There are many great venues to see good storytelling in Pittsburgh. There are monthly showcases, Moth Storyslams, and the Storytelling Festival that took place a few weekends ago. Storytelling is a unique experience: someone gets onstage and tells you a true story as they remember it. It's not exactly standup and it's not exactly a play monologue. Storytelling is a creature all its own. The Bricolage puts on their own storytelling event, Wordplay. The most recent one was last Friday night. Wordplay takes the usual format of a storytelling evening but adds something else: a soundtrack.

Five storytellers (some professional performers, some not) take turns sharing their tales. While they talk they are provided with music that helps to underscore the emotional or physical state they're in. For example, if someone is working on figuring something difficult out the music may be "The Pink Panther" theme. Or maybe a moment of relief is paired with an instrumental version of "I Can See Clearly Now". It's a fun concept that adds something unique to the process, both complimentary to the entertainers while keeping the audience intently listening.

There was a good variety of stories this time around. First, artist/actor Parag S. Gohel shared a funny and somewhat graphic tale of when he accidentally drank the water in India, and the nerve-wracking four hour bus ride he had to take on an angry stomach. Adam Tobias, an emergency physician, told us about the puzzling and stressful things he has to deal with in his profession, although none were as puzzling as the time a patient came in with blue hands. Actress Siovhan Christensen recalls the years she lived abroad and the differences (both positive and negative) she observed about how people treated race. Brioclage artistic director Tami Dixon told us about two long walks she'd taken, one of which was a few years ago while on an acid trip. Moth StorySLAM host and comic Alan Olifson closed the night sharing the tale of his daughter's loong dance recital that was interrupted by a furry flying fiend.

To the right of all the storytellers was DJ Keebs providing all the tunes (or "spinning tracks", if you will). The night moved quickly as one performer would finish their story and walk off while another walked on in the same applause break. At the end the storytellers took a well-deserved bow and everyone was treated to refreshments in the lobby of Bricolage's downtown space. Bricolage is approaching the end of their 2015 season, with some new Midnight Radio productions and other events coming up soon. Their final Wordplay event (for this year) will be on November 20th, which is sure to bring some great new stories and sweet tunes. Check them out!
 

Deciphering the one thing that makes Pittsburgh theatre unique is like looking for the crabby patty recipe. While scenic designer Sabrina Hykes-Davis agrees, with her personal experience and her kind, gentle manner, she also gives credence to a pattern I’ve noticed.

“I don’t know what makes it its own community. Most other places I’ve worked, I’ve worked for just one theatre. Here, there’s this weird interconnecting web. For example, you and I have been working forty feet from one another for the past three weeks.”

It’s true. It was difficult for the two of us to meet as we both were juggling tech week rehearsal schedules. Turns out we didn’t even realize we were working for the same theatre company! I’ve been working on South Park Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park, closing this weekend, and Hykes-Davis’ most recent design handiwork can be seen in South Park Theatre’s Exit Laughing by Paul Elliott. Exit Laughing runs through August 23^rd, check out our review of it here.

Between both of us juggling jobs, rehearsals, meetings, research, and a baby on the way for Hykes-Davis and her husband, it’s not surprising that we missed each other in such close quarters. The more professionals I meet in Pittsburgh, the more I learn that everyone is not only connected, but that everyone – no matter what area of theatre you’re interested in – is balancing myriad projects at once.

Sabrina tells me that this 2015 year alone she has designed and worked on twelve separate productions, performed for such companies as South Park Theatre, Stage 62, and Pittsburgh Savoyards. She has also designed Seneca Valley High School’s productions for years and continues to do so.  Upcoming, Hykes-Davis’ schedule is even increasing in activity, thanks to her recent hire from California University of Pennsylvania. She is thrilled; watching students grow from timid explorers to confident handlers of the scene shop is one of the best parts of being a design professor, she says.

The opportunity to leave an impact on a developing artist is not something she takes lightly. Her own undergraduate experience is compiled of architecture major credits from Carnegie Mellon University, until she realized it wasn’t for her, and transferred to Point Park.

“I can remember sitting in a friend's kitchen and trying to figure out what I was going to do next… she said suggested I try theatre since I really missed it. And that was that.”

Her degree is from Point Park College, before it became a university, and though it was chaotic, she tells me how beneficial it was to learn under various technical directors as the school was in a state of transition at the turn of the millennium. COPA or Point Park’s Conservatory of the Performing Arts, had, and still has, excellent connections with the technical needs of professional Pittsburgh companies. Therefore, Hykes-Davis was able to work for Gemini Children’s Theater in Wilkinsburg, Penn Avenue Theatre, and Apple Hill Playhouse while she was still earning her degree.

Upon graduation, she filled me in on so many locations where she worked on theatre that it’s impossible to remember them all, even for her. She says her resumé is well over two pages and she’s had to start cutting items. Sure enough it only covers work done in the last three years and it’s two pages long.

Her list of theatres from her twenty-something days includes: West Virginia Public Theater; Memphis’ Playhouse On the Square; and the California Repertory Theatre in Santa Rosa, California. She’s worked in Oklahoma, Kentucky, and interestingly: Germany. (Not that Oklahoma and Kentucky aren’t interesting.) It’s more that the experimental work she did overseas couldn’t be done anywhere else. She worked for a company called Das Letzte Kleinoid, which in German means, “The Last Treasure,” or The Last Small Precious Thing.” Their work was site-specific. Once, they created an original piece, specific to a small island that used to be the site of a concentration camp. Their writers interviewed survivors and created a performance based on their accounts of what happened there, and how a boat would take Holocaust survivors from the camp and into Canada. Hykes-Davis tells me they worked with a cast that was half Canadian and half German and did half of the show on that island and half on another port in Canada. From the emotion in her retelling, it’s clear that the experience affected Hykes deeply, even though – and she laughed as she told me – that her personal work involved peeling potatoes and coordinating the light design with local shipping signals so they wouldn’t interfere with port traffic.

After injuring her collarbone, her years of travel were at a standstill as she moved home to Pittsburgh from Kentucky to heal. Soon after, she earned her M.F.A. in Technical Theatre and Design from West Virginia University. She commuted to Morgantown from Pittsburgh almost every day and, looking tired as she remembered it aloud, “listened to a lot of NPR.”

Morgantown’s theatre climate is similar to Pittsburgh, she says, albeit smaller. Her work for her M.F.A. introduced her to Morgantown’s theatres and also introduced her to teaching for the college level. I don’t think she expected to like it so much. But, considering that she can still remember a Robert Edmund Jones’ description from an undergrad textbook gift, I’ll say I’m not surprised.

“One of my professors from Point Park gave me one of his [Robert Edmund Jones] books as a graduation present. We studied him again in grad school, and I’m reading it again now, because I’m going to make the students at Cal U buy it.”

Our whole discussion, Hykes-Davis has been cheerful, but relaxed from all of the exhaustion. When discussing Jones’ and teaching, though, she sits up straighter in the booth, “There’s a whole great chapter in there on costume design, called ‘Notes to Costume Designers’ and they’re talking about – I think it was Shakespeare, maybe, or Moliére – and there’s a whole paragraph talking about how a woman enters the room. It’s flowery, describing how she enters the room like a ship with sails unfurled or something. He breaks it down and says, ‘Ok, what does this mean about her costume? Does it mean you should put a ship on her? No. But then, how does that inform the design? How can you make it appear that when she’s walking on stage, she becomes a ship?’”

Seeing opportunity and creative design options in a script requires training your eye and imagination, and getting a classroom full of students to see that seems like a daunting task to me. I suddenly have sympathy for my own undergraduate design instructor. Though, I don’t think that’s what instructors like Hykes-Davis want. I think all they want is an open mind. They crave a blank slate and the willingness to collaborate.

“I think when people are more open…people trying to do a concept tend to be the more collaborative ones. [The process works best in places] Where someone has set the tone, whether it’s the director or the stage manager…where they kind of welcome everybody’s input. And they come to the meeting with very specific ideas, but not like ‘I want the staircase to be three foot wide.’ Instead, they say, ‘I want it to feel like their world is falling apart” or “the happiest days these people will ever experience.’ It’s very specific, but it’s a jumping-off point. As opposed to someone who walks in wanting ‘white curtains.’ That drives me nuts.”

It’s excellent for an educational environment, certainly, but I wonder. Does that really work on the professional level? How separate are all of the job responsibilities? What if your ideas aren’t the ones the director goes with? Her response is remarkably humble.

“I try to put them out there, but I also try not to be personally offended when it doesn’t work out. It’s not about what I want. Just because I think something would be really cool, doesn’t mean that it best serves the production as a whole.”

Being humble, apparently, is being practical and a key component, I think, of being a good collaborator and finding success in the theatre. How different is this point of view from our mainstream capitalist perspective.

“I tend to back down fairly often unless it’s something I think is going to be very unclear to the audience, or unsafe, or you don’t have time/budget to make it happen. That’s something I have a fight with a lot. There are a lot of places I work for who don’t have huge budgets or a lot of time. So, they try to figure what the most important thing is to put on stage, and that’s sometimes an issue. Distilling down what is best going to tell the story, and what we can live without.”

No matter where you go, Broadway or Pittsburgh or Oklahoma, she says, budget will always limit your design execution. It doesn’t seem like such a bad thing, though. It gives a designer their parameters, and if you prefer simplicity, like Hykes-Davis, then your goal is to find the most effective storytelling pieces.

Sabrina is a Bertolt Brecht fan. “I like that whole idea of taking things from the set and having them turn into something else,” and like the cart in Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children. Seeing the set as almost another character creates strong, active concepts. Influenced by her Point Park professor, Hykes-Davis maintains that she is a big Robert Edmund Jones’ fan as well.

“He was a designer, stenographer, and I think he was in the 1920s,” she explains to me. “His big thing was: when you walk into a theatre and see the set, you should just know what the play’s about. The whole play. Just from looking at the set. I think that might be a little bit of a stretch, but I think it can capture it. It should be so tied in with what’s going on that it’s not scenery just because it’s scenery.”

However, she clarifies that, metaphor abuse notwithstanding, “Don’t try to fit too much metaphor into one object. If it takes more than four steps to justify it, you’re probably stretching.”

She’s learned from designers all over the country, in different cities, theatres, from undergraduate and graduate degree settings, and from her own peers, but she credits her parents with being her most influential mentors. “My parents set me on this course. Most people have parents that want them to have a ‘real major’ and mine just think it is cool that I do theatre. For better or worse, money wasn't anything they were too concerned about us having growing up, so they don't measure my success that way.”

Sabrina Hykes-Davis and her husband dined with me in the afternoon like friendly neighbors, shared stories with ease, and complimented each other like happy married couples do. Her voice doesn’t obnoxiously project over a crowd like mine; she’s softer-spoken, but no less quick-witted or funny. Considering her traveling experience and all of the straight-up design credits she has accumulated, she is surprisingly humble and kind. Indeed, I think that description alone says something about the unique quality of Pittsburgh theatre in a nutshell: we should be proud that we’ve created an environment in which a warm-hearted and hardworking person like Sabrina Hykes-Davis measures as a success.

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This past Thursday took me to the Apple Hill Play House in Delmont, PA.  Opening night had come for Ken Ludwig’s Be My Baby as performed by the Orchard Performing Arts Co.  Haven’t heard of Delmont or don’t know how to get there?  It really can be simple to find as you need only make one left off of Route 22 and you are there.  To be honest, I used my GPS and that makes travel something simple and nothing to be concerned with.  Hence, you can enjoy the ride to this out of the way venue.

For me, this marked my first time at the Apple Hill Play House and I did not know what to expect.  Sure, I looked to their website, but nothing can prepare you for reality, but I can say that I found the atmosphere enjoyable.  Like any opening night, the play opened to a full house and as always the energy of excitement raced through the air as everyone rushed about making final preparations and assuring that the guest were set and comfortable.  To my surprise the playhouse has been created from a refurbished barn.  Now, don’t let this fool you as you will be hard pressed to take notice as they have done a fine job in transforming the location, and in spite of it being August the place had more than sufficient cooling.  Be assured that the theater has good seating, fine acoustics, proper lighting, and everything you should expect a small independent theater to have.

The lights went out and the actors took the stage as the show began.  It brings a smile to my face as I think back on it now. You see, the opening scene had Maud Kinch, as played by the very experienced Shirley Ratner and Maude’s niece Gloria, as played by, Madison Nick sitting in two chairs, side by side, as they pretended to bounce as they drove an imaginary vehicle into the country.  Their destination?  The residence of John Campbell who gets played so very well by Dennis “Chip” Kerr.  John has raised Christy, played by D Palyo, who makes his Apple Hill Playhouse debut. Christy and Gloria will be married kicking off a key underpinning of conflict. 

As time pushes on, Gloria gives birth to the tragedy of a still born infant, but fate falls in their favor as a relative in faraway San Francisco has a child she must put up for adoption.  Maude and John, who go together like oil and vinegar, decide that they will make the journey to retrieve the child for the young couple. They depart Scotland and the two mismatched characters are on their way.

The chemistry between the Maud and John unfolds perfectly upon the stage for these two veteran actors as they have worked together many times. This familiarity plays out well, as they provide great laughter for the audience as we are made to believe that somewhere amidst the differences are two people that care a great deal for each other.

Back in Scotland things are not going so well.  The immaturity of the young couple poses problems.  Gloria cannot settle down, and Christy plays the part of a rather boring individual who just cannot satisfy his new wife.  Gloria leaves the audience to wonder of possible infidelities between her and her cousin whom we never meet.  The two go out night after night, and although an odd relationship by American standards, Gloria professes that nothing scandalous has occurred and that everything about the relationship remains innocent.

