Burn This
Sept. 29-Oct. 15, 2011 | 
Sweet Suspense:Poe-sessed
October 29, 2011 | 
The Santaland Diaries & trueCHRISTMAS
December 1-17, 2011 | 
St. Nicholas
Feb. 23-March 10, 2012 | 
reasons to be pretty
April 12-28, 2012 | 
Purchase Tickets by Phone: 888.588.0137

All NET productions are held at the Columbia Performance Center, located at 3900 Eastern Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45226. The "Big Pink Church" is a half mile east of Delta Avenue.
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New Edgecliff Theatre announces an exciting addition to NET’s performance line up with the regional premiere of Conor McPherson’s St. Nicholas. This chilling one-man show features NET Executive Director Michael Shooner and is directed by Brian Robertson. St. Nicholas will run in NET’s newly-created major production slot, Feb. 23-March 10. Leaving his wife and children in Dublin to pursue his obsession, things become complicated in London when he finds himself in the employ of a coven of vampires! Already a metaphorical vampire himself, his confrontation with very real ones forces him to face his own demons and earn some measure of redemption. The New York Times says, “The narrative swings through so many forms of storytelling – from self-serving lies born of drunkenness to a proper Brothers Grimm-like fable…McPherson’s ear for detail is devastating.”
St. Nicholas was written by Dublin playwright Conor McPherson. His plays include The Seafarer (premiered on Broadway in 2007), Poor Beast in the Rain, Port Authority, Dublin Carol (premiered on Broadway in 2002), The Weir (premiered on Broadway in 1999), and This Lime Tree Bower. He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play in 2006 for Shining City, which premiered on Broadway in 2006; nominated for the 2002 South Bank Show Award for Best Play for Port Authority; received the 1999 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Play, the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright, the Critics Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright and was a finalist for the Lloyds Bank Playwright of the Year Award for The Weir; and was the joint winner of 1997 George Devine Award and the winner of the Meyer Whitworth Award for St. Nicholas.
New Edgecliff founder Michael Shooner returns to the NET stage for the first time since his CEA-nominated turn as Dysart in 2009’s Equus. Other roles at NET have included Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, Roma in Glengarry Glen Ross, Teach in American Buffalo and Cliff in The Woolgatherer. His first one-man show was also NET’s inaugural production, Eric Bogosian’s Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, in 1998. He was seen in the Cincinnati Playhouse production of The Hostage and has also performed at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company in The Weir, Romeo & Juliet and All My Sons.
Originally from Los Angeles, Brian Robertson has spent much of his time working in film and television in the area of cinematography, as well as working as a director and stage manager in Theatre and Opera. He received his MFA in Directing from CCM. Locally, Brian has been teaching in the NKU Theatre and Dance department since 1998, as well as functioning as a guest director and instructor at CCM. He has worked for Cincinnati Opera, Sarasota Opera, Bay View Music Festival, Greenbrier Valley Theatre, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, Opera North, and Des Moines Metro Opera among others.
St. Nicholas
February 23 – March 10, 2012
Thursday through Saturday
7:30pm
at the Columbia Performance Center, 3900 Eastern Avenue
near Terry’s Turf Club, Allyn’s, Bella Luna, Tostado’s and The Precinct.
Adults $23, Seniors $18, Students $15
Or call the box office at 888.588.0137
NET is a grateful recipient of the League of Cincinnati Theatres’ Local Guest Equity Support.
New Edgecliff Theatre has revamped its annual antidote to the holidays, pairing David Sedaris’ The Santaland Diaries with an offering from True Theatre called trueCHRISTMAS. The Carnegie’s Joshua Steele returns to The Santaland Diaries, chronicling the real-life observations of renowned NPR commentator and memoirist Sedaris as he encounters crazed Santas, obnoxious parents and queasy children, while working his first New York job – as one of Santa’s Elves – in the very nexus of commercial Christmas and Holiday Cheer, Macy’s Santaland.
After intermission, the very dark companion piece to The Santaland Diaries (Season’s Greetings) will be replaced by the highly regarded True Theatre, bringing its own brand of storytelling to the stage, as people from all walks of life share their own real-life stories of the holidays in trueCHRISTMAS. Each weekend, three new storytellers will be featured. True Theatre has developed a loyal following in its two-year existence, presenting several evenings of storytelling in the Know Theatre’s underground, often with a theme tied to various holidays, (“True Independence”, “True Foolishness”, etc.), most recently with “True Hunger” (on the eve of our most gluttonous time of the year). NET Artistic Director Jim Stump says, “As much as we hate to see Season’s Greetings go, we just couldn’t resist the idea of pairing Sedaris’ own true story with other true holiday stories.”
