Father’s Day Play 

By Mary Casey-Sturk 

Father’s Day this year is on June 15^th. For all you fathers out there (and father figures), this is your day to fire up the grill, turn on a baseball game (the Reds play the Cardinals in St. Louis at 2:15 p.m.), or just relax. 

Here are some ideas for Father’s Day: 

Buy the book: Does your dad have a favorite genre or bookstore? Buy a gift card to his go-to bookstore or head there together and grab a coffee. Some bookstores even have liquor licenses, so you can choose a brew or a bourbon. Smaller children might wish to pick out bedtime stories with dad for future tuck-ins. 

Museums:   

Father’s Day often finds families visiting local museums and Cincinnati has many to choose from. At the Cincinnati Art Museum, the exhibition Cycle Thru! The Art of the Bike (open through August 24^th) features many examples including  a cast iron velocipede designed in the mid-1800s, a 1901 Wolff-American Ice Bicycle engineered to traverse a frozen course, a seafoam green 1950s Huffy Radiobike designed so riders could cruise to their tunes of choice, and Pee-Wee Herman’s customized 1953 Schwinn DX Cruiser starring in Tim Burton’s 1985 film, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. If you plan on dining at the Terrace Café while at the Museum, be sure to make a reservation in advance. 

Camp Washington’s American Sign Museum takes cool to a new level. Covering 100 years of American signage-from wood signs to classic neon, their permanent collection covers some 20,000 square feet indoors where you can explore and learn the science behind signs.  

Visit a garden center: While this one might ultimately lead to work for dad (and nobody likes weeding), this is a great opportunity to go together and let dad pick out his favorite plants or some new tools. Win “best kid award” by planting them yourself.  

Laugh out loud: The Play That Goes Wrong has been leaving glee in its path at theatres around the world, the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company presents this comedy July 18^th-August 10^th, so if your dad needs a laugh (and what dad doesn’t?), this might be the play for him! 

“It’s Opening Night at the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society’s newest production, The Murder at Haversham Manor and the stakes have never been higher.  But none of the on-stage drama is in the script! The theater is filled with accident-prone actors, a corpse that can’t play dead to save his life, and a knocked-out knock out of a leading lady. When all goes wrong, can this theater company make it to Opening Night and bring down the house (in a good way)? In this fantastic, farcical, fiasco of a show and Off-Broadway and West End comedic hit, the age-old adage is true: “the show must go wrong!” oops sorry, we mean “the show must go on!” 

Surprise dad with tickets for Father’s Day and take him dinner or lunch before the show. The Cincinnati Shakespeare Company is just a short hop on the Cincinnati Connector Streetcar from many downtown restaurants and Findlay Market. 

Prep the Cook: Is your pop the family cook or grilling guru? A trip to the farmer’s market, or Findlay Market, can be a fun shopping experience to get all the goodies needed for a great family meal. Kitchen supplies, grills, gift cards, cooking lessons and coolers of all sorts make great gifts.  For an international flair, head to Jungle Jim’s. They also offer cooking classes for groups as well as private and virtual lessons.  

This year and every year, celebrate the fathers and father-figures in your life!