If you follow Pittsburgh theaters on social media, you know that casting news has been coming at a fast-and-furious pace, with City Theatre and Pittsburgh Public Theater each announcing the cast of their upcoming shows this week.
City is up first, with Native Gardens opening March 11 and starring award-winning Pittsburgh actors Laurie Klatscher, seen recently in the Pittsburgh-filmed movie Dear Zoe, and Mindhunter’s Cotter Smith. Point Park University alumna Evelyn Hernandez and Carnegie Mellon grad Juan Rivera Lebron round out the cast.
The play by Karen Zacarias, one of America’s most produced playwrights, is described as featuring “an expecting Latine couple, Tania and Pablo, who have just purchased their first home next to long-time D.C. residents (and Potomac Horticultural Society award seekers), Frank and Virginia. Cultures clash when Tania’s plan for a ‘native garden’ disagrees with Frank’s perfectly pristine posies, and a property line disagreement turns into an all-out border dispute. [The] comedy exposes well-intentioned neighbors’ notions on race, class, morality, and privilege.”
Directed by co-artistic director Marc Masterson, Native Gardens is on City’s Mainstage March 11-April 2, 1300 Bingham St., South Side. Tickets and info: https://citytheatrecompany.org/play/native-gardens/ or call 412 431 CITY .
Across the river and at Downtown’s O’Reilly Theater, Steel Magnolias – not to be confused with the nearby bronze “Magnolias for Pittsburgh” public artwork – has gathered a cast that includes newly named PICT artistic director Elizabeth Elias Huffman. Robyn Parrish, who has been busy on New York City stages recently, returns to Pittsburgh to join a cast that includes Kyra Kennedy, Amy Landis, Jenny Malarkey, Saige Smith, Monica Wyche and Helena Ruoti.
Wyche, a native Southerner residing in New York, can be seen as Sandra LaBlanc in the Apple TV miniseries Five Days at Memorial. Oklahoman Kennedy’s stage and screen credits include the national tour of Waitress.
Steel Magnolias, written by Robert Hartling and directed by Public artistic director Maria Sea Kaminski, is at the O’Reilly Theater, Downtown, March 22-April 9. Tickets and info: https://ppt.org/production/78800/steel-magnolias or call 412-316-1600.
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Categories: Show Previews
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