New Edgecliff Executive Director and founder Michael Shooner adds, “We keep working to keep the Christmas slot fresh for returning audiences as well as new ones. With that in mind, the pairing of The Santaland Diaries and trueCHRISTMAS is an absolute no-brainer. We can’t wait to see how it plays!”
Intended for mature audiences only.
December 1st-17th, 2011
7:30pm Curtain
Columbia Performance Center
3900 Eastern Avenue
or reserve tickets by phone at 888.588.0137
for more information about True Theatre, please visit their website at truetheatre.com
Sweet Suspense is back! The NET tradition returns for its fifth incarnation for one night only on October 29th.
Edgar Allen Poe has long held the gruesome imaginations of many with his takes on horror and death. What better time of year to enjoy them than Halloween? This year, New Edgecliff ’s Playwright-in-Residence Catie O’Keefe (Darker, Extraction, and The Space Between My Head and My Body) adapts two of Poe’s haunting tales for the ever-loved Sweet Suspense Radio Drama: The Oval Portrait and The Masque of the Red Death. Both tales–dark, gritty and wonderfully gruesome–show us true obsession in its many forms. New Edgecliff Theatre brings these stories to life, complete with live sound effects and the atmosphere of an old-time radio theatre. The audience will also enjoy a sampling of delectable desserts from area restaurants, making this suspenseful evening truly “sweet”!
Featuring Live Sound Effects by WMKV’s Mike Martini
directed by Bob Allen
October 29th, 2011
7:30pm Curtain
Columbia Performance Center
3900 Eastern Avenue
Tickets $35 Adults / $20 Kids 13 and Under
admission includes dessert buffet at intermission
all proceeds benefit New Edgecliff Theatre’s Operational Fund
Rarely produced, powerful work leads off season
New Edgecliff Theatre once again opens its season with a late 20th century classic – a powerful, electrifying work by the playwright widely regarded as one of the finest American playwrights of the late 20th Century. While perhaps best known for his earlier plays The Hot L Baltimore, Fifth of July and Talley’s Folly, Burn This is a viscerally dramatic play, and its Broadway premiere most certainly helped to propel the careers of John Malkovich and Joan Allen.
The place is a Manhattan loft shared by Anna, a lithe young dancer-choreographer, and her two gay roommates – her collaborator, Robby, who has just been killed in a freak boating accident, and Larry, a world-weary, caustically funny young advertising executive. As the play begins Anna is recovering from Robby’s funeral, comforted by her wealthy, well-meaning boyfriend, Burton, a sci-fi screenwriter whose persistent proposals of marriage Anna finds herself unable to accept. Then suddenly, Robby’s older brother Pale bursts on the scene. He has come to collect his brother’s belongings. Menacing, profane, dangerous and yet oddly sensitive, Pale is both terrifying and fascinating and, in the end, stays on to transform the action of the play and the lives of those in it.
Artistic Director Jim Stump says, “I had been considering Burn This for a later season, but with Lanford Wilson’s untimely death this past March, I felt it would serve as an appropriate memorial to this passionate voice of the theatre.”
Tim Waldrip directs. The cast features Nathan Neorr as Pale (following noteworthy turns at NET in Fool for Love and Night of the Iguana) and Gina Cerimele-Mechley as Anna, with strong support from Jason Burgess (Larry) and John Wilmes (Burton). Design team includes Melissa Bennett, sets; Glen Goodwin, lights; Jim Stump, costumes; Kevin Semancik, sound; and Nicole Garrisi, props.
For anyone interested, Director Tim Waldrip has a goosebump-raising story of the serendipitous route that led him to this production, beginning many years ago when he was at first disappointed, then blown away by Malkovich’s replacement, Eric Roberts.
Intended for PG audiences only.
Burn This
Sept.29 – Oct. 15, Thur-Sat at 7:30pm.
Columbia Performance Center, 3900 Eastern Avenue.
Near Terry’s Turf Club, Allyn’s, Bella Luna, Tostado’s and The Precinct.
Tickets: $23 adults, $18 seniors, and $15 students.
Purchase/reserve tickets: www.newedgecliff.com or call box office, 888.588.0137.