Laughs abound as the two in San Francisco go about the effort of adopting the sweet child.  Tragedy strikes Maude and John, but at last they return to Scotland, with twists of irony abound.  The audience enjoyed the show and were captivated by the charm portrayed through Maude and John. Gloria provided the person to dislike and Christy played a character who falls short of expectations, but that without doubt had been the intent of the screen play. 

In total the show Be My Baby as played out by all of the actors this past Thursday performed admirably and provided a realistic portrayal of the possibilities that can occur when different personalities come together unexpectedly.  You will find the show a series of laughs that are shore to break the monotony of these waning days of summer.  Some might be deterred by the distance to Delmont, but the drive goes quick and the actors efforts are indeed worth your while.

Be My Baby runs through August 29th. For more information, click here.

Is anyone ever really prepared for love? That is the question asked by The Light in the Piazza, a musical about a mother trying to protect her daughter from the complexities of falling in love. The daughter has some "special circumstances" that the mother is concerned about, but is she fighting a losing battle against one of the strongest feelings known to man? This tale unfolds at the New Hazlett as Front Porch Theatricals premieres their second show of the season.

Margaret Johnson has taken her young adult daughter Clara to Italy for a vacation. Clara meets young dreamy Italian boy Fabrizio and the two almost instantly fall in love. Margaret intervenes many times at keeping her daughter away from him, but Fabrizio's persistence leads to the Johnsons meeting his family and the lovebirds getting swept away with each other. Margaret's motives behind protecting her daughter eventually find their way to the surface and complicate her feelings about everything, including her husband back in the States.

Piazza is based on a 1960 novella by Elizabeth Spencer, and the subject matter is sort of a bizarre choice for a musical. Clara's "condition" never seems as serious as Margaret makes it out to be, and perhaps the point is that Margaret projects her own fears onto her daughter. Clara has qualities that make her seem a bit childish and foolish, but one could argue that she's in her twenties so that's totally reasonable. In fact, there are many reasons given that Clara and Fabrizio shouldn't be married (her condition, their age difference) but not once does anyone mention the fact they've known each other maybe a week. And there's a language barrier. But they're so in love, so don't worry. It's that kind of love story.

A lot of the exposition and explanations of the show are given in direct audience asides by Margaret, played and sung wonderfully by Becki Toth. These asides give Ms. Toth the chance to make funny snide comments and also get into some serious emotional monologues. Eventually Margaret starts to analyze her life, her marriage, and the mistakes she's made in her past way of thinking. The scenes with Margaret pack more emotional punches than the show's love story, which tends to follow the typical steps you'd expect.

The score is beautifully composed and performed, with songs that have a rich operatic and romantic sound. Lindsay Bayer plays Clara with all the energy and naivety of a Disney princess, and her clear soprano voice bursts Clara's heart out onto the stage. Joshua Grosso has equally golden chops as Fabrizio, a somewhat dorky but totally lovable leading man. The rest of the cast does good work with the classical music-style of the score. Antonia Botti-Lodovico, as Fabrizio's sister-in-law, hits some crazy high notes that stand out amongst the group.

But while the music is pretty it doesn't always compliment the story. Fabrizio's first number is entirely in Italian and Mr. Grosso had wonderful vocals that received long applause despite the audience not knowing what he was saying. But you don't have to know, because it's easy enough to guess: he's in love, he's happy, he's nervous, he's afraid, he's hopeful, end of song. As pretty as the show is, it can get tiring watching Clara and Fabrizio loudly vocalizing vowel sounds into each other's faces. Other numbers that feature a large amount of singers (some in Italian) tend to wind up a wall of well-sung but confusing sound. To the show's credit, it does have a great gag where Fabrizio's Italian mother (Cynthia Harding) breaks the fourth wall in English to translate for the audience.

There is an empty art motif on the set, which features many suspended empty picture frames and four giant frames that are used as doorways, walls, or museum paintings. It's a great way to create different locations quickly and easily, although the frames could also symbolize Clara's inability to grasp complicated things or Margaret's inability to see what's in front of her.  The costumes are as classic and pretty as the characters wearing them, helping to create that magic version of Italy filled with beautiful people.

Definitely see The Light in the Piazza for the wonderful vocals, strong performances, and the general aesthetic. The story can be a bit vague and the lovebirds basic, but the commitment of the crew, cast, and musicians make it entertaining enough to push past that. It's not your run-of-the-mill musical, nor is it a full-blown opera. It's pretty, it's romantic, and it's very Italian. Ciao. 

The Light in the Piazza

Presented by Front Porch Theatricals

Directed by Stephen Santa

Written by Craig Lucas (book), Adam Guettel (music/lyrics)

Designed by Bryce Cutler (scenery), Kim Brown (costumes), Andrew David Ostrowski (lighting) Angela Baughman (sound)

Starring Lindsay Bayer (Clara Johnson), Joshua Grosso (Fabrizio Nacarelli), Becki Toth (Margaret Johnson), Jeff Howell (Signor Naccarelli), Patrick Cannon (Giuseppe Naccarelli), Antonia Botti-Lodovico (Franca Naccarelli), Cynthia Harding (Signora Naccarelli), Richard Kenzie (Roy Johnson), and ensemble Zanna Fredland, Jeremy Kuharcik, Joshua Schirtzinger, Kristin Serafini.

 Speical thanks to Front Porch Theatricals for complimentary press tickets. The show runs until August 30th. Tickets can be purchased here. 

Stephen Sondheim once said, “To make art sound effortless takes a lot of effort.” And as a community we all understand how fulfilling but also challenging creating theater sometimes can be. That’s why for 25 years, event like Pittsburgh New Works Festival is always a perfect place for aspiring young writers coming from all over the world to create their art, work on their craft, and together to inspire and be inspired. But Sondheim also said in his songs, “How do you know what you want, until you get what you want?” For new works it’s always hard to do judge if it’s good or bad, because usually you won’t be completely sure what the artist is trying to achieve or experiment with through this new work, so you have to always keep an open mind and appreciate the art form, but also watch and listen objectively and critically. I was at the first Stage Reading of the Festival this past Sunday, and I was fortunate enough to witness three one-act plays being performed/read for the live audience for the very first time.

The first play Glue, written by Pittsburgh Native John Seibel and produced by Industrial Gardens, tells a story about two strangers who met in the park sharing a healing journey together through broken shoes and war stories. Teen talk show hostess Olivia Gill played a young lady Kathy, who had a pair of broken heels, and asked Milton, an American Afghanistan veteran played by Pitt graduate Christopher Collier, for some glue. The entire story is centered on Milton, and as the plot progresses, more of his personal history and stores at the war got revealed to the audience.

The play begins with Kathy approaching Milton and asking him in Dr. Seuss Style, “Do you have some glue?” Then I assume because this is a one-act play, the tension between the characters suddenly becomes so serious so soon, that Milton just begins to tell this lovely young lady he just met about his days in the VA and how the war has broken him. Although the “intense” personality here is necessary for the character, and the discussion of veterans’ life and PTSD is definitely relevant, I couldn’t help but wonder if this material could be executed in a different way.In the entire play we don’t really hear that much talking from Kathy besides some occasional listener/outsider’s comments on Milton’s stories. And the progression from the beginning where two strangers just met, to the end where Milton delivers the title statement, “You are my glue” to Kathy’s “You can trust me” line seems just needs to be a little bit more convincing. I understand that the analogy between Kathy’s “broken heels” and how she “heals” Milton’s “broken spirit” might be the inception behind this play, and her change of position from the person who is asking Milton for glue to eventually becoming the “glue” for Milton is engaging and thoughtful, but the overall “for the sake of storytelling” narrative just might not be cohesive enough to grab audience’s emotions.

The second play Extraordinary Lies was written by James Baden and produced by Comtra Theatre. It’s another play with only two actors but this time involving two long-time-no-see friends sharing old memories over tea and revealing new secrets. CMU faculty Don Slater played Jack Arden, a mediocre teacher who grades student poems and tells dry jokes and stories. And actor Harry Gerhardt played Jack’s old time friend Harry Martin, who got a call from Jack and decided to fly all the way from California to come visit his friend and reminisce about old days. The set up of the story is pretty straightforward, yet it is the objective of the characters and the plot that I found confusing.

Setting aside the fact that it’s a only staged reading and Mr. Slater’s occasional “can’t find the line” pauses didn’t help, the script overall didn’t do the best job for the story, meaning that sometimes we are still confused about what the playwright is trying to convey through the characters’ conversations. From the very beginning of the play we can sort of tell that Harry is in some way “obsessed” with Jack, by the endless questions he asks and that 3-minute weird and uncomfortable (but maybe intentional) shoulder massage he gave to Jack, and when eventually he reveals to Jack that he is gay and wants Jack to go back to California with him we thought okay this is starting to make sense. But over the course of the story there are so many melodramatic moments (comments about teaching, grades for the paper, “say yes when you mean yes”, etc.) would just throw audiences off. The script tries to be funny by using profanity languages in several places, which did buy some generous laughs from the audience. However those laughs came more from surprises and awkwardness.

The third and final play Flabby Abby was written by Emergency Physician Dr. J. Thalia Cunningham as an act from her full-length piece Foodfights, produced by Prime Stage. It’s a story about a ten-year-old obese girl Abigail waiting in a doctor’s office with her parents and how everyone eventually realizes the truth and root behind their troubles and struggles. This play has four cast members, with Kendra Wickham playing Abigail, George Saulnier and Valerie Blue playing Abigail’s parents Mr. and Mrs. LeBoeuf, and Michael Guantonio playing the pediatrician’s nurse Patrick.

The play starts off like a story about a family dealing with a special kid, which is another hot topic in theater nowadays (The Light in the Piazza, Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime). However as the story progresses it gradually loses that intimate touch. The conversation between the parents in the waiting room when they blame each other for causing their daughter’s problem is unrealistic and melo-comedic. Then the transfer from parents’ argument to the scene where Patrick and Abigail start to bond by sharing their own stories is abrupt and makes us wonder if the story is still about a struggling family. And in the end when Patrick says to Abigail the line that supposed to be the theme-highlighter of the entire play, “It’s easy to fight when you know what you’re fighting for”, the perspective of the story just completely lands on a different place compared to the beginning of the play.

All of the stories at this stage reading have huge expandable potentials with a lot of space to explore, but the scripts in general just didn’t execute the themes really well. But again, the overall effort and mission of Pittsburgh New Works Festival is to foster the development of original works and encourage and support new artists and playwrights. So standing by my humble opinions, I look forward to the future staged readings and full productions of this exciting festival.

Glue:

John Seibel (playwright), Olivia Gill (Kathy), Christopher Collier (Milton), lance-eric skapura (Director), Christine Marie (Producer), Megan Hackman (Stage Manager)

Extraordinary Lies:

James Baden (Playwright), Harry Gerhardt (Harry Martin), Don Slater (Jack Arden), Cathy Gialloreto (Director), Jack Farkas (Producer), Patricia Farkas (Stage Manager)

Flabby Abby:

J. Thalia Cunningham, M.D. (Playwright), Valerie Blue (Melissa LeBoeuf), George Saulnier (Carlton LeBoeuf), Kendra Wickham (Abigail), Michael Guantonio (Patrick), Linda Haston (Director), Wayne Brinda, Ed. D. (Producer), Caitlin Skaff (Stage Manager)

Special thanks to the Pittsburgh New Works Festival for complimentary press tickets. Catch another weekend of staged readings at Carnegie Stage Sunday August 31st at 7. For more information, check out PNWF's website.

From our small wooden table in the window of the Starbucks on 14^th and Carson Street, we can clearly see the building where Spotlight Costumes first opened its doors in 1988. It’s tiny and now called The Decade, a light faded brown, looking like it stepped out of a sepia toned photograph. Kim Brown and her close friend and co-founder, Anne Oates, moved down the street to a building twice the size, fortunately also doubling their business intake, just five years later.

“A job transfer is what brought me to Pittsburgh, but when I decided to start my own company, I quickly got work in part because I have a masters degree in costume design. Many people who own costume shops in the U.S. are former dance teachers, people who inherited or bought a business or people who only do retail and Halloween.”

Together, with their combined skill, and Anne’s drapery talent for designing her own patterns, Spotlight brought something “new to the table.” Brown and Oates cultivated a diverse array of professional, amateur, and educational theatre. They had the pimp costume from Austin Powers out in the trade shows before the larger manufacturers did, because while it flopped in the box office, Brown knew it would explode once it hit VHS. They have served clients like Disney Theatricals, H.J. Heinz Corporation, Pepsi Cola Corporation, Keebler, and even actor Bruce Willis.

“Anne and I had an adventure,” she says, reminiscent. “Our relationship worked because we trained together, went to class together, critiqued each other. We knew the good, bad, and the ugly about each other before we worked together.”

They are now the go-to costume professionals in Pittsburgh, offering costumes for wholesale, retail, and theatrical purposes. It was never without its difficulties, though. In 2005, Anne Oates lost her eight month battle with brain cancer.

“I was always an appreciative person. But there’s a difference between appreciation and gratitude. Appreciation is about good things. But gratitude is that you’re grateful for good and seemingly bad. I don’t think I understood gratitude until I lost my business partner.”

“When Anne died, the Post-Gazette called to do a story on her, and I was really offended. The real story was when she was alive and she could tell her own story. Then I thought, Kim you can’t really be that way, now you have to tell her story. So I did. Then the woman said, ‘You know if someone more famous dies, she’s going to get bumped.’ Well no one did. So Anne had a six-column story when she died. But the real story was when she was alive.”

Kim Brown’s own story is full of setbacks and accomplishment. Spotlight Costumes remains a very strong and busy business, though now Brown is faced more regularly with the familiar problem of gender bias as she is often accompanied and helped, in the day to day, by partner, Ron.

“It was very difficult because I didn’t know what gender bias was. Sales people will still call on that store and speak to Ron like he’s the owner. People assume a man is the owner. When we’re at a trade show, people talk to him first before they talk to me. It doesn’t matter what we’re wearing, I could be in a suit and he could be in a T-shirt and they’ll still talk to him first. I don’t know what it is.”

