Author: David C. Ben

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News

SCPA to feature young talent tomorrow at the Carnegie

The Carnegie Visual & Performing Arts Center hosts an evening to showcase budding local talent tomorrow, Thursday, January 21 at 7:30pm in the acoustically superb Otto M. Budig Theatre. The event will feature Cincinnati’s School of Creative & Performing Arts (SCPA) instrumental Jazz Combo, Meridian 8 vocal ensemble, and young composer and pianist Jonathan Carlisle. The event is the third in a series of six performances as part of the 2009-10 Carnegie in Concert series.

Meridian 8 is a vocal jazz octet featuring students in grades 9-12. Directed by SCPA music department chair Rick Hand, the ensemble features arrangements written for groups including Manhattan Transfer, and allows students opportunities to learn and practice improvisation and scat singing. The Jazz Combo is a similarly select ensemble of the school’s top instrumentalists, who cut their teeth on the masterpieces of the repertoire under director and respected local musician Erwin Stuckey.

SCPA pianist and composer Jonathan Carlisle will perform a number of original compositions. “It’s the type of music you hear in movies,” said Carlisle. “Strong melodies that you can really latch onto.” One piece Carlisle is particularly excited to perform at The Carnegie is entitled Metamorphosis. “It’s a dramatic piece about one thing evolving into another.”

Tickets to Carnegie in Concert performances are available for $18 at The Carnegie Box Office (Tuesday through Friday 12pm to 5pm), online, or by phone at (859) 957-1940. Students, holders of the Cincinnati Public Ratio Perks Card, members of the Carnegie, and members of Enjoy the Arts each receive a $3 discount.

Carnegie photo from CityBeat.

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News

New Year’s Celebration on Fountain Square

Come downtown to ring in 2010! Fountain Square will feature a 15,000 pound Ice Bar, which includes a Red Bull ice luge. Faucets are frozen inside the bar so beer can be tapped from inside the ice. The bar is about 20 feet long, 12 feet deep and 10 feet high. Soda, snacks, draft beer, champagne and mixed drinks will be available for purchase. Additionally, Strauss & Troy are sponsoring FREE ice skating and skate rentals, which are typically $2.50 each.

DJ Pillo will spin tunes all night to keep the non-skaters moving as well. At 11pm, watch Red Bull’s “New Year No Limits” TV special live on ESPN. Red Bull athlete Travis Pastrana will drive a car off a pier in Long Beach and land it on a barge floating in the harbor, in an attempt to set a world record for longest distance jump in a rally car. Then at 11:59 pm be part of a live television crowd on Fox 19 that counts down to the New Year and welcomes 2010 with fireworks by Rozzi’s Famous Fireworks.

Parking is available all evening in the Fountain Square Garage for just $5. Or leave the car at home by taking a bus to the event (plan your trip now). You could always take a cab home if needed.

Fountain Square Ice Bar photograph by 5chw4r7z.
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News

Putting our money where our mouth is. Literally.

Some of UrbanCincy’s friends have written about the need to buy local, and we whole-heartedly agree on the merits. It is proven that spending money at a locally owned business keeps more money in the local economy than spending the same amount at a chain. So when the writers of UrbanCincy try to get together for lunch about once per month to catch up and have an informal staff meeting, we have only 1 rule: buy local.

Our last luncheon adventure took us to Chicago Gyros in Clifton Heights because many of us live nearby. Their generous portions definitely filled us up, and the prices were absolutely reasonable. For the 4 of us, our total bill came to something like $35. Because we bought local, almost $16 stayed in the local economy. Had we spent that same amount at, say, Quiznos across the street (don’t get me wrong, I love Quiznos), only about $4.50 would have stayed in the local economy.

Join us in supporting the local economy this holiday season, and all year long, by buying local.

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Arts & Entertainment News

Once Upon a Mattress a hit for the holidays

This weekend, Jersey Productions will run their final showings of Once Upon a Mattress. Tony nominated actress Pamela Myers plays the lead, Queen Aggravaine, and Kaitlin Becker perfectly plays the eccentric Princess Winnifred. Children and adults alike will love how well the young actors and actresses portraying a group of children listening to a story actually become involved in the musical numbers.

Tickets are still available for this weekend’s showings and can be purchased online, by calling (513) 621-2787, or by visiting the box office. Seeing the play will be the perfect end to a day of fun holiday activities downtown this weekend, including seeing the train display at the Cincinnati Gas and Electric Building, ice skating on Fountain Square, or bolstering the local economy by shopping in the Gateway Quarter.

The Aronoff Center for the Arts (map) is located in the heart of downtown Cincinnati’s Backstage Entertainment District. Off-street automobile and bicycle parking is available and the Aronoff Center is well-serviced by Metro’s Government Square bus hub. To see which route is most convenient for you, and to plan your trip now, use Metro’s Trip Planner.

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News

boom! a Hit at the Know Theater

The Know Theater this weekend will feature an intense, futuristic comedy called ‘boom!’ From the theater’s website, ‘boom!’ is “a funny, slightly warped and ultimately hopeful look at the apocalypse that follows a young marine biologist as he prepares for the imminent end of the world.”

I saw the play this past weekend, and was thrilled with it. The entire production included just three spectacular actors, whose interplay harmonizes to create a humorous look at the tensions between hope and fatalism. Maybe I read too much into it, but I thought the play also included an undertone of the tension between intelligent design and evolution, and even spoke to the tension that couples living together experience.

Though the play engaged me on this level, it’s also fascinatingly entertaining, and manages to exist as passive entertainment at the same time. The Know Theater’s intimate setting allows a spectator just relax and enjoy the show. But the opposite is also true. Because of the theater’s intimate feeling, the audience has the ability to fully engage the actors by being so complete taken in with the production on the stage. It’s all up to the spectator.

boom! features phenomenal acting and an incredibly high production value. The show will run 4 times per weekend through November 7, but many of the shows are already sold out. Tickets are just $12, providing an affordable outing. After the show, the bar at the theater opens and the actors come to mingle with anybody interested in talking with them.

The Know is easily served by numerous bus lines. Go to the METRO trip planner, enter your address in the first box and enter the Know’s address, 1120 Jackson Street, in the second box. Couldn’t be easier. If you insist on driving, there is plenty of safe, off-street parking in the Gateway Quarter Garage, accessible from 12th Street. Click here for directions.