March 18th to 20th, 2022
By Sharon Eberson
My theater card is full these days, and that’s such a welcome feeling. I am getting back into the habit of chronicling my weekend’s entertainment. Masked et al., it has felt like going home every time I step through the threshold of a Pittsburgh theater.
Friday through Sunday this past weekend, I was in the audience for Paradise Blue at City Theatre, the Lifting Our Voices gala concert at Heinz Hall, and Spring Awakening at Pittsburgh Playhouse. I missed Beautiful: The Carole King Musical this time around, but I hope you caught it.
Another thing that makes it feel so good to be back is the many artists supporting artists that you run into before and after shows. It’s hard to mention just three from this weekend, but I will anyway: It felt good to congratulate Patrick Cannon in person for his appointment as Little Lake Theatre’s artistic director (at City Theatre Friday) and catch up with one of the busiest men in town, Tome Cousin (at Heinz Hall Saturday). And on Sunday, for the final performance of Spring Awakening at Pittsburgh Playhouse, PICT Classic Theatre’s Alan Stanford was on hand, the day after PICT’s 25th anniversary gala at the Carnegie Science Center.
FRIDAY, March 18
It’s hard to believe that my first stop, City Theatre, is in the midst of its fifth production this season, with one more to come and the following season already announced.
Dominique Morisseau‘s powerful Paradise Blue, the second play in her Detroit Projects trilogy. It is a high-stakes thriller that gives five gifted actors five compelling roles to sink their talents into.
Melva Graham as poetry-loving Pumpkin, whose goodness is sorely tested; Monteze Freeland. City’s co-artistic director, as percussionist P-Sam, whose self-esteem falters as his safe harbors slip away. Wali Jamal is the loyal piano player, Corn, who is determined to see the good in everyone. Eunice Woods, decked out in slinky finery by costumer Susan Tsu, as a femme fatale who knows what she wants and goes after it. And Rafael Jordan as Blue, a Detroit club owner and trumpeter haunted by the past and desperate to pull away from its clutches.
There’s a lot more to unpack in this lyrical melodrama, including what can happen when so-called urban renewal means bulldozing the thriving artistic center of a Black community.
At City Theatre through April 3.
SATURDAY, March 19
I am mostly repeating my Facebook post here because it was immediate and so heartfelt. I’m sure there were still tears in my eyes, recalling the work of the young performers from Billy Hartung‘s Center for the Theater Arts in Mt. Lebanon. On his way to Broadway, Billy himself came through there and came back to run the nonprofit school for young performers of all abilities.
The 2022 Lifting Our Voices gala was more than a showcase for students, alumni, and a starry fundraiser for the Center for the Arts.
It was a reunion of three cast members from the original Broadway production of “Side Show” — Hartung, Norm Lewis, and Hugh Panaro — and a celebration of their 24-year friendship.
Lewis and Panaro, who call each other brother and interact like family, joked about how alike they are – not physically or vocally. Yet, they have played many of the same leading-man musical theater roles.
On Saturday, in a pre-show at the Greer Cabaret, they blew the roof off with a duet of “Confrontation” from Les Miserables. Then at Heinz Hall, in a program that brought them back to the stage time and again, the two Broadway Phantoms introduced their own duet arrangement of “Music of the Night.”
My personal favorite was when Lewis and Panaro did a tag team of “Ya Got Trouble” from The Music Man — Rema Webb, who is currently in the show on Broadway, contributed tickets to the fundraising effort. And Tim Federle, whose Better Nate Than Never kept him away from the gala, also made a very generous contribution.
Panaro performed a lovely duet of “For Good” from Wicked with Hartung’s daughter Elizabeth. Lewis later pointed to her dad as the representation of the lyric, “Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.” That got one of many standing ovations from the moving night.
The onstage reunion came full circle when the three friends – Lewis, Panaro, and Hartung – sang “I Will Never Leave You” from Side Show.
Lewis, by the way, came to Pittsburgh just days after his Carnegie Hall solo concert debut and after it was announced that he would lead the national tour of A Soldier’s Play.
This one will stay with me for a long time, and it raised a lot of money for a school that many Pittsburghers have called their creative home for more than 40 years.
SUNDAY, March 20
To finish up the weekend, I bought a last-minute ticket to the final performance of Point Park University COPA’s Spring Awakening at Pittsburgh Playhouse.
Spring Awakening, besides having one of my favorite scores, is particularly poignant at the moment, when censorship of texts is so much in the news. The musical is based on a banned 1891 book about teenagers’ sexual awakening and the consequences of adult abuses as told by the German writer Frederick Wederkind. With a book and lyrics by Steven Sater and alt-pop music by Duncan Sheik, the musical was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won eight, including best musical.
Spring Awakening provides a showcase for nontraditional vocals and movement by talented young artists, and Point Park certainly has those in abundance, such as senior leads Kristen Smith (Wendla) and Andrew Zabetakis (Melchior).
I especially enjoy seeing seniors on the final nights of shows, and this one has quite a few. When it comes to the collegiate theater programs in our area, you know there are actors you have just seen who you will see again on stages and on screens for years to come.
Categories: Arts and Ideas
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