Kim claims she gave up worrying about it a while ago, because her father had warned her about it. He was her mentor, always giving her life lessons, especially as she started Spotlight Costumes. She speaks of him with admiration, saying that as an independent appraiser, he was still correct 98% of the time when he sent his paperwork to an outside source for confirmation. Her mother still gets phone calls looking for him.

“He was very open. I was never a daddy’s girl or princess, but I always thought girls could do everything boys could do. I miss that. I miss the people who were my safety net. But that’s all part of the process. We’re all salmon swimming upstream and we have to try not to get eaten by the bear. It’s all about planning and goal setting. And I firmly believe what you tell the universe can happen. Words have power, thoughts have power. You have to understand that it’s all learning and not get beaten down by it.”

Kim Brown learned this at an early age. She did not come from a theatrical family and didn’t have a sewing machine in the house growing up in Toledo, Ohio. Yet, obviously, this hurdle didn’t throw her very much.

“I always wanted to be a costume designer from the time I was adopted at the age of six and my adopted grandmother would make Barbie doll clothes for me. We also watched The Lawrence Welk Show together and I was fascinated by all of the costumes. My grandmother also taught me how to embroider and sew.”

It’s not like they made sewing machines sized for children, she reminds me, so instead she did a lot of handiwork, like embroidery and knitting, as well as a lot of reading and drawing. She says she remembers the day and moment when she couldn’t play with Barbie anymore. She was devastated. She was a very serious child. This logically emotional, savvy, and creative background makes me peg her for a Ravenclaw.

“It’s part of a life lesson and I had to process that. Whenever you have people who are damaged, if you don’t get counseling or therapy, they tend to repeat patterns without some type of healing. You’re always going to have that scar or reminder, but you can heal.”

Brown earned a Bachelor of Science in Home Economics, from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. It is very rare, even for today’s university curriculum, to find an undergraduate degree in Costume Design, and she tells me plainly that she had no interest in majoring in theatre, as she was not a performer or strictly a technician. So, she chose a B.S. in Home Economics, specifically fashion merchandizing, and a surprise pair of minors in Journalism and Business. Imagine her surprise, therefore, when the OU Department of Theater offered her a scholarship to stay on for her M.F.A. in Production Design and Technology.

“My masters degree was a tool for me to become a costume designer. It was something I had to work very hard at; when you go from Home Ec to Theatre, you have to learn a lot on your own.”

For her application to the School of Theater, she felt terrified for submitting a fashion portfolio. She walked into the interview thinking she was going to get grilled by the department head, the late Robin Lacey.

His first question, “Can you tell me why the university spells the School of Theater with an ‘e-r’ instead of an ‘r-e’?”

Her first answer, without hesitation, “Probably because it’s the first accepted spelling in the dictionary.”

She was the first person to get that question right in twenty-seven years of him asking. That’s why she got into her M.F.A. program in the Ohio University Department of Theater.

“He saw something in me, something different, like I pulled Excalibur out of the stone. It was just logic from my journalism background!” she says with her eyes grinning, though exasperated, “Most people said they didn’t know. I learned very quickly that with him as a professor, you could never say you didn’t know.”

Saying you don’t know is not playing fair, because it’s not playing at all. It immediately eliminates the choice. When dealing with high-level fine art, your level of objective scrutiny is heightened in credibility by your willingness to own your subjective artistic opinion. Giving your self the option to be wrong is the only way to grow. Kim Brown knows this, and repeats to me, several times during this interview, that life is all about learning.

It’s also about being impressively organized. Her handwritten planner takes up over half of the little Starbucks table when she plunks it out to silence her phone. It’s color coded by day, task, and written in by the hour as well as at a month at a glance. It’s magnificent. And meticulous. I’m curious, how many shows can this woman design or wardrobe at once?

“I don’t know. I don’t keep count. It would probably scare me.”

To name just a few, her most recent works include: Kinetic Theatre Company’s Sherlock's Last Case; Throughline Theatre Company's Medea, and The Ruling Class; Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center's Grand Night for Singing; and both Urinetown and Mary Poppins for Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera Academy. Brown is also the resident designer for Pittsburgh Musical Theatre, Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center, Prime Stage Theatre, Front Porch Theatricals, designs the Gateway Clipper cruises and has also designed opera and the costumes for theme parks. Currently, her design work can be seen until August 30^th in Front Porch Theatrical’s The Light in the Piazzadirected by Stephen Santa.

“Some of what I think has helped me was that I started out in fashion merchandizing. I didn’t just do theatre. It wasn’t always about the character, it was about who was going to wear this first. In fashion, they have to think about who’s going to buy this. I always have to think about the actor first.”

“Usually I find, like when I did Patrick Cannon in The Light in the Piazza, [that] he just walked into his clothes. Now, because I’ve done this for a long time, I knew his skin coloring and I knew what he would look good in,” she waves this skill away as a trifling of the trade.

“I told him, ‘You need to wear vintage. That’s where you need to go. It’s the cut of the clothes; things today are too boxy, that’s why they don’t look right on you. They’re not going to look right on you because they’re not tailored for you.’”

“He told me, when he was [in another production], they must have tried twenty suits on him before they found one they liked and fit. So, now this actor has a vision of himself that’s: ‘Oh, I have a weird body. Nothing is ever going to fit me.’ You never want an actor to think that!” she decries. I think to myself of what my college wig artisan peers and costume professor must have went through to never let me find out that I have an unusually large head. Bless them.

In college, I always felt calm once I came to the costume shop. My great-grandmother would say that when the hands are busy the mind is free. She was right and so is Kim Brown: more so than the activity of costuming, for actors, especially, the role of a costumer is one of a comforter. They really have to get you, and anticipate your needs.

“A lot of what costume design is, Natalie,” Brown explains, unequivocally, “is psychology. It’s psychology more than anything else. Nobody tells you that, while you’re in school studying the history of costume, going: ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to memorize all this stuff; I’ve got to come up with all of these new ideas; and I have to come up with something that’s really original; I have to make the director happy; I have to deal with sets and lights and sound and everything else. It isn’t about that at all. It’s about how you deal with people. It’s about people’s feelings.”

In addition to masterfully conceiving an entire casts’ design, you must master an entire casts’ perspective while collaborating with the producers, directors, designers, technicians, and thinkers outside the box. There is no time for your own feelings or ego as a costume designer. Luckily, however, Brown has always had the gift of multitasking and regaining composure, or as she puts it, “You have to have your shit on lockdown.”

“When Anne got sick, that was immediate. Not a candidate for surgery, start making other plans. That really taught me that you have to have your shit on lockdown. Because the show still has to go up. When my brother died…I had to get an opera up in Cleveland. It wasn’t easy, because the costumes for La Boheme went to Texas by mistake, but you’re organized. You have to be organized. You’re not helping anybody if don’t have your act together.”

Without a doubt, Kim Brown’s motivation, for her ungodly timeliness and organization, is to help others. Or else I don’t think she could be as dedicated as she is. Not that she ever thought of herself as a teacher, she just meant to fill in at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School in Midland, but before long she was the school’s resident designer, while teaching theatrical make up and costume design.

She cares deeply about what she does at that school. When she had emergency back surgery, after a chiropractor herniated one of her discs, she didn’t know if she would ever walk or sew again. Four days after her surgery, though, you better believe it: she was at Lincoln Park’s dress rehearsal. She tells me that she wanted to prove to them that you can come back after any adversity. The director thanked her, saying, “‘I got a different performance out of them tonight. Now we’re ready to open.’” They just needed that, because you’re like a mom, you know?” she said, believing, rightly I’d say, that she’s teaching them a love of lifelong learning.

Every Friday, she asks her students, ‘What’s the best thing that happened this week?’ Every night, before she goes to sleep, she tells me she asks herself the same thing. “Then you don’t go to bed thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to get up’ or ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to go to work.’ Because if you go to bed thinking about the best thing that happened, you’re going to wake up the next day anticipating the next great thing that’s going to happen. I’ve never been the type of person who says ‘Oh my God, I don’t want to get up.’ I’m the type of person who says, ‘I wish I didn’t have to sleep.’ Because there is so much to do.”

If people were all part of that mindset, she says, it just creates a better community. When she first opened Spotlight Costumes, in 1988, she explains to me how Pittsburgh’s South Side was very different: store owners lived above their stores; grocers and milkmen delivered to their neighbors; shop keepers had a small band of loyal customers who lived nearby. Though plenty of excellent growth has happened in Pittsburgh that brings it into contemporary times, and many new little theatres have opened that brings Brown more business, she is still nostalgic for the way things used to be. I think it’s hard not to feel this way if you’re an educated costume designer, having fallen in love with learning of the many different fabrics and styles and hues of the past. We commiserate together for while at the lost art of tailoring.

“People don’t know how to sew today. They throw something in the trash or away. Taking it to Goodwill or a Salvation Army is even too much effort; they take it to a landfill or whatever. People don’t sit at home anymore waiting for grandma to finish their school clothes.”

That’s accurate. Our clothing comes from larger corporations who outsource to independent manufacturers, Made in Wherever Most People Haven’t Been or couldn’t find on a map, by people we’ve never met, who work under conditions we’ll never understand or may never want to. We all know this. What Brown wants and suggests to me isn’t an isolated 1950s world, but a world of transparency and accountability, where everyone knew where his or her goods and services came from. Today, while we know there’s corruption within all of the middlemen, most of the time we say let’s not even talk about it. We accept it as a reality. It’s a by-product of an all too overwhelming world. Still, there sits Spotlight Costumes, not even a block from where it started on Carson Street, making community connections and costumes that few people appreciate. I ask her, isn’t that discouraging?

“No,” she’s emphatic, and I can almost hear her heart pounding as she looks at me through those funky round tortoiseshell specs and her blonde-haired bob.

I laugh out loud, like an idiot. Why not, Kim?

“Because I’m not doing it for them. I’m not doing it for the general public. I’m not doing it for the actors. I’m not doing it for the audience that comes to see them. I’m doing it for myself because that’s the talent I was given. I was not smart enough to be a brain surgeon, but I also know – from having done this for thirty years – that I’m pretty good at what I do.”

Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe she belongs in Gryffindor. I’m amazed at how one person can look at the world, and all of its complex political, economic, and humanitarian crises, and not feel useless, sometimes, for choosing a fleeting career in the theatre making art that does not last. 

Perhaps therein her ability to amaze and inspire lies her success.

“I don’t think I’m the best. I’m the best Kim Brown.” 

Regardless of everything she’s accomplished, she stills thinks she has so much to learn. Never satisfied. For the record, I’ve never interviewed someone for just an hour and a half who made me laugh and cry and leave with a spring in my step. As she says herself:

“At the end of the day, Natalie, you just have to answer for yourself. Nobody else is going to answer for you. I’ve been to plenty of funerals, and nobody talks about what somebody wore. Unless it was something funny, like ‘they always wore a hat.’ But nobody’s talking about your material anything at your funeral. They’re talking about your character and they’re talking about what you did that impacted other people. If you don’t try and make it easier for someone else…I just think that’s what it’s all about.”

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On Wednesday evening, the beautiful O’Reilly Theater welcomed back its loyal patrons and kicked off Pittsburgh Public Theater (now in its 41^st year)’s 2015/2016 season with some wine and cheese, and a talk from the amazing Ted Pappas. After some charming “Everything Coming Up Roses” dance moves and a brief summery of another successful year, the company’s Producing Artistic Director opened up the conversation by presenting the first show of the season, The Diary of Anne Frank.

This Pulitzer and Tony winning play tells a coming-of-age story of a young girl who took refuge with her family from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic. Directed by the talented Pamela Berlin (The Glass Menagerie, Clybourne Park, Red), this new production features the original 1955 script by playwrights Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. The performance will begin on September 24^th, and runs until October 25^th.

Next up is a passionate comedy about an ambitious servant who works for two bosses at two dinner parties at the same time. Written by Carlo Goldoni and adapted by Lee Hall (creator of Billy Elliot), A Servant To Two Masters promises to provide a special fun night with beautiful music and aroma of authentic Italian food. Also after a little test run with the live audience on Wednesday, I’m pretty sure there will be a live sing-along too. The play will serve the Pittsburgh audience from November 5^th to December 6^th.

Still have the melodies of My Fair Lady stuck in your head? Well worry no more because another great American Musical is coming to town this season! With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and a book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, Guys & Dolls has everything a Broadway classic can offer: from sexy girls and a salvation army, to “The Oldest Established Permanent Floating Crap Game in New York”. Directed by Mr. Pappas himself, the show will open up the New Year with a run from January 28^th to February 28^th, 2016.

Coming up next is what Mr. Pappas called “the play that will have the most post-show talkbacks”. As the winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Disgraced tells a story about a dinner party where a hot-shot Pakistani-American lawyer, who married a WASP, is coming head to head with another power couple—a Black female attorney and her Jewish boyfriend. A 90-minute ride full of surprises and witty dialogues, this show will run from March 10^th to April 10^th, 2016.

Last year, a one-man play called The Chief broke Box Office records and became the best-selling show in Pittsburgh Public Theater history. This season Mr. Pappas wishes to lead the team and break his own record with another golden age classic. Adapted from the words of works of Truman Capote and written by Jay Presson Allen, Truis anther one of those shows that the actor will directly play with the audience all night. Next year marks the 50^th Anniversary of the debut of Capote’s most famous work In Cold Blood. With new insights and “indiscretion”, the show is set to bring back the black & white spirit to Pittsburgh, from April 21^st to May 22^nd, 2016.

