By Sharon Eberson

Nine shows and no cancellation. In the post-shutdown theater world, who could ask for anything more?

After the final note of season finale Memphis the Musical, “The breath I took!,” said Justin Fortunato, artistic director of the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center in Midland, Beaver County.

Chatting via Zoom 10 days after Memphis closed, and looking ahead to the just-around-the-corner 2022-23 season, Fortunato reflected on “the absolute anxiety and excitement of pulling off 62 public performances of a whole season without any cancellations.” 

It was a season with nine shows instead of the usual eight, a result of the pandemic shutdown – a shift of the previously planned Memphis to this season and adding in the SpongeBob Squarepants musical for current students.

Fortunato expected burnout to hit at this moment, but he was ebullient in looking ahead. 

“I found that it has really reinvigorated me, and it really does make every show that I’m fortunate enough to get to work on, in any capacity, whether it’s a director, actor or producer, it just makes it mean so much more,” he explained.

The ambitious season includes the first regional production of An American in Paris (April 28-30), the center’s annual Nutcracker and three plays: Murder on the Orient Express, seen this past season at Pittsburgh Public Theater; and two comedies: Puffs, which recently had its Pittsburgh premiere at the CLO Cabaret;  and a production of the hilarious The Play That Goes Wrong, the latter requiring injury-defying staging. 

Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods opens the season on Oct. 7, joined down the road by SHOUT! The Mod Musical! and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Jr.

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Fortunato, out of Baldwin High and Point Park University, was an established actor, director and administrator when he took over as artistic director at Lincoln Park, a job that makes him responsible for all programming at the center, He began the job within months of directing Titus Burgess (Kimmy Schmidt on TV; Little Mermaid on Broadway) as the Witch in a Miami, Fla., production of Into the Woods.

Although it would be hard to pick a favorite Sondheim show, Forunato admits that this is probably it, just as “it’s having,  like, it’s 50th moment on Broadway right now,” he said.  “I think every actor, director, whomever, if they can revisit that show every five years, it’s such a gift. And I’ve been so lucky I’ve been able to do that.”

A theater oasis in Midland

Lincoln Park can seem like a schlep for some Allegheny County residents, but it serves a wide range of communities, including across state lines.

The sprawling arts, culture and education complex resides some 36 miles from Downtown Pittsburgh and little more than a stone’s throw from the towers of the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station. Lincoln Park occupies a confluence that brings in about 35,000 patrons a year, from Beaver, Butler, Lawrence and Mercer counties, plus nearby residents fromOhio and West Virginia.

The Highmark Subscription Series features performers and creative teams from the Performing Arts Charter School, present and alumni, and other professionals. The Memphis just concluded, for example, starred Lincoln Park grad Shea Curran.

In choosing his seasons, Fortunato is influenced by Lincoln Park’s pool of talent that on Sept. 6 will expand to include an Innovation and Technology Charter School.

If you’re going, there is some pre-show dining available nearby, but mostly, the draws are the show and the center itself.

Lincoln Park has brought in food trucks and related attractions to help bring in patrons, such as the carousel that was erected for the June production of, what else? Carousel.

Looking back to get ahead 

In 2020, during the pandemic shutdown, Fortunato directed a series of live radio plays. 

“In a weird way, I pine for those days again, because everything slowed down a bit,” Fortunato said, then added, “As actors and directors, we’re always grateful for what we’re doing and we understand the gift, but it was also a minute by minute reminder of how easily things can be taken away.”

While he didn’t shy from talking about the past couple of years, including an audience comeback that was on par with previous years, Fortunato kept bringing the discussion back to what’s next.

“I’m over the moon excited about this upcoming season,” he said. 

What jumps out of the schedule are the two closing shows, An American in Paris and The Play That Goes Wrong – alluring titles that present daunting challenges.

An American in Paris, a show produced on Broadway and on tour by Pittsburgh CLO, requires strong dancers and innumerable set possibilities, based on the Tony-winning designs.

Fortunato notes that in his tenure, Lincoln Park has never repeated a non-holiday-related show.

“I try to program the most eclectic shows I can, meaning we get newer shows and shows that are classic Golden Age musical theater,” he said. 

The Tony-nominated An American in Paris is both – the Gershwin movie musical starring Gene Kelly was reimagined for Broadway in 2015. And it’s a show that resonated with Fortunato due to recent events.

“This is a crazy thing about theater and what I adore about it so much,” he said. “We chose this show a while ago, and then everything in Ukraine happened and, seeing these images of buildings destroyed and people displaced, and the beauty that was still there and the uprising of the people …” 

For many, including Fortunato, these are the first images of war on a European front seen in their lifetime. It has him looking at An American in Paris through a different lens.

“It just elevated it to another level for me personally, the beauty that grows out of these people who are in a state of limbo, not leaving this area that is still, you know, on the tail end of this great war.”

‘Unabashed silly humor’

On a much lighter note, he was totally taken in by attending a performance of the CLO premiere of Puffs, the comedy that never mentions a certain boy wizard but is clearly set in that world, focusing on previously unmentioned students in a certain school house. 

Although not initiated into the Harry Potter-verse himself, Fortunato found the laughter contagious. “And especially right now, I think we could use theater that is just unabashed silly humor.”

Along those same lines is the award-winning The Play That Goes Wrong, which only recently is making its way into regional productions. 

It’s a physical comedy of errors, set amid a community theater’s godawful production of a murder mystery.

As the season finale, it takes a spot usually reserved for a grand musical. But, Fortunato said, it’s a perfect bookend for a season that starts with Into the Woods.

“Doing theater is almost impossible under the best of circumstances,” he said, “ and doing it during this time, it’s made me a bit braver in my selections and always wanting to choose shows that continue to challenge us. I never want to become complacent in the storytelling, and The Play That Goes Wrong is a perfect example of that. It’s a show that terrifies me, much like An American and Paris does, much like Into the Woods.”

The Play That Goes Wrong has another thing going for it, an experience he’d like to share with Lincoln Park audiences.

“I saw the original cast in New York and, oh my gosh,” Fortunato said. “I’ve never laughed harder.”

Categories: Arts and Ideas

Tags: An American in Paris, Ballet, Into the Woods, Justin Fortunato, Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center, Midland, Musicals, Nutcracker, Plays, The Play That Goes Wrong