Great theatre - for free!

The University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music has announced its 2007-2008 Studio Series, which are free productions theater and opera. CityBeat's A&E Blog picked up on this the other day, I'm just passing it along.

The theater in which these shows are performed is small and intimate and even though the performers are students these kids are some of the best. And this year they're doing TWO Sondheim shows!
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New Blog, New Links

A quick shout-out to Cincinnati Now, another new blog in the Cincy blogosphere. Looks like a great start, keep it up!

While looking at his page, I was inspired to re-categorize my CincyLinks and things suddenly got out of hand. So now I've got links to CincyMusic, CincyArts, CincyTheatre, CincyFilm, and even CincyFun. I'm glad I did this, because my CincyResources list was getting a little out of hand - but I didn't mean to waste most of my afternoon doing this! And it fills out my new 3-column layout quite nicely.

So, please, check out my links on either side, and let me know if you think of any I'm missing. ATTENTION: NERD ALERT! While going through my CincyFun links you might find some things that you wouldn't necessarily think of as 'fun,' like the Mercantile Library. Well I'm a big nerd, so they're on my list. Deal wit it!
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Best? of Shadowbox

So last night we saw the "Best of Shadowbox" at the Shadowbox Cabaret. If that's their best, they really need to do some work. I guess I just didn't drink enough to find all their re-re-recycled bits funny.

I know that the show is supposed to be a replay of all their funniest bits, but most of their actually humorous stuff is a re-hash of the same jokes, only slightly updated over the years. Like the perennial favorite, "guy telling a scary story with a flashlight under his face while other guy pantomimes." It was a funny bit the first three times you did it, because you kept changing the stories from show to show, but after a while the whole motif gets old and even your new "A material" sounds worn out.

And the music is done very well, but there's nothing special about it anymore. The fact that these guys have to do the same seven or eight songs every night for the run of the show really comes across - they're totally phoning it in, especially by the end of the night. A few years back I felt the music was one of the strongest points of a Shadowbox show, but now it feels like they're just going through the motions. They really do very little to put their own stamp on the pieces. I know Holiday Inn lounge acts with more passion.

It was nice to see a bunch of new faces in the cast, but most of them were completely under utilized. They better start mixing them in a lot more, since the veteran members are definitely losing their spirit.
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Talkin' Fringe

I was talkin to a few friends about this year's Fringe the other day. We went to a ton of the shows, more than I was able to go to last year. In general it seemed much more together, more organized than last year. And the parties were great.

The quality of the shows was much better in general, but all in all there was nothing to write home about, except for Calculus: The Musical, which was spectacular. Everyone raved about iLove, which frankly bored me to tears. I think that everyone was just juiced up because two of the actors let their naughty bits hang out.

The one show that stands out in my mind as just awful was Extreme Puppet Theatre. Sad part is, I really think the performers behind it thought they were funny. It was downright painful to sit through.

What were your favorite and not-so-favorite Fringe moments?
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