The final show of the season is another recent Broadway sensation. Venus in Fur tells a story about a stage director who is eagerly looking for the perfect leading lady, but eventually realizes that the rules of domination can be easily reversed as the erotic seduction of power takes action. Nominated for the 2011 Tony Award for Best Play, this what Mr. Pappas called “a very frisky very funny comedy” will take center stage of the O’Reilly Theater and conclude the season from June 2^nd to 26^th, 2016. Expert opinion: great for date night, but don’t bring the children!

When it comes to Pittsburgh Public Theater, every moment matters! And for 40 years it has been inspiring and enriching the local performing arts community and striving to become one of the best theater companies in town. This season truly looks like it’s going to another great year for all the theater yinzers. And if you need more quotes, Mr. Ted Pappas himself said it the best,

“This season has it all: from Anne Frank and Guys & Dolls, to the Pulitzer winning Disgraced—amazing variety for Pittsburgh audience!”

Special Thanks to Pittsburgh Public Theater for the complimentary press tickets. For more information about season productions and ticketing, check out their website www.ppt.org.

Sunday evening, August 30^thPittsburgh New Works Festival (PNWF) launched their second set of staged readings for an audience review.  The free recitals are an opportunity for theater lovers, supporters of written word and overall artistic devotees to plunge into a rawer cultural channel.  For 25 years, PNWF has been enticing playwrights, from across the globe, for a chance to display, be heard, observed, listened to and studied.  The opportunity for authors to debut their dramas, commence a new comedy or try out a tragedy has become a time honored custom among artists and local thespians.  PNWF has ascertained a niche in the Pittsburgh arts community and now, on their 25^th anniversary they can kick back in their permanent home, the charming and intimate Carnegie Stage, as well as celebrate their new local elite sponsor, WQED. The PNWF has proven to be an integral part of Pittsburgh’s art scene, not to mention an asset to Carnegie.  For the first year ever, Carnegie city council has named September PNWF Month.  Needless to say, the 2015 season is off to a monumental start. 

This year hundreds of submissions were received but only 18 plays chosen for debut.  The selected plays are then performed by 18 regional theater companies bolstering local talent and visibility for area troupes as well as offering budding playwrights a platform to promote an original one- act play. The author biographies are impressive, each playwright is distinguished within their community, having received numerous recognitions and awards from various companies, conferences and contests. 

Sunday’s production lineup consisted of The Girl in the Washroom by Bella Poynton, directed by Mike Nelson, of R-Act Theater Productions, The Turning of the Screw by Warren Holleman and directed by Nancy Batko of PNWF and Town Hall Incident by Fred Perry, directed by Laura McCarthy- Blatt of University of Pittsburgh Stages. 

The Girl in the Washroom was read first.  Having glanced at Ms. Poynton’s biography prior to the start I was expecting polished dialogue, well-tuned characters and a hearty plot.  Instead, the story of Daisy and Stanley, two women who meet by happenstance, and are hiding out in a motel room together after witnessing a traumatic incident has poorly developed character relationship between Daisy and Stanley; there was very little cohesiveness.  I don’t mind suspension of disbelief but I must want to like or care about the characters before I can let my mind go there.   I sensed no connection between the two and the idle chit- chat like dialogue slowed the story down to a yawn.  All was not lost because Washroom has some strong elements; first and foremost, the plot.  The story is unique and just a little creepy, which is cool.  In fact, the ending was so unexpected that by the evenings conclusion Washroom was by was my favorite performance.

The Turning of the Screw proves author Holleman is not just an accomplished playwright but a masterful poet as well.  The play, written in iambic pentameter, carries a rhythm that is linguistically appealing as well as an auditory adventure.  The plot was clever, two newlyweds on their honeymoon and a Jester who through witticisms and cunning language attempts to assist the couple with their ‘conjugal conflicts’. This style of writing is a lure, keeping the audience enticed with tempo.  Furthermore, the audience is kept in stitches from the sexual innuendos and banter between husband and wife.  There were farce like moments that helped to make Screw a fun and lighthearted performance.

Third show of the evening, Town Hall Incident, is tried and true and somewhat generic.  I really want to separate the presentation of the written material, from the actors performance, after all this is a review of the script, so in trying to keep with the task at hand, I will say, the plot, far from an unfamiliar, tells a snippet of a story about anywhere at any time USA.  Big Brother starts sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong and ‘Average Joe America’ fights back.  In Town Hall Incident, Sheriff Jack Burns is preparing to call to order a committee meeting when suddenly Welsh, EPA representative and attorney Eckert waltz into the meeting.   The two federal employees have stopped by to confirm all the new laws are being enforced.  There is a happy ending, which manages to send the audience away with a sense of hope or accomplishment or at the very least a drive toward advocacy.  Unfortunately, the plays comedic moments fell short of the big laughs due to a lack luster cast, but this should have no bearing on Perry as a playwright or Town Hall Incident. 

PNWF upcoming season continues Thursday September 3, 2015 with performances running every weekend through September 13 at Carnegie Stage in Carnegie, PA. For more information, check out their website.

Thursday, September 3 I sipped an orange Pellegrino at Carnegie Stage, thrilled to have been invited back a second time in one week this time for Pittsburgh New Works Festival (PNWF) series kick- off, Program A.  The inaugural presentation consists of three original one act plays performed by various regional theater companies.

The first performance of the evening, presented by CCAC South Campus, Prodigal Returns written by esteemed author Garry Kluger, directed by established Pittsburgh theater contributor Lora Oxenreiter, and produced by none other than George Jaber, 2010 Pittsburgh New Works Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. 

The show begins when Sara, played by Rebekah Hukill, comes breezing into a living room, pours herself a shot of whisky and throws it back like there is no tomorrow.  Her sister Jody, played by Teresa Madden Harrold, appears looking disheveled from sleeping.  We quickly learn through the sharp dialogue that Sara has arrived at the family home, after being away for many years.  She is twelve hours late for their father’s funeral. The two sisters banter back and forth outlining the emotional family rift that ultimately drove Sara away. The two sisters manage to tone down their language and open, not just their ears to hear each other but their minds as well to actually listen and by the end of the performance, their hearts.  Their familial wounds festered for so long reconciliation between the two seems almost impossible.  Jody announces she does not agree with Sara’s homosexual lifestyle and does not recognize Sara’s marriage to Carol as a ‘marriage’.  Sara outlines the gritty details of Jody’s failed matrimony to a man that ended in a bitter divorce.  Jody defends her union with the production of a child. Sara reaches into her bag, pulls out a picture of a baby, holds it up for Jody to see and announces, ‘…my marriage qualifier’.  Suddenly the mood of the play shifts. 

Sitting in the audience was much like eavesdropping on a private conversation and both Hukill and Harrold really work well together developing their characters nicely throughout the performance.  The final moments of the play, they walk off stage together chattering like two little girls, cinched together the entire performance. 

The second play Empty Plots, presented by Stage Right and written by PNWF four- time Outstanding Playwright award winner, Chris Gavaler.  No set is required for this show and none of the characters have names. Actors Anne Rematt, Deb Wein and Kurt Stridinger command the stage through a blend of representational and a vague hint of presentational acting techniques.  The show starts when Rematt enters the stage from the audience carrying a potted flower; she peers into the faces and over the heads of us viewers.  Stridinger follows, and together they search the names etched into tombstones, looking for the grave of her deceased mother.  The discourse between the two reflect their pre-baby jitters with anticipation of the birth of their first child due in just ten days as well as topics cemetery roaming conjure.  Chatting about mortality, dying, religion, church and the mass manufacture of funerals are just a few of the subjects the two touch upon.   One can sense their intimacy and devotion as a couple growing in the moment.  The conversation bounces back and forth between abstract and real as they search out the gravesite of her mother who happened to die during childbirth; her birth.  Then a second woman, played by Wein, enters the scene.  She either does not notice or chooses to ignore the couple as she approaches a grave site carrying a bouquet of flowers. She stops and begins to speak, as if the dead was listening. She falls to her knees and begins to pray. This act throws husband and wife for a reality check; suddenly realizing death is not so much about the person who is deceased but the people left behind.  

The transition between the representational and presentational acting keeps the audience interested.  Furthermore, the acting is strong enough to not require a set of artfully designed tombstones as props to convince an audience they are on burial ground.  The play did stir up in me some melancholic feelings but my guess is nothing more than what most people ponder when faced with the subject of death, the unknown and preconceived notions regarding the afterlife.

The last production of the evening, Two written by Eugenie Carabatsos, a CMU MFA Dramatic Writing student and produced by Thoreau-NM-A Production Co. The story is a sweet and sentimental show staring Layne Bailey as Bernadette and Ryan Baker as Benjamin.  The performance is directed by filmmaker, actress and artistic director Christine Marie. 

Bernadette and Benjamin are rag dolls, dressed in complementary outfits reminiscent of a Raggedy Ann and Andy style.  They are trapped in a box, but not a nice cardboard box with a clear window in front like that had lived in before.  This box is musty, moldy, dark and hot.  How long have they been there? When will they get out?  Bernadette is going stir crazy and contemplating suicide.  Benjamin, a much more level- headed helps keep Bernadette grounded by playing games, telling stories and thinking positively.  This show used no set and no props. The empty stage allows for the viewers imagination to go where it needs to go.  A lovely piano accompaniment helps create an ambience of innocence and playfulness. The costumes were clever, specifically the unraveling threads on the dolls arms and neck showing their age and wear. 

This performance is the shortest of the evening, but a perfect length to tell the story of two rag dolls and what they might be thinking and feeling if we could know.  As children we spend most of our time suspending our disbelief to accept the feelings of cartoon characters, the habits of inanimate objects in illustrations and so forth.  Two allows the audience to return to that place with a more mature intellect. 

Program A still has a few more performances! For tickets and more information click here.

25 years is nothing short of celebratory. In its quarter of a century return, The Pittsburgh New Works Festival manages to retain a gracious amount of humility and appreciation. These are both important things to have in producing the new one act plays chosen for Program B of the PNWF at the Carnegie Stage. The three plays were selected from a batch of 228 previously unproduced entries from places like Moctezuma, Iowa and even Barcelona, Spain. Program B put focus on the loves, lives, and losses of women in different time periods and alternate universes.

Sounds of triumphant fanfare underscored the opener, Queen Stefi, by Zac Thompson, produced by Actor's Civic Theater. To further establish the royal kingdom ruled by the headstrong, titular queen captured by Sara Barbisch, the set had flairs of decorum with three tapestries and a chaise. Queen Stefi climbed her way to the top rank after originally entering her empire as a slave girl. With her foreign-born attitude, she often disagrees with the specific traditions of her new land. The tone of the piece instantly comes across as comedic thanks to Richard Cavallucci’s portrayal as Bacillus (the Eunuch), Stefi’s oafish messenger. Now, if you don’t know what a “eunuch” is, Zac Thompson made it extraordinary clear with his stab at a Monty Python-esque use of innuendo and word play. Director, James Critchfield, aided the writing with his use of physical comedy from bumbling guards to a lumbersexual slave girl in constant bevel, who was actually Stefi’s ex-fiance, Doug (the Valiant) returning from the grave to steal her back.

Stefi’s mantra seemed to be “forget the past, seize opportunities as they come to you.”, but many of these “opportunities” were that of the flesh making the story less about the intrigue of the characters’ pasts to what lie beneath their tunics. Zac Thompson tries to walk the fine line of melodrama only to cross it, losing a strong sense of conflict and instead favoring a more phallic-ly challenged world.

The heart of the program was Sweet Tea and Cadillacs by Ben Torbush. During the transition, the stage was replaced with a table and three chairs demonstrating the hollow judgment of an audition room. Michael R. Petyak’s direction effectively used the intimate space to his advantage especially with his cold opening with assistant, Bruce Story-Camp describing to casting director, Partick Stanny, Tinder 101- proving to be my only real laugh of the night. But, Sweet Tea and Cadillacs is not what it is made out to be for the audience and for aging actress, Juliana, played with fractured grace by Tracie Black. Juliana is in the audition room to read for the part of a mother, pointing out the ageism seen in Hollywood. But, when reading over the script she doesn’t find authenticity of the outspoken mother role she is reading for. This leads to an argument of quick fire dialogue among them. Ben Torbush has great control of his pacing knowing when to crank it into high gear and putting a more dynamic emphasis to moments of solemn contemplation. These moments lie solely in the reactionary strength of Ms. Black during her striking monologue of her past life that she herself imagined would be “sweet tea and Cadillacs”. A seamless lighting cue gives her the aura of a David Lynch night club singer. Despite the audience being confronted by the backs of the casting directors, Tracie Black tell us exactly what we need to know.

Stanny repeats over and over “I want real!”, and that is exactly what Torbush and the Cup-A-Jo Productions serves, a glass of sweet tea with gritty pieces of sugar that just can’t seem to dissolve.

If nursery rhymes had nightmares, that’s exactly what The Old Maid and Her Old Goose would be. The wonky country charm of the windows and love seat told the audience to be ready for something familiar, but off-beat. This assumption was reinforced with the entrance of the grand dame herself, Marilyn, played by J. Swauger in drag. Swauger has never made costume jewelry look so good. Marilyn has an air of a steampunk Marie Antoinette who was lucky enough to keep her head… well almost. Marilyn has an off-kilter personality with an affinity for highly romanticizing love and teaching her niece, Valencia, about proper womanly etiquette. Valencia doesn’t care much for these lessons and prefers the life of a criminologist as she vilifies her cat. Much of the play, written by Kyle John Schmidt and produced by The Theatre Factory, was spent establishing the alternate universe which played upon it’s gender bent and Vaudevillian antics leaving only a short period of time for conflict when Valencia’s other aunt, Bessie, arrives at their home. She serves as a foil to Marilyn, believing in love only as a measure of lust and passion. A neighboring pig farmer drops by in the last few minutes to seek Marilyn’s hand in marriage, which she takes after years of waiting for love. Schmidt subtly reveals the fate of Marilyn, like the old goose who is killed by Valencia’s cat, the future for Marilyn appears gruesome.

