Pittsburgh Public Theater’s 50th anniversary season in 2024-25 will include a six-show lineup packed with Pittsburgh premieres, a slate of offstage programming, and a big, full-circle finish.
Ending a season that includes a staging of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit will be the Shakespearan comedy Twelfth Night, which is where it all began, on November 26,1975.
However, the production in June of 2025, “the third in The Public’s history, is the Pittsburgh premiere of an internationally recognized transformative theater initiative called Public Works, founded in 2013 by New York City’s Public Theater.”
In her previous job as associate artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre, Pittsburgh Public AD Marya Sea Kaminski directed The Odyssey, the Rep’s iteration of a Public Works project.
“As we celebrate The Public this year, we also celebrate Pittsburgh’s legacy of holding art at the center of its identity,” Kaminski said in a statement. “Public Works will, in turn, hold the city at the center of our theater by inviting a cast of 100 Pittsburghers onto the O’Reilly Theater stage alongside beloved professional performers in an extraordinary celebration of our region.”
The Public Works concept engages community partners to develop models of participatory theater and “to create the cast for an exhilarating pageant production of a musical version of a Shakespeare classic,” notes the Pittsburgh Public. The New York Times described the initiative as “the real theater of our time,” and a reminder of the “healing the theater has offered for centuries.”
With Twelfth Night, the Pittsburgh theater joins Public Works National Affiliates, including the Dallas Theater Center, London’s National Theatre, the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts in Taiwan, and Seattle Rep, where Kaminski launched Public Works in 2016.
In announcing the season on March 22, 2024, Pittsburgh Public left a TBA slot – “regional premiere, a special title to be announced at the fundraising gala ALCHEMY: An Immersive Gala Experience on April 8.
In 2024-25, Pittsburgh Public Theater also will include the Making Art Work speaker series, about the business of nonprofit arts sustainability; Public Artists Centerstage evenings with legendary Pittsburgh artists; a digital season on Streamland, “to bring its work around the world”; and a continued partnership with the Pittsburgh Film Office in its workforce development initiative Create PA.
PITTSBURGH PUBLIC THEATER’S
50th ANNIVERSARY SEASON
(2024-25 shows at the O’Reilly Theater)
DIAL M FOR MURDER Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from the original by Frederick Knott I Pittsburgh premiere I September 11 – 29, 2024
THE HOBBIT By Greg Banks I Pittsburgh premiere I Directed by Marya Sea Kaminski I October 23 — November 10, 2024
A CHRISTMAS STORY: THE PLAY I Return I Directed by Michael Berresse I December 4 — 22, 2024
TROUBLE IN MIND by Alice Childress I Pittsburgh premiere I February 5 – 23, 2025
TBA I Title to be announced April 8 I March 19 – April 6, 2025
PUBLIC WORKS’ TWELFTH NIGHT I Conceived by Kwame Kwei-Armah; music and lyrics by Shaina Taub I Pittsburgh premiere I Directed by Marya Sea Kaminski I June 27—29, 2025
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Subscriptions to Pittsburgh Public Theater’s 50th Anniversary season are available now at PPT.org/Subscribe.
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