This show about a transgender singer saved Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati

“ 'Hedwig’ saved us,” says D. Lynn Meyers, producing artistic director of Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati.

She’s talking about “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” the raw and oddly exuberant punk-rock musical about a transgender East German singer who marries an American GI, emigrates to the U.S. and sets out to become a rock star.

That probably doesn’t sound like a show capable of saving anything. But when it opened off-Broadway in 1998, it was a surprise hit. Later, in 2014, Neil Patrick Harris starred in the Broadway revival of the show that went on to win numerous Tony Awards.

For Meyers, the connection to “Hedwig” is very personal. For starters, ETC has staged the show twice before.

The first time was in 2001. In April of that year, just a couple of blocks north of ETC’s theater, a young and unarmed black man named Timothy Thomas was killed by a Cincinnati policeman, setting off five days of rioting, most of it in Over-the-Rhine.

“Everyone – city officials, police, everyone – told us we should close,” recalls Meyers. “This was not a casual you-might-have-a-hard-time sort of warning. This was serious. They said we should close and leave the neighborhood.”

Meyers had spent the previous six years resurrecting ETC from near-collapse. Her formula had been to fill the schedule with intriguing, sometimes provocative shows and to stage them very well. If this theater was to survive, she figured, she would have to employ the same strategy.

Call her determined. Or stubborn. Or, if you’re feeling charitable, committed. Whatever the proper adjective, Meyers and her mostly reluctant board opted to stay.

“I decided we should do a summer show,” says Meyers. “It was a last ditch effort. We would put on something so bold and adventurous that people would either have to come or we would have to close.”

The solution was “Hedwig.”

She hadn’t even seen the show. But she read the enthusiastic reviews and had an enthusiastic report about the New York production from then-board member Van Ackerman. She turned to Richard Rosenthal and his late wife Lois, philanthropists well known for their support of new and edgy plays.

“I told them I needed $20,000,” says Meyers. “And they gave it to me.”

The production sold to 93 percent capacity.

“To me, that said that if we did that kind of programming and do it really well, people would come,” says Meyers. “I knew that no, we weren’t going anywhere else.”

ETC stayed and thrived. And, in May 2016, it launched a $6.2 million expansion and improvement of the theater’s Vine Street complex. The renovated facility was completed in October 2017, in time to open the current season.

So it was only fitting that, as the closing show of the 2017-2018 season, Meyers would return to “Hedwig.” She has reassembled much of the band that anchors the show. And she has brought back the original production’s stars, Todd Almond as Hedwig and a. Beth Harris (the Hiders, the Brian Olive Band) – as Yitzhak, Hedwig’s backup singer/husband.

In some ways, it’s a little curious that Almond would return to take on the role of Hedwig again. He’s one of those College-Conservatory of Music graduates that the school rightly brags about. He’s an accomplished playwright, composer/lyricist and music director. He’s a gifted actor/singer/recording artist. In 2015, he snagged more headlines than usual when he co-starred with Courtney Love in the premiere of his musical “Kansas City Choir Boy.”

You would think that he has bigger theatrical fish to fry than a production in a small theater in Cincinnati. But to Almond, coming back makes total sense.

“I always wondered, even in 2001, what it would be to play Hedwig when I was a little older,” says Almond. “And now I am older. I don’t know – I just had this urge that I wanted to do it again.”

Besides, he says, he spent most of the past decade writing and performing his own work. It was often exhilarating. But it sometimes proved grueling, as well.

“I was really excited about doing someone else’s thing,” he says. “This way, the only thing I have to focus on is being an actor.”

In 2014, Almond and his husband, agent Mark Subias, were vacationing with actor Michael C. Hall (“Dexter”) and his wife when Hall received a phone call offering him the role of Hedwig on Broadway.

“So then we spent like a week of vacation talking about it,” says Almond. “I didn’t even tell him I’d done it.”

But it rekindled his fascination with the role.

“I think I just wanted to get into that skin again,” says Almond. “It was a desire to be her again and to be onstage in that way again. It’s like climbing a mountain. It’s not enough to do it once. So when Lynn asked me to do this, it didn’t feel like coming back. It felt like I needed to go – I needed to replenish myself at that fountain. I don’t know how to explain it. But I’m so happy. Every day in rehearsal, I tell myself 'yep – this is what I needed.' ”

If you go

What: “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”

When: June 6-July 1, preview on June 5

Where: Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, 1127 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine

Tickets: $68

Information: 513-421-3555; www.ensemblecincinnati.org