In every nursery rhyme or fable there is a moral. The wisest of words from The Old Maid and Her Old Goose being, “Love and war are both dangerous improvisations.” The dark frolicking attitude of the play chosen for the end of the program left me wanting something with a more resonant punch like was given from the victor of the night, Sweet Tea and Cadillacs.

It was clear seeing where the strengths and weaknesses in each play lie, but never did that prohibit the audience from raucously enjoying the program. That is because these productions and the Pittsburgh New Works Festival tackle the most organic nature of theater- collaboration. Check out PNWF's website for more information on tickets and Program B performances.

The desire to learn more is a complicated thing. You're motivated by the wish to feel smarter, like the people you look up to for all sorts of subjects. But it is difficult to learn new things, because it often brings up new complications and more questions. There's also pressure from society; if you differ too far from your friends' issues you're labeled a hipster or weirdo, and then feel embarrassed at simply wanting to learn something new. These themes and more are expanded on in the fabulous Educating Rita, which just opened up presented by PICT Classic Theatre.

Educating Rita is a two-person piece about an odd but important student-tutor relationship. It is England in 1970 and hairdresser Rita is seeking to expand her horizons by learning "everything" from English Lit professor Frank. Since she works during the day, Rita takes private evening tutoring sessions from Frank, where they discuss literature, society, and their personal lives. At age 26 Rita has found that she is bored with her husband and her clients at the hair salon. She finds that they're talking about "nothing", people who think having choices means "having multiple beers to pick from at the pub."

At first the play feels like it could be a bland "Odd Couple"piece; "he's a stuffy professor, she's an eccentric blue collar, ahh!" But as the characters begin discussing it's clear this is so much more than that. Rita doesn't think everyone around her is stupid; she just wants to learn about more things, to have different topics to talk about instead of what she always talks about. Even more frustrating is that nobody understands her desires for this "education" or why she doesn't want to just settle down and start having children.

A good two-man show takes an argument and dissects it, bringing up multiple points between its two characters and demonstrating that many questions do not have black or white answers. Whileaction-wise Rita is two people talking in an office, the conversation is SO good and fascinating to listen to. Willy Russel's script is very well-written, bringing a voice to concerns that are often hard to explain. Rita craves the "culture" she thinks her life is missing, whereas Frank finds said culture just as shallow and superficial as the life she wants to leave. It's a complicated dialogue to have, but it's great to watch.

PICT regulars Karen Baum and Martin Giles do great work in their roles, bringing full characters to the conversation. Their relationship grows strong and makes interesting developments as it goes on. They argue with each other, they confide secrets, they drink, they smoke, they lightly flirt (though the relationship never reaches a sexual nature). You want Rita to succeed in her goal but, as she learns, there are many complications. In one scene Rita confesses she can no longer talk to her "blue-collar" colleagues, but also is embarrassed to speak to Frank's more "cultured" friends. She says she feels like an alien, and her pain is relatable and heartbreaking. 

Alright, so maybe I'm biased. Maybe I really enjoyed Educating Rita because it talks about things I talk about in therapy. But still I think that's a good reason to like it, and I think everyone could benefit from seeing the production PICT has put on. At intermission people actually broke into conversation about the play, comparing it to Pygmalion (which I understand, but don't totally agree with) and talking about the themes. That is something I don't always get to hear at intermissions, so it was a welcome change. But don't worry, after the lights went up the woman next to me said to her husband "Well, I guess that means it's intermission." so I still got my daily dose of "unnecessary things to say."

So yes, go see Educating Rita. Just make sure you're listening. 

Educating Rita

Presented by PICT Classic Theatre

Directed by Alan Standford

Written by Willy Russell

Designed by Alan Standford (scenery), Michael Montgomery (costumes), Andrew David Ostrowski(lighting), Elizabeth Atkinson (sound)

Starring Karen Baum (Rita) and Martin Giles (Frank)

The show runs until September 19th. Tickets can be purchased here.

Summer draws to a close and we will soon feel the fall air tumbling down upon us. The tress will don their magical vestments of gold, orange, yellow, and red in a deluge of colors that will dance in our eyes.   Being Pittsburghers and those who live in the surrounding areas, we can yet enjoy blazing days, and lazy weekends.  In an effort to provide additional joy the Pittsburgh Parks have opened their green meadows and lush fields to Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks.             

This organization has been striving to bring quality renditions of various Shakespearian gems to the denizens of the region since 2005.  This year they have taken on the ambitious effort of presenting King Lear.  Over the next several weeks King Lear will be seen at several of the urban parks that provide a lovely respite from the steel, tar and concrete that dominate so much of our lives.  If you have a chance to get out and see the effort directed by Jeffrey Chips and Jennifer Tober then you will have topped off your summer with a taste of culture that should be as refreshing as a plummet into the cool waters of any of our public pools.

For those of you who do not know, King Lear provides a look into the life of an aging King who has three daughters.  He intends on going into retirement essentially, and wishes to divide his kingdom between the three.  The daughters need only profess their love for their father and the prize would be theirs.  However, if this were to go off without a hitch then there could be no tragedy on which to rest the play.  Hence, one of the daughters refuses to take part in such foolery and simply states her love as opposed to the excessive patronizing statements of her rival sisters.  The King does not appreciate this and exiles this daughter and so the play unfolds building and developing until a climax leaving numerous characters dead with a wreck of a tragedy to behold. 

The venues are the parks themselves, and the plays are completely outside hence, the controlled environment of the theater does not exist.  The players and the director do a very good job of setting the ambiance of the play with live music, and some simple special effects.  All in all the setting, though different, only adds to the enjoyment.  The one matter that I found unsettling, had to deal with outsiders who were not there to see the play and yet they chose to disrupt the play with phone calls, and general discourse in a clear display of disrespect, but a play outside of the confines of the traditional theater can be exposed to such variables.

Of special note, the play that I saw at Frick Park had been performed in the round.  I will assume that all performance will be the same.  We, the audience, surrounded the space and either sat on the ground, blankets, or on chairs brought along for that purpose.  Hence, prepare yourself accordingly and enjoy this method of presentation as I thought it added to the joy of the show rather than as a detraction.

The actors themselves are clearly a very dedicated group.  This year’s cast includes Ronald Siebert, a highly regarded actor with a tremendous list of professional accomplishments that have taken throughout the America’s and beyond.  He plays the key role of King Lear lending his talents to the character and providing a stage presence that should not be missed.

Nicholas Benninger, plays one of the King’s daughters as well the Fool.  I found it interesting that he played a female, but in Shakespeare’s day this would have been common place as the female roles were reserved for teenage boys.  This being said, Nicholas played his roles well including that of Cordelia the exiled daughter of Lear.  He did a fine job at making us believe in him.  There are many actors who perform a great many roles, but as always space for the words of adulation are limited, but I wanted to mention Jennifer Tober who played two characters and performed the duties of Artistic Director.  Given her roles, little doubt can be left as to her dedication to Shakespeare in the Parks.  I don’t know a lot of the inner dynamics of the organization, but I do know I enjoyed myself this past Saturday.  This enjoyment I owe, in part, to Jennifer Tober.  We who attended need thank her and Pittsburgh needs to thank her and all of the other actors as well for their roles in bringing the tragedy of King Lear to life under the beautiful summer skies.

There are several more performances in the fourth coming weeks.  Don’t miss this opportunity to get out and enjoy these last days of summer.  Take a chance and go see a wonderful play amidst the beautiful scenery in the depths of an urban setting.  Many of us have never enjoyed these parks.  Take advantage of the free offering and go and enjoy yourself and take home a memory of a summer gone by.

For information on Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks, check out their webiste here.

 When I first met Joanna Lowe, it was on the Brentwood set of the horror film Corpsing, produced by 72^nd Street Films, in the summer of 2011. I had just finished my freshman year of college that spring, and just then, late at night – or early in the morning, I can’t remember – I decided to panic about what I wanted to do with my life. Little did I know this would be the first of many such moments in my college career. Joanna, not yet covered in blue, scaly zombie make-up, took several minutes out of her scheduled actor preparation time, to talk me down. Her words were to the soothing effect of: “Hey man, I’m thirty-something, bursting at the edges, and I’m still trying to figure out how I can have it all. I don’t think it’s impossible. It’ll be ok.” Four years, later, we genuinely have the same conversation, except we’re in a Crazy Mocha, looking a bit more put together: her in her Gateway Clipper polo and me with my Golden Snitch earrings. Yet, if possible, she seems even more passionate.

Lowe holds a Bachelor’s degree from Geneva College, where she studied both Theatre and Creative Writing. She has devoured the Pittsburgh theatre scene ever since. Looking at students of theatre graduating today, she acknowledges the intense pressure they put on themselves, “That is the dumbest thing you can possibly do. Give yourself some grace. Otherwise, you won’t enjoy the things that do happen.” 

The neat thing, I later realize in my conversation with Lowe, is that Pittsburgh herself is also an underdog, an under pressure arts student, coming into her own.

“I moved here over twenty years ago and I hated Pittsburgh. I was angry at my parents for dragging me to this dirty, awkward city and it was just where I lived for a time... except I was here to see her [Pittsburgh] transform from a post-steel identity, lost, confused, and brooding city into a thriving arts city where her communities were prepared to support her people and their endeavors.”

Thinking of her in full-on Frankenstein gear as she’s speaking is hilarious, because she’s animatedly tossing her long light hair with every story and her bright blue eyes drink in every question. She’s bursting with humor and good-natured confidence.

“I love Pittsburgh. It's a city, but it's intimate. Blue-collar rooted, so she's tough and proud, but now education is one of our biggest industries in Pittsburgh. What that's done is create a bizarre and beautiful attitude of ‘If I can imagine it, I can do it here in Pittsburgh.’ And there are enough organizations and institutions and patrons and artists to support that philosophy. Making money is always the challenge as an artist, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I don't know if I've ever seen or heard about a city with such rare community and optimism. Pittsburgh is tiny; and yet bursting at the seams with rare visions and original endeavors. That's insane. And it's incredible.”

It’s why Joanna says she’s chosen Pittsburgh as her home. It’s why she was able to realize so many of her artistic endeavors. She is a film and theatre actor, director, producer, acting teacher, voice-over coach, published poet, produced playwright and spoken word artist – and she is thriving. She begins shaping my perspective of her work by explaining her clandestine first spoken word. It happened the way she seems to take everything: diving headfirst.

Earlier that day, someone had made Lowe feel worthless – she corrects herself, “I had let someone make me feel worthless,” and we toast Eleanor Roosevelt with our dirty chai tea lattes, before she continues to explain that on a particularly bad day, she asked a friend for a favor. “A friend of mine, after I had gone through my divorce, had gotten me into coming out to the Acoustic Café nights at the Club Café, in Southside, saying, ‘Oh, it’ll be fun, it’s like music therapy.’ He had been getting me out there just to take a seat at the bar, sip at my beer, and enjoy the music. That one day, I don’t know why, I texted him and asked, ‘What if I read something?’ He answered in five seconds, ‘Yes!’

It wasn’t an ordinary night, of course. That Monday night was the Christmas party at Acoustic Café Open Mic night. Lowe was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with the best singer and songwriters in Pittsburgh, she tells me. Though she had been performing since childhood, she felt such fear that she had to get “not sober” in order to muster the courage to speak.

“It was like jumping out of a plane. When you go skydiving, you have to turn off your brain. You have to ignore every signal, every thought, because it goes against every single instinct. Your entire body and brain goes: ‘No, this is illogical.’ You’re standing on a peg the half-size of a Snickers bar, holding on to the side of airplane, thinking, ‘I’m gonna die.’ I remember thinking, go big or go home. So, I grabbed the microphone and jumped out of the plane.”

At the end of her speech, there was a deafening silence. Which, to Lowe, seemed unending, until then, like a movie, the whole room erupted into cheers. Her face still wears the shock of that first audience’s response.

“People kept coming up to me afterward, saying, ‘I had no idea you did that!’” she laughed and looks at me with glee, “Neither did I! They said, ‘This is who you are now. This is what you do.’ I’ve tried to back away, to disappear, but musicians keep asking me, ‘Can I please play with you?’ It was the most insane accident. I accidentally tripped and fell down a mountain. And everybody said, ‘That’s awesome. Do it again!”

The process of writing, for Lowe, is messy. Inspiration comes from a guttural detail and expands. It can sometimes be a painful process. She’s a published poet, has written fiction, and dabbled in various forms…but seems to have finally found the most cathartic medium. Her spoken word style is confessional and her attitude, humbling.

“I don’t go out there to get salvation. I don’t go out there to get praised for my struggles. I just go out there to share. Anytime someone connects with me, in that way, I just go: thank God. Because if they connected to me, then I’m not alone, either.”

You can still often find Joanna Lowe and her stellar crew of musicians on Monday “Acoustic Café” nights at the Club Café in Southside, she has also performed at Pittsburgh Winery, Hambones, and the New Bohemian. Earlier this year, her words, set to music, were released as a C.D. under a label with Wild Kindness Records.

Lowe, and for good reason, is delighted with this surprise opportunity life has thrown at her – or that she jumped into. When you sign up for a career in the arts, I’m learning, you kind of have to be ready for anything. Joanna, fierce at fourteen, signed up early.

“I followed my big brother and sister onto the stage after watching them perform in high school. I started in seventh grade. It wasn't an epiphany that I wanted to be an actor; it was obvious to me. After feeling what it was to be on stage, doing what felt perfectly natural to do, why would I ever do anything else?”

Lowe is candid with me, and I’m struck by how open and friendly she is, when I know that her roles are dramatic, gripping and to use her word: gut-wrenching. She pushes herself to the limits.

