YEAR IN REVIEW
ARTS & CULTURE
The Cincinnati Opera’s staging of Carmen at Summit Park P H OTO : P H I L I P G RO S H O N G
15 Top Arts & Culture Stories from 2021 BY C IT Y B E AT STA F F
T
his past year, Cincinnati saw new trends, welcomed back old favorites and planned for the future. These Arts & Culture highlights from 2021 touch on everything from celebrities and celebrations to big changes.
Vincent van Gogh Is Everywhere This year, immersive Vincent van Gogh exhibits from multiple international presenters have been traveling to cities across the U.S. The exhibitions create all-encompassing,
multi-sensory indoor environments by pairing the latest in digital technology with images recreated from van Gogh’s paintings. Newfields, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, converted its entire fourth floor into The Lume for its van Gogh show, on view through May 2022. And now, Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience (from a separate producer than the Lume show) is coming to Cincinnati. This digital “light and sound spectacular” will encompass 20,000 square feet, display van Gogh’s most popular masterpieces and include a virtual reality experience. As of press time, the location for the show — which
opens in June 2022 — is still secret. vangoghexpo.com/cincinnati.
Live Theater Returned to Cincinnati Stages Cincinnati theaters welcomed audiences back indoors this fall with the return of fan favorites and world premieres to local stages. Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati opened and closed Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline on March 11, 2020; the show had a onenight run due to COVID-19 restrictions, but the set remained on ETC’s stage until Pipeline opened the 2021 season on Sept. 22. The Playhouse kicked off its 2021 season with two world premieres: playwright Keith Josef Adkins’ historical play, The West End, set in Cincinnati in 1941; and Need Your Love, a musical about the life of underrated King
Records star Little Willie John. The Playhouse also brought back the full staging of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for the holidays (after it presented a one-man radio play version last year). Speaking of the holidays, Drunk Santa returned to the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s zany annual production of Every Christmas Story Ever Told (and Then Some!). To ensure live music, theater and other events can continue to happen during the pandemic, area venues — from major destinations like the Aronoff Center, Memorial Hall and Music Hall to smaller clubs like MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine — came together this year to require either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test and, frequently, masks for entry.
DECEMBER 22, 2021 - JANUARY 11, 2022 |
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