public interest. “Our job is to amplify the arts and inform the community,” the website statement says, “and in this new facility, we can do both better.”

The three-story building plan for the City Hall site devised by architects at Emersion Design was rethought for a spacious two-story structure in Evanston with numerous windows and open space. Eiswerth and the CPR board of directors, led by business leaders Mu Sinclaire and Otto M. Budig Jr., had specific notions for the new headquarters, and they quickly approved Emersion’s approach. “We wanted to emphasize natural, open and airy,” Eiswerth said. “We came up with a design that everybody fell in love with.”

Intentional design and mass timber

Emersion Design architect Adam Luginbill recalled, “When this opportunity [in Evanston] came along, we really came in with fresh eyes. We had learned a lot from a functional standpoint [from the design work undertaken for the City Hall site]. We had a kind of trial run, and we knew the ‘personality’ of the project, so we could be more intentional.” Once the design was decided, Luginbill proposed a new concept: “Did you ever consider mass timber?” Eiswerth’s response: “I had no idea what they were talking about.” But he learned quickly.

In place of traditional steel-and-concrete construction, mass timber uses large solid wooden panels and beams engineered for strong, structural use. It offers an array of benefits that fit with CPR’s vision of innovation and aesthetic appeal. Because building materials could be prefabricated, faster construction times were possible, and some costs were reduced. 

The Black Spruce wood used for mass timber is a renewable resource. As the trees are harvested in northern Canada at the end of their growth life, new trees are seeded. Since trees store carbon, when used for construction, the carbon remains stored, reducing a building’s carbon footprint.

 “What drew us to mass timber was a great value,” Luginbill explained. “It brought wood and other natural materials into the building, and it wasn’t something that we could have done with steel, which is cold. Mass timber could bring a duplication of finishes, layered on.”

Eiswerth liked the concept immediately. “I didn’t need to be convinced. It melded so well into the initial design, the glass and the openness.” The board’s executive committee met with Emersion Design’s team and quickly approved the new plan. Even with the slight premium expense for mass timber materials, “There was no hesitation,” Luginbill said. “They were really sold on all the advantages.”

One of the first mass timber buildings in Ohio, CPR’s new headquarters is the first in Greater Cincinnati. It’s also likely the first broadcast facility in the country built with mass timber.

There were pragmatic reasons for using mass timber, but there were subtler benefits. The visual and tactile appeal of natural wood gives CPR’s new headquarters a biophilic impact. That term describes an inherent human inclination to affiliate with nature and other forms of life. Beams, wall panels and a statuesque central stairwell have created an environment that’s warm and comfortable for staff members as well as visitors.

Ground was broken in Evanston in August 2023, and the now-occupied building has earned LEED Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. It has incorporated water and energy efficiency, high indoor air quality, and thoughtful material choices. Radiant heating and cooling systems provide comfort levels throughout the building with temperatures regulated by warm or cool water tubing embedded in the floors, which enables the large volume of overhead air to adjust naturally. With no need for forced air, ambient noise is diminished. It allows fresh outside air into the building and regulates CO₂ levels. Air filters reduce pollutants. Future plans, when the budget allows, are for a green roof with solar panels to offset some of the building’s energy demand. 

Luginbill said, “It has been a real joy to work on this once-in-a-lifetime project. It’s been really interesting because of the specialized needs of the building — acoustical, for instance.” He cites the complex system of three walls surrounding the box that contains a large recording studio to protect against sound and vibrations from nearby I-71. These walls and thick glass create layers of separation that make it completely soundproof. Sound simulations have ensured that the insulation works. 

Sinclaire, chair of CPR’s board of directors, said, “A lot of these seeds germinated a long time ago. We’ve reenergized, and we’re in good shape. Radio has never done this before. I think we have done it very effectively, and we’re two-thirds of the way there” to the project’s $32 million price tag. He’s certain that the building can land the necessary funding for the project. “You can see not only the vision but the reality. The old place [on Central Parkway] was one-dimensional, the signal was going out, but you could hardly do anything internally. Now it’s multi-dimensional — a podcast studio, the gathering spaces that can accommodate as many as 120 people. It’s very inviting, and there’s free parking!”

State-of-the-art facilities for music and news gathering

CPR’s new building is a showplace of thoughtful design. With 32,000 square feet of space, it doubles the capacity of the Central Parkway facility. That includes approximately 11,000 square feet of space devoted to staff, providing flexibility for growth — especially in the news area. There’s plenty of space for work to be done, surrounded by windows and fresh air. 

CPR’s tools and technology will enable productive interaction with the community in ways not previously possible. The stations won’t sound different and programming will continue unchanged, but the ability to produce meaningful content for both WVXU and pleasing musical programming for WGUC has expanded significantly.

The crown jewel of the facility is its technologically sophisticated professional recording studio, which does not yet have a sponsor’s name. It’s three times larger than WGUC’s 45-year-old Corbett Studio at the Crosley Telecommunications Center. Larger ensembles can record there or perform live for an in-studio audience. All of CPR’s new studios are video-enabled for recorded and live-streaming events. 

Joel Crawford, recording and mastering engineer, said, “Our vision is really being a resource for this community and the music scene in Cincinnati. … Everything in this space is high-end, the best possible equipment that we can get for our budget.” Production Director Stephen Baum is excited by all the possibilities the studio offers. “Building from the ground up,” he said, “made a major difference. You do it once and you do it right — you’re never going to have to do it again.”