“If it doesn’t overjoy or break my heart, I’m kind of not interested. If something catches me, makes me uncomfortable, I’ve got to pick it apart,” she says.

I point out to her, conspiratorially that, “Most people run away. Or shut down. Or change the subject,”

She pauses, and thinks for half a second, and then answers me, thoughtful, but without cracking a self-deprecating grimace or anything: “Yeah. I…don’t have that.”

At this point in her upbringing, Joanna’s minister father probably did the Presbyterian Orthodox equivalent of the Catholic sign of the cross and thought: “Oh dear.” Joanna doesn’t think that yoga would work for her and the gerbil that lives inside of her head. She can’t shut it off. It’s running on a wheel, and it’s sometimes really exhausting and horrible and awful, but often times its very happy. His name is Esteban.

“[Eventually]…for me, it became about knowing my own health. My mental health, my emotional health. It’s only come from going through some of the worst traumas of my life in the last three years. Nothing will help you know yourself than having to get through that and having to pull yourself out of that and having to raise a child out of that. Suffering either makes you a better person or it will destroy you.”

She pauses to think about it for a second, then continues.

“It doesn’t have to make you a better person – it can – but it doesn’t automatically. You see bitter, broken people everywhere because they’ve gone through trauma and they’re resentful and they refuse. I’ve tried to take everything that I’ve gone through and make myself better. Gentler. More graceful, stronger. It’s simply having had to go through that that my art has been – revived, relived – that’s how this whole spoken word thing came out.”

In addition to her relatively new medium of performance as a spoken word artist, Joanna has tantalizing production visions in mind for Cup-A-Jo Productions later in the year; was just cast in Prime Stage Theatre’s production of The Crucible; and will revive her one woman show from this year’s Fringe Festival, called Woman In The Raw written by Jennifer Schaupp and directed by Sean O’Donnell. It studies one woman’s day, honestly and, often sarcastically, drifting between outlets of social media and witnessing her soliloquies in the raw – often as she’s busy doing something unflattering, like eating yogurt or sitting on the toilet. It has two performances next week September 18^th and 19^th at 8pm at The Maker Theater, and you better believe I’m bringing a whole troop of my best friends to be fan girls.

“Living intentionally sounds like such a simple concept. But it’s not. Those people who’ve been forty years at the full-time job, living the ‘American Dream’ because it gives them the car, house, 2.5 kids…and then they go ‘what have I done with my one life?’ They didn’t mean to, because they didn’t choose. I think people would be happier if they choose to do this and say, ‘This is why I do this.’ But no, people go to a job and complain on Monday and only celebrate on Fridays. How can you live that?”

Learning about artists like Joanna in the Pittsburgh area is inspiring, to say the least, and helps give newcomers to the scene, like me, a glimpse of what it means to be successful. Perhaps more importantly, how to simultaneously take pride in what you do and laugh like a hyena without being self-conscious. As an artist, living your life with balance is hard, and Joanna Lowe would be the first to tell you that it doesn’t get easier and that she still struggles.

“What is success? Do what makes your blood hot, and kick ass at doing it. Period. And if you have to do more to make a living, then make sure you choose things that support your artist lifestyle and don't make you miserable. That last part is important - we've only got this one life, and you've got no business wasting your time doing something that makes you miserable. Success is all perspective. Once you get that right, most really will fall into place. Are you proud of the work you do? Is it fulfilling? Are you growing, being challenged? Do you enjoy the work you do? If the answer to these very simple questions is no, then it's clear what you need to change. If the answer is yes, then you're already a success.”

She’s also the first to tell you to do it anyway.

This past Thursday brought me to one of my favorite venues The Little Lake Theatre, located in Canonsburg.  The place has a special ambiance to it that few others in the area can achieve.  First, the plays are always in the round, which I enjoy as it takes the audience in the midst of all the happenings of the play.  Furthermore, the seating takes many in the audience to within but a few feet of the actors.  You can see everything in amazing, up front, and personal detail.  The actors are left with very little room for mistakes so they are on point at all times.  This provides the audience with something special, something to enjoy. 

This past week brought the opening night for Dead Accounts, and as I have said before, the magic of the first night once again hung heavy in the air as the cast and audience anxiously awaited the lights to dim. 

The play, written by Theresa Rebeck, found its first production on Broadway, directed by the favorite son of Little Lake, Art DeConciliis.  As luck would have it, my wife knew Mr. DeConciliis and after a brief introduction he explained that the show was not well received in New York City, due in large part to poor casting in his opinion, but should prove to provide for a fantastic evening, nevertheless.  We were not led astray.

As the play unfolds, we meet Jack as played by the Little Lake Theatre’s beloved star Gregory Caridi.  I have had the fortune to watch him perform a couple of times now and he plays a great protagonist.  He serves as the anchor to the action on the stage sweeping the audience away into the tumults of the conflicts within the story.  Caridi has a charisma that at times might seem larger than the stage he’s on, but he no doubt feels at ease in the roles he has been cast in.  If you haven’t seen him perform, well, don’t let the opportunity slip away. 

The protagonist’s mother, Barbara, as played by Marianne Shaffer brought me to the edge of fantasy as I could see in her every mother who ever worried, within her a simplicity that defines the American mom of years gone by.  Sure there are many of them still around, but fewer and fewer.  These are the women whose sole responsibility had been to raise the family, assure that all the children ate, as well as their husbands, maintained a household, and performed every single detail to the nth degree.  All the bases were covered.  No one came up short, and she did this without ever complaining.  She didn’t need a duel career. If she had tried she would have been hospitalized with exhaustion.  This had been the character I saw.  A proud American mother.

There were three other characters as well, Lorna, Jack’s Sister, as played by Danette Marie Levers. We had Phil, Jack’s friend, played to completeness by Vincent Marshall, and of course we cannot forget Jenny, Jack’s soon to be ex, as played by Rebecca MacTaggart.  All of the cast has been fitted well into their roles.  If such casting had been accomplished in other productions, then perhaps the play itself would have met with much greater success. 

In total, The Little Lake Theatre has provided the complete package.  They deliver a fantastic bit of theater with top notch, dedicated actors, they provide flawless, after all this happens to be their 67^th season, and they have good food and drinks to top it off.  You can’t find a single thing wrong with this production.  I know I have said it before as I have had the good fortune of attending performances here prior to this last Thursday, but if you are in the mood to take in a play then take a ride to Canonsburg. 

Special thanks to the Little Lake Theatre for complimentary press tickets. For tickets and more information check out Little Lake's website.

In Mathematics there is a very popular theory called the “Butterfly Effect”, which says that a butterfly can flap its wings over a flower in China and cause a hurricane in the Amazon rainforest. Being Translated into everyday situation, this theory basically means that sometimes a very small step we take or a decision we make earlier in life will transcend through time and set the tone for our emotions and actions later on with bigger consequences. According to Liam Macik, the Artistic Director of Throughline Theatre Company, the third installment of their sixth season is all about this kind of notion. 

Winner of the company’s second annual New Play Competition, Games of the Mind tells a story about two best friends, Gregory and Margaret, representing their Catholic high school to compete in rounds of Scholastic Scrimmage, and later realizing that their relationships with the third teammate, Dominic, has eventually become the turbulence in their friendship and each other’s own love life for the next ten years. With two timelines intertwined and on going at the same time on stage, the story surely shows the audience how this high school drama-like butterfly wing-flapping can cause the hurricane in each character’s adult life.

However, it’s a comedy.

The reason why I said “however” is that the farce-like language and the frivolous behaviors of the characters indeed confuse the theme of the story and eventually weaken the overall dramatic tension of the play. Of course one can argue that this is a satire piece. Yet based on the way the narration is dramatized and how it still addresses some serious issues, such as religion and sexuality, I couldn’t help but wonder if the true subjective theme of the play was overshadowed by the objective comedic presentation. Maybe this was intentional after all to fit the overall theme of the season, “Method of Madness”?

Written by Pittsburgh local actor and playwright F.J Hartland, the script will make you laugh while asking all of the tough questions. And some of them will get answered in the end while others remain open to interpretation. The build up of the suspense through parallel timelines and mischievous relationships between three teammates in Act I was effective and very intriguing. However, the way everything got explained in Act II (without spoiling the plot here) was generally a letdown and not strongly convincing when you think back on each character’s choices and thought process.

All the main characters in the story have very distinct and memorable personalities and can bring back all of your high school nightmares and old time “good times”. Gregory and Margaret were played by two young actors Karter Schachner and Katie Trupiano. Because in the story these two characters are also the center of a moral dilemma, they are not the kind of protagonists that the audience will fall in love with in a heart beat. But Mr. Shachner and Ms. Trupiano’s performances were still genuinely funny and moving, and would make you vouch for their characters from time to time.

Ms. Joyce Miller played Sister Brigit, the coach of the Scholastic Scrimmage team who later turned out to play a bigger part in the games of the mind. This character could easily have been the most interesting character in the entire play, as her attitude and motivation fundamentally drives the plot forward and supports the big revelation in the end. However Ms. Miller’s interpretation somewhat narrowed that complexity to a singular personality—it was a very successfully scary and satirically hilarious portrait, but we also really want to understand her and feel for the character’s decisions at those important dramatic moments.

All of the other actors generally did a good job of bringing back the high school drama while maintaining the comedic atmosphere. Honorable mention Ms. Maura Underwood for her portrait of the wickedly drunk TV show hostess Monica Mosely, and Mr. Michael Brewer for his genuine performance as Florian, who turned out to be the biggest winner of audience’s sympathies in the story.

Directed by Ms. Allison M. Weakland, the play overall has a nostalgic touch with a hint of mystery. Although at certain scenes the pacing was not coherent enough to build up and maintain the dramatic tension, the general momentum did humor the audience and won the surprising laughs it set out for. The music in the play managed to stay consistent with that millennial feeling, despite the fact that at a few times the volume was rather distracting. The scenery and costume design team brilliantly created a time and space structure for the plot to evolve and switch in between. So whenever a character was on stage we immediately knew which story line he or she is in.

As it promised, Games of the Mind did provoke the conversation of what should we do in these conflicting situations and who should we follow in those not-black-or-white scenarios where one’s crazy obsession might affect the others’ moral decisions. However, a lot of critical dramatic moments eventually were executed in a melo-comedic fashion that the true theme of the story was rather out of focus and got sacrificed in the game.

Games of the Mind

Presented by Throughline Theatre Company

Directed by Allison M. Weakland

Written by F.J. Hartland

Designed by Maryane Kimbler (props), Beth Stari (costumes), Joseph A. Walker (scenery), Wendy E. Baxter (lighting), Sarah McPartland (sound), Kate Louise Marchewka (stage manager)

Starring Karter Schachner (Gregory), Katie Trupiano (Margaret), Michael Brewer (Florian), Erik Martin (Sebastian), Joyce Miller (Sister Brigid), Derrick Shane (Dominic), Maura Underwood (Monica Mosely), Alaina Gilchrist (ensemble), Ashley Rice (ensemble), Scott Vickinovac (ensemble).

Special Thanks to Throughline Theatre Company for the complimentary press tickets. The show runs until September 19^th. For more information about season productions and ticketing, check out their website

Last night Quantum Theatre presented the first performance of its The Winter’s Tale, a world premiere commissioned by The Benter Foundation. This Baroque opera, based on Shakespeare’s play, was created by Quantum’s Karla Boos; music director/conductor Andres Cladera; Chatham Baroque’s Andrew Fouts, Patricia Halverson and Scott Pauley, and Attack Theatre’s Michele de la Reza and Peter Kope, with additional music by Justin Wallace. Some of the greatest composers in history have struggled with varying degrees of success to set adaptations of the Bard of Avon’s works to their own original music, so the many involved are to be commended on plunging into very deep waters as successfully as they did.

As the program notes make clear, however, the music is tried and true, and borrowed and adapted from many composers. The overture, for example, is Charpentier’s “Ouverture et March Triomphante.” Arias and scenes are likewise taken from pieces by Händel, Vivaldi, Bach, Purcell, Lully and many others, then fitted to the text. True to the “Baroque” style, the opera is heavy with recitativo secco (literally, "dry,” sung speech, accompanied only by a continuo or harpsicord) and recitativo accompagnato (the same, to orchestral accompaniment), and light on sustained singing. This type of music is quite taxing on the vocalists’ methods and senses of legato, since a word as simple as “blood” might be sung as if it had twenty or more syllables. Last night’s singers had varying but fairly consistent success with this colossal feat.

(Rebecca Belczyk as Perdita, Robert Frankenberry as King Polixenes, and Shannon Kessler Dooley as Camillo)

As far as the play used in this operatic adaptation, The Winter's Tale was originally published in the “First Folio” of 1623, several years after Shakespeare’s death. It was listed among the comedies, but several latter day editors have called the play one of Shakespeare's “late romances.” More than one critic has referred to it as one of Shakespeare's "problem plays", because the first three acts rely heavily on psychological drama, while the last two acts are more comedic. The opera condenses the action into two very busy acts, and combines drama and comedy in a well-balanced mix.

The staging is quite remarkable, considering the size of the jewel box styled, 300-seat auditorium atop the magnificent Union Trust Building. Clever lighting and scenic effects, amazing projections, costumes, and Attack’s dancers constantly on the scene in astonishingly choreographed acrobatics keep the eyes in perpetual motion, while the ears try to keep up with the music. The dancers also shift scenery most gracefully and, truth be told, give the piece a somewhat erotic charge. The black shorts in the dress rehearsal photos were discarded, and the flesh-colored, extremely form-fitting body stockings they wore gave the distinct impression of painted nudes in motion. It must be said that this innovation in the work is slightly disconcerting on a first viewing, as it at many points gives the impression of an opera and ballet taking place on the same stage at the same time, each vying for pre-eminence.

