Know Theatre Announces 2011-2012 Season

Know Theatre has announced its 14th season producing Contemporary Theatre in Over-the-Rhine. The season will consist of five mainstage productions, The 9th Annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival, The Know Theatre CityBeat NYE Speakeasy Party, a national tour of Calculus: The Musical!, a few special events, and some new and returning Jackson Street Market programs.

Mainstage Season
Gruesome Playground Injuries

The first show of the season, opens October 8th with the Regional Premiere of Gruesome Playground Injuries by Rajiv Joseph. The production will feature the same artistic and production team as last year's season opener Skin Tight. Gruesome Playground Injuries will be directed by Drew Fracher with Scenic and Lighting Design by Andrew Hungerford, Costume Design by Noelle Wedig, and Sound Design by Doug Borntrager. The production will star local actress Beth Harris and visiting actor Jens Rasmussen. Gruesome Playground Injuries will show October 8 - November 5, 2011.

Kayleen and Doug's eight year old lives collide in the nurse's office when Doug rides his bike off the roof of the school and Kayleen can't stop throwing up. Over the course of the next 30 years, he lives of these made-for-each-other masochists continue to intersect, leading the two childhood friends to compare their physical and emotional scars. These two misfits may be continually drawn together, but that may not be enough to heal each other's wounds. The production and artistic crew won many awards for Skin Tight at the beginning of the 2010-2011 season. Skin Tight earned the team Acclaim Awards for Fight Choreography and Direction by Drew Fracher, Best Non-Equity Lead Performance by Beth Harris, and Best Equity Lead Performance by Jens Rasmussen.
"I'm happy we were able to get the band back together for this production," says Eric Vosmeier, Producing Artistic Director. "They created such a strong working relationship with one another during Skin Tight and I'm excited to see what they'll be able to do with Mr. Joseph's incredible script."

Gruesome Playground Injuries had its world premiere on October 16, 2009, at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas. The play had its Off-Broadway premiere in February 2011 at Second Stage Theater in New York City. Playwright Rajiv Joseph was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.

Abraham Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party

Know Theatre's holiday offering will be Aaron Loeb's Abraham Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party. The production will show November 26 - December 23, 2011.

Ms. Harmony Green's fourth-grade class presents a new take on their traditional Christmas pageant in a rural Illinois town. The production sets off a firestorm of controversy when it calls into question Honest Abe's sexual orientation - based on historical facts. This thought-provoking, laugh-out-loud funny, and uniquely American story unfolds, offering surprises at every turn. Each of the three acts lets the audience see the story from a different character's viewpoint. Oh, and of course, plenty of big gay dancing.

"Loeb's unique storytelling technique was what drew me to the play," says Vosmeier. "It's more than just a gimmick, but rather a totally different way of telling a complex story, while creating a thoroughly hilarious and poignant script."

This show was originally commissioned by PlayGround and received its world premiere at the SF Playhouse in 2009 and won "Best New Play" from the Bay Area Critics Circle. It continued with a run at the 2009 New York International Fringe Festival where it was awarded their "Outstanding Play" award, and in the summer of 2010, the production enjoyed a short Off-Broadway run.

Know Theatre's February/March production is in the works and will be announced very shortly.

Afghan Women's Writing Project

In the spring, Know Theatre will produce a special project comprised of collections of stories from the Afghan Women's Writing Project. Know Theatre commissioned playwrights Lauren Hynek and ElizaBeth Martin to curate a performance piece from the writings available on the Project website (www.awwproject.org). The dates of this production are TBD.

The Afghan Women's Writing Project began as an idea during novelist Masha Hamilton's last trip to Afghanistan in November 2008. Masha first visited the country in 2004, and was awed and inspired by the resolute courage of the women she met. When she returned, she saw doors were closing and life was again becoming more difficult, especially for women. She began to fear we could lose access to the voices of Afghan women if we didn't act soon. The Afghan Women's Writing Project is aimed at allowing Afghan women to have a direct voice in the world, not filtered through male relatives or members of the media. Many of these Afghan women have to make extreme efforts to gain computer access in order to secretly submit their writings, in English, to the project.
The project reaches out to talented and generous women author/teachers here in the United States and engages them, on a volunteer, rotating basis, to teach Afghan women online from Afghanistan. The goal of the project is to encourage the women to develop their voices and share their stories, something that was not permitted during the years when Afghanistan was Taliban-held.
"When I stumbled upon a review of the first staged performance of these pieces I was intrigued by the concept," says Vosmeier. "Once I spent some time on the site, I knew I wanted our audiences to hear these women. The stories are touching and horrifying, funny and thoughtful. They are inspiring in so many ways. And when you realize that most of the writers put their lives in danger just to write, let alone to find a way to upload their stories, you know that these stories deserve to be heard by as many people as possible."
In 2010 AWWP held two highly successful readings of poems and stories by these Afghan women writers: the first in Los Angeles on March 8th and the second in Washington, D.C., on May 24th.
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson?The final show of the season will be the Off-Broadway hit musical, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson with music and lyrics written by Michael Friedman, and a book by Alex Timbers (Creator of A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant performed at Know Theatre in 2008). Recently closed on Broadway, this rock musical will show at Know Theatre March 31 - May 12, 2012. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson premiered in 2008 in Los Angeles. The show's New York premiere took place in 2009 at The Public Theater in a concert version, followed by a fully-mounted production the following year, before transferring to Broadway.
An audacious mix of historical fact and invention, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson uses the story of America's controversial seventh president, "the man who invented the Democratic Party, doubled the size of our nation, and signed the Indian Removal Acts that started the Trail of Tears," to investigate the attraction and terrors of American populism, using a raucous blend of outrageous comedy, anarchic theatricality and an infectious rock n' roll soundtrack.
"Bloody Bloody was one of those shows I fell in love with right away," says Eric Vosmeier, Producing Artistic Director. "Timber's writing is sharp and funny, and Freidman's emo-rock inspired score is a perfect accompaniment."
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson was nominated for two Tony Awards in 2001 for Best Book of a Musical and Best Scenic Design of a Musical.

Tickets

This season, tickets will be $15 in advance and $18 the week of the performance (beginning Mondays at noon). Season subscriptions five-show flexible passes are available for $75 and can guarantee the user the advance ticket price all season long. Tickets can be purchased by visiting knowtheatre.com or by calling the box office at 513.300.KNOW (5669)

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