Two modern, well-equipped on-air studios, one for each station, will be where daily programs and newscasts originate. A studio spacious enough to host multiple guests for locally originated programs such as “Cincinnati Edition,” hosted at noon Monday through Friday by Lucy May, is adjacent to WVXU’s air studio, which is named for donor Charles D. Berry. Staff members will have access to four sound booths for recording and editing, double the number available in the former location.

This state-of-the-art facility is already attracting and retaining top-notch talent similar to Baum and Crawford. 

“This is what our community deserves,” according to Conrad Thiede, CPR’s director of major and planned giving. “Having talent like this here in Cincinnati, not just for us but for the community, is just incredible. I imagine that they will be here for the long haul.” 

An opening for another recording engineer was announced recently, and more than 20 applications arrived on day one, including one from Italy and one from China. 

Public spaces — in and out

“The most important change will be CPR’s ability to bring the radio community we have built across six decades into its new space for debates, concerts, educational programs, station events and more,” said Eiswerth. “We’ll be reaching out to the public, and that’s really important to us. The building’s indoor gathering space can accommodate as many as 120 people for events, performances, lectures and debates. Sitting directly outside and visible from the professional recording studio, that space adds a layer of involvement not previously possible.” 

Just west of the new building is a terraced outdoor area, directly adjacent to the Evanston Park and Playground Recreation area. There have already been conversations with the Cincinnati Recreation Commission about programming there, co-hosted by CPR and, in some cases, broadcast to the larger community.

Another sort of public access will be made possible by the new Greater Cincinnati Foundation Podcast Booth, adjacent to CPR’s attractive, two-story Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr., Foundation Lobby with a mobile designed by Brazee Glass Studios in Oakley using multi-colored glass inspired by CPR’s multicolored logo. Use of the professionally equipped podcast booth is free of charge during business hours for anyone who completes a training session. 

On the air

Elaine Diehl, who has hosted WGUC’s midday music programming since 2016, is looking forward to “spaciousness, fresh air, more room. All lighter and sunnier. I love the mass timber beams.” She expressed excitement for live music that can be performed, recorded and broadcast. The one-time WNKU announcer works with community leaders such as Cincinnati Opera’s Evans Mirageas for previews and Cincinnati Zoo’s Thane Maynard, who records his “90-Second Naturalist” in a CPR studio. The large new recording studio, she said, can accommodate “eight, ten, twelve musicians — ensembles not possible in the past.” She looks forward to the outside space and parties in the adjacent park. (Diehl led the popular local band Elaine & the Biscaynes back in the 1980s.) 

“Anybody can play [a recording of] Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony,” Diehl pointed out, “but we’ll be able to do more live and more local. We’ll talk to people who come in to conduct and perform with the Cincinnati Symphony. We’ll be telling people what an incredible city we have, so much art and culture. I feel really super lucky to be involved.”

When Zeleznik, WVXU’s news director and “Morning Edition” host, was asked what she most looked forward to, she said, “It’s a silly thing, but it’s windows!” Being able to see outdoors from her broadcast studio means she can actually see the weather. “I get to work at 4 a.m. when it’s still dark. The windows in the new building are everywhere, and they are amazing.” 

More seriously, Zeleznik is immensely pleased that her news team of a dozen reporters will have collaborative, comfortable workstations. “Room for growth was a consideration. Initially, we will have more space than we need. We hope to increase the size of our staff. When I started here [in 2005] we had five. Now it’s 12, plus a pair of reporters from the Ohio Newsroom whose home base is in Cincinnati.” She mentions the Berry studio where “Cincinnati Edition” can now accommodate multiple guests. “We can also take it downstairs,” she adds, “and have a live audience in the gathering space.”

The nerve center for both stations is a complex server room on the second level, the pride and joy of Don Danko, vice president of engineering. Chief Engineer Will Staffan said, “At Central Parkway, there were thousands of cables. Remodeling had resulted in a confusing maze. Being able to start fresh here is a big plus. You might have three devices in one box now.” Staffan’s focus is keeping the stations on the air without interruption. “We’re getting all state-of-the-art equipment, which will help us deliver a better product for our listeners.”

Visionary words

Emersion Design architect Nikki Goldstein observed, “It’s been incredibly special to design a building that is emblematic of this organization’s mission. It’s repeated throughout the design in a lot of ways. The wood and the warmth really say this is a place where the public can come in. It’s warm and inviting.” The design team is excited to see what can be done with the result, especially the public spaces. “We asked them, ‘What do you guys want to do? Do you want to do concerts? Do you want to do lectures? Do you want to do events?’ And they said, ‘True! All those things.’” She added, “It was really cool to see everyone come together and settle on that plan.” The goal of the design was to physically embrace CPR’s mission. 

Susan MacDonald, a freelance writer and former Enquirer reporter, chairs CPR’s Community Advisory Board. In a video comment on the website, she said, “When I walked into this building … the size and the expanse and the openness is what really touched me. And the warmth. I’ve never been in a mass timber building before and the color of the wood and the arches and the space is just a very welcoming open place. … As someone who used to be in the newspaper business and still follows the media today, we need this kind of … open place for conversations and talking about issues and solving problems, so it’s just a very impressive space.”

WVXU’s Zeleznik said, “Don’t expect the stations to sound differently on the air. But we’ll be even more engaged in the community.” WGUC’s Diehl added, “Public radio is about one-on-one conversations. We just chat with listeners, people who often know as much — or more — about the music than we do.”

It’s a new era for Cincinnati Public Radio. It’s evident that WGUC, WVXU and WMUB, building on a firm foundation, will be able to do even more to enrich our community.

This story is featured in CityBeat’s April 30 print edition.

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