(Cosmo Clemens as The Clown and Katy Williams as The Shepherdess)

The opera’s action centers on the Sicilian King Leontes and his old, visiting friend Polixenes, King of Bohemia, and the jealousy that erupts over the former’s suspicion of the latter’s romantic interest in his Queen Hermione. An enraged Leontes questions the paternity of he and Hermione’s young son, Prince Mamilius. His “man” Camillo enters, and Leontes, convinced that everyone knows his suspicions as truths, challenges Camillo to prove his loyalty by murdering Polixenes. When reasoning fails, Camillo agrees, but vows to flee Sicilia. Polixenes finds the troubled Camillo, and the two agree to escape to Bohemia. The innocent Hermione, now “great with child,” in the presence of her “woman,” Paulina, is confronted and accused by Leontes. Stunned, Hermione believes that there is “an ill planet ruling,” and resigns herself to waiting until “stars align” for salvation. Leontes orders her to prison, despite the begging to reconsider by his steward Antigonus (Paulina’s husband).

Leontes agrees to send for Apollo’s Oracle for the gods’ confirmation of his suspicions and ire. Hermione gives premature birth to a daughter, but Paulina’s plan of presenting the infant to Leontes and pointing out the baby’s resemblance to him in the hopes of making him see reason backfires, and he orders Antigonus to take “This brat is none of mine!” to be deserted somewhere it might be found and raised – or killed – far from his sight. During Hermione’s trial on charges of adultery and treason, the Oracle arrives to proclaim her innocence. She has barely begun to rejoice when a servant announces that young Mamilius has died of grief and stress. The news causes Hermione to drop on the spot, and Leontes begs forgiveness with the Oracle’s warning that he will live without an heir unless “that which is lost be not found” ringing in his ears. As Hermione dies and Leontes realizes the gravity of his error, Antigonus arrives in Bohemia with the infant. He sings of a dream in which the ghost of Hermione implores him to name the child Perdita and leave her near the shore. He does so, and in one of Shakespeare’s most famous of stage directions, is chased off by a bear (which is quite cleverly handled in the production). A Shepherdess finds the baby atop a bag stuffed with gold, as well as a note with her name and royal lineage. Her son, the Clown, races onto the scene saying that he has just seen a man eaten by a bear as his ship sank in a storm. They decide to keep the baby as their own. So much for the first act of the opera. The second act is more complicated.

(Scott Pauley, Theorbo, Chatham Baroque; Rebecca Belczyk as Perdita, and Dan Kempson as Florizel)

It begins sixteen years after the doings of the first, in Bohemia, where Camillo remains with King Polixenes. Camillo’s longing to return to his native land is trumped by Polixenes’ concerns over his son, Prince Florizel, who has been spending a lot of time at the home of a Shepherdess said to have a beautiful daughter. They exit to disguise themselves and investigate. Autolycus, a conman and pickpocket, enters to lay in the road, claiming to have been beaten and robbed. The Clown finds him and is relieved of his money as he helps the swindler to his feet. As the Clown is on his way to the sheep shearing festival, Autolycus joins him, counting on happier hunting grounds in the crowds. Perdita has grown to be the most beautiful girl in all of Bohemia, so naturally is the “Queen” of the festival. A young man has been wooing her – and, of course, it is indeed young Prince Florizel. King Polixenes and Camillo arrive, and, while impressed by the beauty and dignity of Perdita, the former can hardly approve of his son courting a common Shepherdess’ daughter. When Florizel professes his intentions regarding the young woman, Polixenes implores him to seek first the counsel of his father. Florizel will have none of it, so Polixenes reveals himself and leaves in a rage, expecting his son to follow. But Florizel’s plans are to sail secretly away with Perdita. Camillo urges the couple to return to Sicilia and seek out the repentant King Leontes, saying Polixenes still loves his old friend.

The Shepherdess and Clown are in a quandary, and, deeply fearing Polixenes, debate revealing Perdita’s identity. Autolycus overhears, and for selfish reasons offers to accompany them to Sicilia as they sail after the King. There, at King Leontes’ court, Paulina has made every day of the last sixteen years a misery for him. She has beaten him down with guilt, and tells him he may remarry only with her consent, which she will not give, and to one only as noble as Hermione, who will never come.  Prince Florizel and Perdita arrive, claiming to have been sent by Polixenes, to Leontes’ joy, but it is quickly revealed that Perdita is a common Shepherdess’ daughter, and that the couple are fleeing Polixenes’ wrath. The Prince begs Leontes to plead their case to Polixenes, and run off. Autolycus has arrived in Sicilia with the Shepherdess and Clown, and on a road meets three men who tell of Leontes’ joy at finding his lost daughter. They learn of Antigonus’ fate, there is a happy reunion of the Kings, Polixenes has forgiven his son and promoted Perdita to Princess, and all have gone to Paulina’s home for the unveiling of a lifelike statue of the late Queen Hermione. The statue comes to life and embraces Leontes and Perdita. The program notes sum up the conclusion best: “Finally, Paulina says, ‘go, precious winners all’… she will live without her love (who was eaten by a bear.) Leontes has a final solution for her and for one other who’s faith never swayed from the truth.”

(Gail Novak Mosites as Paulina and Raquel Winnica Young as Hermione, with dancers Ashley Williams, Dane Toney, Kaitlin Dann and Anthony Williams)

Andres Cladera brought the small chamber orchestra of period pieces vividly to life. His work and that of the instrumentalists (Geoffrey Burgess, Oboe I; Scott Pauley, Theorbo; Andrew Fouts, Violin I; DawnPosey, Violin II; Patricia Halverson, Viola da Gamba; Stephen Schultz, Flute; Matthew Hettinga, Viola; Justin Wallace, Harpsichord; Sarah Heubsch, Oboe II, and Sue Yelanjian, Double Bass) provided a distinct sound quite in keeping with the genre of the work, and was one of the musical pleasures of the evening.

As stated previously, Attack Theater’s dancers (Kaitlin Dann, Dane Toney, Anthony Williams and AshleyWilliams) were in evidence throughout, and in almost continuous motion made incredibly difficult maneuvers seem smoothly, naturally and gracefully easy. That they will repeat this amazing feat multiple times through October 3 is a wonder. Dane Toney, as he always does, particularly stood out, not only by the elegance and fluency of his movements, but by his expressive and mobile face that continuously and unobtrusively seems to comment on the action taking place.

David Newman (Leontes) and Robert Frankenberry (Polixenes) sang well and acted effectively. Both have powerful voices, and both were heard to best advantage in the sustained passages of singing. The recitatives sometimes seemed to tax them to their limits, particularly in their lower registers. They, like the others, were wonderfully costumed and presented impressive stage pictures.

Dan Kempson (Florizel) and Rebecca Belczyk (Perdita) were well paired as the young lovers. They looked their parts to perfection and sang with distinction. Raquel Winnica Young (Hermione) sang with a rich and mellow voice that grew in strength and appeal as the performance progressed. Shannon KesslerDooley (Camillo) and Gail Novak Mosites (Paulina) gave effective performances, and their vocal and acting gifts were greatly appreciated by the almost capacity audience.

In appearance, voice and action, Katy Williams (The Shepherdess) and Cosmo Clemens (The Clown) were true delights. The Clown’s encounter with Andre Nemzer (Autolycus) was one of the best scenes of the evening.  Eugene Perry (Antigonus) acted the part well, and sang the portions that were in his voice range well, but a lot of the music is too low for him.

(Scott Pauley, Theorbo, Chatham Baroque; Eugene Perry as Antigonus)

The production was well received and is worthy of encouraging patronage of the remaining performances. The opera will be repeated eleven times through October 3. For complete information on dates, times and tickets (as well as wonderful cast portraits), visit http://www.quantumtheatre.com/the-winters-tale/

Special thanks to Quantum Theatre for the complimentary press ticket.

The Production Team for The Winter’s Tale -

Joseph Seamans, Projection Design; C. Todd Brown, Lighting Design; Tony Ferrieri, Scenic Design; SusanTsu, Costume Design; Sophie Hood, Assistant Costume Design; Michelle K. Engleman, Stage Manager; Britton Mauk, Director of Production; David Levine, Technical Director.

Photography by Heather Mull.

I recently had the privilege of attending The Carnegie Stage where The Pittsburgh New Works Festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The Pittsburgh New Works Festival defines itself as a non-profit organization dedicated to the encouragement and the supporting of the writing and production of original, one act plays.  The scripts are brought in from a diverse pool of talent from far and wide. To make it to a silver anniversary is nothing to be scoffed at, and stands as a testament to the quality of the offerings that the festival has brought to the stage. I attended last Thursday’s opening of Program C, featuring three original, world premiere plays. Each of them brought an energy, a magnetism, and a subtle beauty all their own.  I felt that each one built atop of the previous one until arriving at the finality that brought a number of people to their feet.

The first play, Gravity Between Us, written by Josie Rush and presented by the Red Masquers, detailed the dynamic relations between two sisters, Raye (Michelle Flynn) and Grace (Leenie Baker). Like so many sisters in the real world these two always had each other, as well as a third player Jake (Stephen Wilson) the boyfriend. The play moves quickly and the story develops at a rapid pace.  These are problems faced today, and the play reflected the antics and woe that they can cause as well.  In the end, the play had promise, but could use a bit more time developing the characters, and building to perhaps a stronger ending.  However, I cannot say that I did not enjoy myself.  

Next up was Rules of Discovery, as written by Andrew Ade and presented by the Summer Company, brought to the audience the dynamics of a homosexual relationship and the stresses put upon them by society. I believe that Dan Brisbee in the role of Dana established a firm anchor for the other players to rally around and he worked well with Zachary Romah did a good job of presenting said stresses through his role. The remaining players, Vernee Smith, in the role of Mel and Lesa Donati in the part of Teri completed the ensemble and carried the play to fruition. This play forces the audience to face the possibility and reality of suicide and makes people look at their lives and consider that maybe one last remark or a kiss may be the difference between life and death. I loved what this play had to say and how it attempted to build out the social statements of today’s lifestyles and careless stereotyping that we still are guilty of.   

In its appropriate slot,  Phase 3 Productions presents a play written by Jeffry W. James’s, The Man That Got Away. I loved the power of this play.  It made me laugh and it had me thinking, what? Who? How? For real? It really stood out as something terrific. It erupted on the stage like a volcano bursting colors, noise, and fiery power that covered the audience in joy.  It starts with a stockinged leg that shoots through the curtain.  Of course you expect it to be attached to a woman, but don’t be so foolish.  Out comes the one man show in the form of Craig Russel dressed to kill in drag, He extracts laughter from the audience with his jokes, makes them wince and he sings! He happens to be the Man That Got Away, and he is a riot.

All the shows were presented wonderfully; the directors and stage managers did an excellent job bringing these plays to life and smoothly doing so throughout the night. The deep darkness that fell about the stage and then, as if by magic, everything changed and the lights shined and a new world and play began..

Like those days of the first technology bubble, there were those places that called themselves the incubators of fledgling talent.  These were the places where the pioneers could come to build their technical marvels and wrap and bind together the organizational underpinnings that would take their innovations to the world. This festival serves as another kind of incubator for the area and has made me aware of one thing for sure: there exists a vast sea of incredible talent in this region.  I can say, that I would have welcomed the opportunity to see all of them as there really can be nothing like seeing a play for the very first time.

For tickets and more information on the Pittsburgh New Works Festival's final weekend, please check out their website.

After four weeks of new theater full of joy and excitement, the 25^th season of Pittsburgh New Works Festival is coming to an end. I was fortunate enough to be present at both the very first round staged readings, and the last full production program of the Festival. And after seeing those three wonderful plays that opened last Friday night with Program D, I can tell you right now that the journey only gets better!

The first one-act play of the evening is Grim Tidings, written by Dennis Jones and produced by Heritage Players. It tells a story about a Russian banker, Edward Hastings, who met a mysterious fortuneteller Madam Zaekov on one Christmas Day and learned about his fortunate fate and unfortunate destiny through three prophecies. The entire plot focused on the third and last prophecy where a Grim Reaper, a.k.a. the devil a.k.a. Death Agent, is coming to kill Edward, and hence how he is trying to avoid this fatal incident by working together with the fortuneteller.

The act opened with three long bell rings--“The time is 1885.” And within a few minutes you can tell this is going to be another classic love and murder story by the mischievous lighting atmosphere and the actors’ British accents. All the background stories were introduced in the banker’s monologue and after the first two prophecies we already knew that he’s rich and has a wife. The tension was building up slowly for the third deadly prophecy, yet a lot of questions still remained unanswered, such as why this Grim Reaper is coming to kill Edward, and why a fortuneteller would know every details about the rules of killing and is suddenly interested in helping the rich banker. Then as the narration went on, the perspective of the story shifted to a year later—the day when the killing was supposed to happen. And more comedic characters were introduced, such as an oddly nosy butler and the fore-mentioned wife whose only role in the plot seems to be helping the final revelation easily “make sense”. Overall the acting managed to covey the warm Christmas story feeling while maintaining the suspense of a murder set up. Most of the plots were directly explained to the audience instead of dramatized, but every once a while you would get a good laugh.

The second piece Nana’s Home Movies is an one-man play produced by McKeesport Little Theater and featured a carefully crafted script written by F. J. Hartland, who holds a PNWF record of fifteen productions as a playwright and has won the award for Best Play four times. If you’ve read my recent review of Games of the Mind, a full length play written by Mr. Hartland and produced by Throughline Theatre Company, you probably remember that Mr. Hartland is a master of creating colorful characters with rich background stories while developing the plot. Well, this script proved just that, if not better with the actor Joel Ambrose’s wonderful portrait as the narrator Landon in the play.

