City Theatre’s Lillie Theatre will be hopping with activity in the weeks before the South Side company’s next Mainstage offering, the Jane Austen-inspired holiday play Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley. First up is the Young Playwrights Festival, October 28-29, followed by a presentation of the award-winning play Green & Blue, by the Kabosh theater company of Belfast, Ireland.
YOUNG PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL
In the annual event, City stages professional productions of six winning, one-act plays chosen from nearly 400 high school and middle school submissions.
Middle School Plays:
Change is Challenging by Bella Bischof, 7th grade, Keystone Oaks Middle School – Audrina is a girl who hates change and refuses to cut her hair, now overwhelmed with dead ends and tangles. As it turns out, her hair itself might be just the voice of reason she needs to accept change.
Good Soup by Madelyn Koehler, 7th grade, Keystone Oaks Middle School – Day in and day out, Waiter serves soup to customers who can’t stop raving about how delicious it is. But he has never been allowed to try it for himself. Good Soup answers the question: How far will he go for a taste?
The Silver Stamped Letters by Tyler Dufalla, 8th grade, Belle Vernon Middle School – Loraine has been receiving letters containing scripts of her life from the day before. Determined to find out who and what is behind them, she teams up with her friend, Spencer, to uncover puzzling secrets about their town, unaware that what they find could transform reality for good.
High School Plays:
Of Birds and Worms by Andrew Hall, 10th grade, Westinghouse Arts Academy – Bird and Worm aren’t destined to be friends. So why do they seem to be just what each other needs? This witty play explores their unlikely bond and reminds us how friendship can bloom in the most unexpected places.
One Hell of an Intern by Danielle Swearingen, 11th grade, PPS CAPA 6-12 – Liam is an intern in Hell, contractually obligated to cause havoc. But when doing good seems to happen for him by accident, he starts to realize that this internship may not be allowing him to live up to his full potential.
Trolley by Cherish Erb-White, 10th grade, Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School – This thought-provoking play takes us to “The Middle” – a temporary dimension everyone must encounter after they die, and where Drea has just awakened. Startled and confused, she must make a decision that will determine far more than just her own fate.
Schedule: Saturday, October 28 – 1 p.m., High School performances; 6 p.m. Middle School performances. Sunday, October 29 – 1 p.m. middle school performances; 6 p.m. high school performances.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
$10 at https://citytheatre.culturaldistrict.org/production/91017/list_performances or Visit https://citytheatre.culturaldistrict.org/production/92247/green-and-blue or call 412-431-CITY (2489).
GREEN & BLUE
City Theatre welcomes Kabosh Theatre of Belfast, Ireland, for a presentation of an award-winning play about the cost of conflicts over borders.
Based on interviews with former serving officers,
Green & Blue won the Lustrum Award for Best Theatrical Moment at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
The play that “teases out the humanity behind the uniforms, the trust and distrust” (Deirdre Falvey in Irish Times) during the height of Northern Ireland’s Troubles, will unfold in City’s Lillie Theatre, November 9-11.
Written by Laurence McKeown and directed by Kabosh artistic director Paula McFetridge, Green & Blue will also be staged at Emory University in Atlanta, the New York Irish Centre and The Burns Library in Boston, concluding a transatlantic tour that also features performances across Ireland and England.
The story is described as: “An officer from the Royal Ulster Constabulary, in his green uniform, and Eddie from An Garda Síochána, resplendent in blue, communicate via crackly radios until an explosive incident forces them to meet across a field only farmers know the location of. Focusing on what it’s like to be hunted when you’re protecting a man-made line on the ground, the play looks at the societal and human cost of borders.”
The play stars Northern Ireland’s James Doran and Vincent Higgins, reprising their roles from the original production at Girdwood Community Hub, as part of the 2016 Belfast International Arts Festival.
Set in 1994, just before the IRA ceasefire, Green & Blue “is laced with humor, insight, and lots of touching moments. Despite their different backgrounds, Eddie and David strike up a common bond and learn more about themselves, their similarities, as well as their differences. … But there is a brooding sense of what happens on one side of the border affects the other side.”
“Every line of the play is loaded, each scene redolent of the overall tragedy of Irish history and its wasted lives,” McFetridge said. “These two ordinary men represent all of us and our place in a divided land. It allows us to glimpse the human beings behind the uniform. It eloquently explores the human cost of man-made borders.”
The production is made possible through a partnership with the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Office, European Studies Center, Global Studies, World History Center, Department of English and Urban Studies Program; Carnegie Mellon University’s Provost’s Office, School of Drama, Center for the Arts in Society; City Theatre ; with flagship touring support from Culture Ireland.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Green & Blue will be presented at City Theatre’s Dr. Vernell Audrey Watson Lillie Theatre 8 p.m. November 9-10 and 1 and 5:30 p.m. November 11. Visit https://citytheatre.culturaldistrict.org/production/92247/green-and-blue or call 412-431-CITY (2489).Tickets are $25, with $15 tickets available for students and community members.
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