After years of planning and dreaming, and over 16 months' construction, the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company finally has a permanent home.
The company has opened its first season in its own building, the Otto M. Budig Theater, located in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood.
The theater is located on the site of the former Drop Inn Center, and mixes practicality with theatrical magic. It features spacious rooms with high ceilings, where basic building materials like stainless steel and barn wood are decorated with Shakespearean quotes. The designers have also given nods to the Bard through the use of symbols.
For instance, the ceiling of the lobby is painted a slate blue to mimic the sky over the original Globe Theater, which was an open-air structure. The 63 lights above the lobby stand for the stars a visitor to the Globe would see in the sky above London.
There are 38 steps leading to the balcony – one for each of Shakespeare's plays. The same number crops up again in the auditorium, where if the thrust stage is removed and a proscenium erected, there is room for an additional 38 seats.
Perhaps it is fitting that the show opening the new venue is one of the Bard's most popular comedies, ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’. Its cast of fairies and sprites who delight in befuddling humans are on show now, and the run finishes September 30.
Events like this can be even more festive if managers work with a poster printing company to create pieces advertising the production.