The story follows Landon as he goes through his deceased grandmother’s possessions and recalls childhood memories by watching Nana’s old home movies. Each movie introduced a little bit more about the family’s history to the audience, and through this journey we started to have a clearer picture of what every family member, such as his grandmother, grandfather, and sisters, were like “back to the old days”. The plot took a shocking but still reasonable turn when we got to the last movie of the play, titled “Goodbyes”, as we realized that this story is more than just reminiscing about old times and family stories--it’s also about growing up, about idealism versus reality. We learned the reason why Landon likes to watch these home movies is not only just to remember, but also to escape. The design team used a blank rectangle LED projection to symbolize the movie screen, which works out perfectly. The drama of the entire play is solely based on Landon’s monologue with some occasional “breaking the fourth wall” moments that will win the connection and laughter from the audience. And with the poetic yet whimsical language from Mr. Hartland’s script, the play offers a nostalgic feeling that will dig out all of your emotions.

The third and final play of Program D The Green Eyed Monster was written by Michael Wolfson and produced by South Hills Players. The script features a David Lynch narration style that just when you thought you figured out what was happening with all the characters on stage, it turned on itself and made the overall theme actually about something else. But don’t get me wrong; it’s still a great story.

The act opened with a woman named Ellen pointing a gun from the aisle at her husband Carl who’s standing on stage, which immediately intensified the atmosphere in the theater. Carl was noticed to be a little bit carefree with a gun pointing at him, while Ellen’s angry behavior seemed plausible if not overdue. Then a third character joined the stage and gave the audience the “Aha!” moment as we realized that the situation here was actually not that urgent after all (trying not to spoil anything here). At this point the jealousy in the story is entirely based on Ellen’s strong belief that Carl is having an affair with another person. And as the plot moved forward we learned that this conflict between the two characters might be more than just about their marriage. The play then threw another big surprise at the audience as the fourth character jumped on stage, and everyone is now thinking, “hold on, so this is a play within a play, within a play?” In the end it seemed like almost everybody in the story became the green eyed monster, but just when you thought this is a story about jealousy with a cliché love triangle, the play took the third sharp turn and went off with a completely different direction. The last moment of the play can be easily considered as open to interpretation. The script occasionally has a few rather confusing comments on some real life issues (e.g. morality of directors’ methods, age gap in acting industry, etc.) that made me think if the structure of the narration was a little bit overdone just “for the sake of plot twists” and eventually overshadowed the true theme of the play, but perhaps that is the original intention of the play for the experimental spirit of a new work?

This year at the 60^th Annual Drama Desk Awards, when Lin-Manuel Miranda won all three categories for his book, music, and lyrics of his new musical Hamilton (now a massive success on Broadway), he said, “Sondheim was right, art isn’t easy”. And he’s absolutely correct. As we all know, the craft of dramatic art is incredibly complex, and the business side always requires serious navigation. But when it comes to new works, all you really need is love—unshakable love and passion for telling your stories, inspiring new ideas, and changing the face of next-generation theater.

Thank you Pittsburgh New Works Festival for always reminding us of that love. Here is to another great 25 years.

Grim Tidings:

Dennis Jones (Playwright), Sean David Butler (Edward Hastings), Sandi Oshaben (Madam Zaekov), Patrick Conner (Portofov), Andy Coleman (Nigel), Amanda Leigh (Amanda Broom), Nicole Zalak (Director), Carol Shafer (Producer), Jay Breckenridge (Stage Manager)

Nana’s Home Movies:

F. J. Hartland (Playwright), Joel Ambrose (Landon), Catherine Gallagher (Director), Linda L. Baker (Producer), Rogella Tirone (Stage Manager)

The Green Eyed Monster:

Michael Wolfson (Playwright), Dave Joseph (Carl), Jennifer Luta (Ellen), Ruthy Stapleton (Stacy), Andrew Yackel (Barry), Naomi Grodin (Director), David Grande (Producer), AJ Bradshaw (Stage Manager)

Special thanks to Pittsburgh New Works Festival for the complimentary press tickets. Program D runs until September 27^th. For more information about performance dates and ticketing, check out PNWF’s website

When it comes to Karla Boos, Artistic Director of Quantum Theatre, my usually talkative self is more than a little tongue-tied. What is there to say that hasn’t already been said? For twenty-five years – longer than I’ve been alive – Boos and Quantum Theatre have been trail blazers in the Pittsburgh theatre community, raising the bar on ingenuity in non-profit theatre.

Local awards given to Karla Boos include a University of Pittsburgh Freddy Award, the Pittsburgh Magazine Harry Schwalb Excellence in the Arts Award, and a Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Creative Achievement Award. On the national audience level, Quantum Theatre’s work has also been covered by Stage Directions Magazine and American Theatre Magazine.

Yes, these and more of Boos’ accolades can be found on Quantum’s Website, but allow me to mention some of them here first, before I say anything else. She has a fierce and keen mind for the integrity of the artist’s process and could likely have succeeded anywhere. As an actress in the graduate program at California Institute of the Arts, she felt her peers and her self “…pushing at boundaries, but wanting more control and even more input,” she tells me that afterward, “… I chose Pittsburgh for its approachability. And I thought I could bring something different.”

Quantum Theatre has been churning out innovative site-specific works for longer than I’ve been alive. Yet, Boos tells me that she still feels like they’re finding their footing, “We can’t arrive at a sweet spot. We’re experimenters.”

Their work has been performed literally all over the streets of Pittsburgh; from the Carnegie Library swimming pool in Braddock to the Hartwood Acres stables, Quantum’s brought their audiences along for a tour of both Pittsburgh’s iconic and remote locations. Boos loves her Pittsburgh audience and their sense of adventure, as they’ve followed Quantum into the most unexpected places, physically and emotionally. And an audience has to have opinions, Boos says.

We discussed the mechanics and magic of starting a theatre company. “Pittsburgh has evolved,” she says. “There’s more of an expectation that great work can come from small companies.”

In most cases back then, Boos clarifies, “The non-profit company was the thing. Now, they can be much more independent, with things like Kickstarter – and it’s all good, but also overwhelming. What structure will support them?”

“To young artists I say: deliver something meaningful. Don’t give yourself the easy out. ‘Is it working?’ Trust yourself to answer. Plumb the depths. Address the blank page. Why? Why was I motivated to express this? It’s a grind when you don’t feel satisfied.”

In case you’re wondering, Karla Boos feels very satisfied.

When Quantum Theatre began in 1990, Boos knew she disliked the inherent separation of the work from the audience. Therefore, it became part of Quantum’s style build the set up to the level of the audience, so the action happened on the same shared plane. They’ve stayed small. Running a theatre business isn’t easy, and I asked her how it’s changed or grown in the past two decades and a half?

“We spend everything on making art. We are uninterested in becoming an institution. We know that if theatre is limiting, then the artist will respond to ”

Speaking with Karla Boos over the phone is striking. She is the most concise interviewee I’ve yet encountered and her pithy answers leave me with more questions I have to answer. We discussed her directing style and what draws her direct a piece of theatre. Unsurprisingly to me, thus far, it’s clear she knows exactly how she wants to affect people and her answer comes out in a telegram pattern, full of purpose:

“I love playing with natural light and the things that we can’t control. My pieces are physical, with a rhythm to them. Most people focus on telling a good story – my focus is more abstract. I’m always moving toward things I haven’t done before.”

Presently, Boos admits she is caught in the throes of a Baroque music obsession and fallen in love with the language of music. Quantum is in the middle of their original opera of The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare, running until October 3^rd (check out our review of it here). In collaboration with Attack Theatre and Chatham Baroque, this performance is staged in an ornate musical hall in the top of the Union Trust Building in downtown Pittsburgh. Attack Theatre’s choreography and Chatham Baroque’s world class musicians combined with music direction by Andres Cladera and stage direction by Karla Boos herself, presents a unique experience you won’t want to miss.

Juxtapose her creative grit and insight with her love of Pittsburgh, and you get the very real image of her speeding through Pittsburgh’s landscape on her bicycle, inventing her next production in her mind’s eye, or perhaps stepping back to a different role. She’ll continue to make art, she assures me, but now she’s more interested in empowering others, nurturing young artists, and creating a platform for others’ work. True to her Quantum Theatre’s belief that “theatre has the limitless ability to put people in motion.”

To stay up to date on our Artist Spotlight Series, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and #artistspotlightpgh

Acceptance is a complicated thing: It’s easy to preach but hard to practice. Peace and Love are always the goal, but when it comes time to change things for the better and include everyone then suddenly there’s a problem. Acceptance needs to be taken the full way; you can’t say you accept someone but you get to have things that they don’t. That’s not nice. That’s not love. And don’t say things like “Love the sinner, hate the sin” because that helps no one. It certainly doesn’t help the characters in Choir Boy, a play that teaches acceptance through eyes of young students in a religious environment. The REP recently opened up their production of this fantastic show, written by Tarell Alvin McCraney.

The show is set in a boys’ prep school and focuses on a small acapella choir. Pharus (Tru Verret-Fleming) is very excited over his new position of choir lead, although it quickly gives him new struggles among his peers. Pharus is the typical “choir boy”: he is a goody two-shoes who refuses to snitch on anyone and has an almost blind devotion to his school. He is also very flamboyant and gets harassed for being homosexual, although he never outright says that he is. His new position in the choir causes tension with tough guy Bobby (Justin Lonesome), and his relationships with the other members of the choir are affected as well (some strengthened, some not).

The relationships between the boys is at the heart of this strong character piece. Pharus and Bobby are the most antagonistic, but scenes with Bobby and his best friend Junior (LaTrea Rambert) prove that we can’t write Bobby off as a bad person. He’s a misguided young man who has had his own share of struggles that he feels are more serious than Pharus’s. Their relationship doesn’t get stronger, but it is clear Bobby is going to learn something from his experiences with Pharus and hopefully he’ll become a better person. The counter to this is Pharus’s friendship with roommate AJ (Lamont Walker II), a boy who sees the good and kindness in Pharus and isn’t put off by his flamboyant mannerisms. AJ is the opposite of Bobby, a progressive boy who sees others for the things they do and not simply “what they are”. In the complicated middle ground is David (Mel Holley), a kind boy who wants to be a preacher. He tries to see the good things people do but his feelings are muddled by his faith, and further negativity is egged on by Bobby.

Wherever Pharus goes he is met with different attitudes. AJ is patient and puts up with his light flirting, while Bobby is aggressive and prone to calling him “faggot”. The Headmaster (Jason Shavers) tries to discourage Pharus’s mannerisms to protect him, but ultimately is just ignoring the “problem”. The Headmaster feeds the stigma around being gay: it is something to be ashamed of and should be hidden. While Bobby’s slurs such as “swishy” are heard throughout the show, the words “gay” and “homosexual” are never once said aloud, perhaps the playwright’s way of showing how these subjects can still be so taboo in some communities. In this case that community is a religious, all male, African-American prep school, where Pharus is an example of how hard it can be to be an outcast among your peers. Adding to that struggle is the notion that being gay is not the way a Christian male should behave but especially not how a black, Christian male should behave. The school’s motto and rules promote a strong bond of brotherhood, as many organizations and communities do. But, like the phrase “Justice for All”, it is not enough to just say the words; people have to show love and unity through their actions or nothing will change.

A strong cast of actors has been assembled to tell this wonderful story. Justin Lonesome is intimidating yet sympathetic as Bobby; this isn’t a “love to hate” character or a basic bully, but someone who struggles a lot and compensates angrily. His friend Junior is a good balance for him, a jokester who likes to have fun with everybody and look past the tension. LaTrea Rambert creates many funny moments during scenes with the group, but shows Junior’s serious side when he is alone with his headphones in, singing in his own little world. Mel Holley gets to tackle some serious subjects as David, and he does a good job with the conflicting emotions and a fantastic job at singing some of the more heartbreaking pieces. Jason Shavers and Jeff Howell get some excellent scenes as the adults in the boys’ life; the aforementioned Headmaster and a white professor who teaches the boys about their lives and history.

Tru Verret-Fleming plays Pharus at a flamboyancy level of 11 out of 10. Pharus has no small movements: he stomps child-like around the stage when he’s angry, he drops to his knees when he’s pleading with someone, he snaps his fingers when he fires an insult at someone. Pharus is a flamboyant boy for sure, but his exaggerated mannerisms can distract the audience from the words being said. Every line is presented like a sassy punchline to a joke that’s not always there. Verret-Fleming is a good actor and a great singer, but overall I think the production could have benefitted from creating a more human Pharus instead of a larger-than-life stereotype. His scenes with roommate AJ are the most vulnerable we get to see him, and Lamont Walker II does a fantastic job as AJ. He is a jock-type who tolerates Pharus’s dramatics because he sees the good and troubled boy inside. AJ isn’t the tough guy or the funny guy; he’s the guy you come to realize has the biggest heart, and that’s the best.

Have I mentioned the singing is divine? The choir performs many high-energy numbers with vocals that are sure to give you chills. The intimate studio theater at the playhouse is the perfect venue for a show with music that isn’t a full-on musical. In addition to being blown away with some numbers, the audience is also taken in by the vulnerabilities the characters share on stage either through song or dialogue. The small set is very well done and practically compact, shifting into scenes in dorm rooms or gym showers without pausing the action. The REP has assembled a great production of a fantastic script, and I highly recommend seeing Choir Boy for an uplifting (yet heartbreaking) message.

Choir Boy

Presented by The REP Professional Theatre Company

Directed by Tome Cousin

Written by Tarell Alving McCraney

Designed by Lindsey B. Mayer (scenery), Michael Montgomery (costumes), Andrew David Ostrowski (lighting), Steve Shapiro (sound)

Starring MEl Holley (David Heard), Jeff Howell (Mr. Pendleton), Justin Lonesome (Bobby Marrow), LaTrea Rembert (Junior Davis), Jason Shavers (Headmaster Marrow), Tru Verret-Fleming (Pharus Jonathan Young), and Lamont Walker II (Anthony Justin "AJ" James).