The trio comprises Back to the Future tour, Disney’s Frozen and Camelot
By SHARON EBERSON
Pittsburgh CLO’s 2025 three-show summer season, announced to subscribers on Friday, arrives as perhaps the end of the six-show era, and an opportunity to take stock and pave a path forward.
The musicals, all at the Benedum Center, represent a combination of what we have come to expect of PCLO seasons:
of Back to the Future. ( Imagee: Matthew Murphy & EvanZimmerman)
- Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot, an original production of a classic (June 17-22, 2025).
- Back to the Future, the Musical, a national tour stop of a show that is still on Broadway and PCLO is invested in (July 1-6, 2025).
- Disney’s Frozen, a collaboration with Kansas City Starlight and Tuacahn Center for the Arts in Utah (July 18-27, 2025).
It’s that number “3” – three shows instead of the six of recent, non-pandemic years – that for many jumped off the page:
The letter to subscribers that announced the season began:
“As Pittsburgh CLO prepares for its 79th summer season of musical theater, the organization reflects on both its legacy and the realities of producing live theater in a rapidly changing landscape. The 2025 PNC Summer of Musicals marks a strategic shift for Pittsburgh CLO, with a move from a six-show to a three-show summer lineup, with all shows at the Benedum Center — a necessary adjustment to ensure long-term sustainability while maintaining the high quality of productions audiences expect from Pittsburgh CLO.”
The 2024 summer season was already a hybrid. It contained the six shows we had come to expect, pre-pandemic, but in what executive producer Mark Fleischer calls a “3-2-1” configuration: three at the Benedum, two at the Greer Cabaret, and one at the Byham Theater. Young Frankenstein at the Greer is playing an extended run, though September 29, 2024.
Although PCLO has no plans for the Greer beyond Who’s Holiday, the company plans to continue to program shows there. The annual A Musical Christmas Carol also continues its holiday run at the Byham Theater.
Fleischer emphasized that “I can not say enough” about the support of Kendra Whitlock Ingram, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, the presenting company that owns and operates the Cultural District venues where PCLO produces its shows.
Tickets make up a small percentage of costs, when, for example, sets at the Benedum cost $250,000 and up, plus a commitment to paying “a living wage” to cast and the venue’s union crew.
“I don’t want to make this an economic cause,” said Fleischer, who has been candid about the challenges faced by PCLO and how they fit into the national landscape of theatrical vitality. “I’m actually very excited about the shows we’re doing, and I’m excited about having the capacity as a team and staff to imagine the future, versus trying to get the next show up the whole time.”
The announcement of the following summer season normally comes in July. Pittsburgh CLO has been readying an all-star gala and tribute to Shirley Jones, set for September 21 and featuring Broadway stars Sierra Boggess, Norm Lewis, Kelli O’Hara, Jessie Mueller and Adam Pascal, co-chaired and directed by Patrick Cassidy, with Shaun and Ryan Cassidy.
“I could not announce responsibly in July without fully doing budget work, fully knowing what we thought we could achieve. And that’s where we are now,” Fleischer said.
He reflected on the history of the CLO, which was the original tenant of the Civic Arena, and the three-year shutdown during a marked decline in attendance.
The CLO performed in the Civic Arena from 1961 until 1969, despite myriad productions at the Arena, including with its retractable roof. When racial unrest erupted in the adjacent Hill District after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., attendance declined sharply. Following only three performances in 1969, PCLO announced a “temporary closing.”
That lasted until 1972, with the opening of the new Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts – the fourth home for the CLO.
The post-pandemic shutdown of the early 2020s has seen the closing, or temporary closing, of major United States theaters, including the end of the North Carolina Theatre (NCT) in Raleigh, and the recently reopened Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.
Fleischer was determined that summer shows would go on, responsibly. He noted that subscriber comments leaned heavily toward Benedum Center productions.
In the case of PCLO, competition for the musical-theater dollars including an expanded PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh series, and productions outside of the Pittsburgh Cultural District, including Front Porch Theatricals two summer shows at the New Hazlett Theatre.
Patron service initiatives in 2024, such as Removing Barriers (including shuttles from the suburbs and childcare at some shows) were met with some success.
When it was pointed out that original productions of newer shows, such as Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 and The Color Purple, did not fare well at the box office as some tried-and-true fare, Fleischer said he looks at it another way.
“We made a decision coming out of Covid, thinking in terms of ‘newer, younger, diverse,’ and we did it. And I’m very proud of what we’ve done. We are not alone, in that most people lost audiences during the pandemic. …. I think The Color Purple is one of the best things we have ever done, and I would stand behind that,” Fleischer said.
One thing that hasn’t changed is Pittsburgh CLO’s commitment to its education and training programs and providing opportunities for musical theater stars of the future. That includes the CLO Academy, community programs and the Gene Kelly Awards for high school musicals in Allegheny County, as well as sponsoring the Henry Mancini Awards for Beaver, Butler, Lawrence and Mercer counties.
The Gala Celebration of Shirley Jones is a fundraiser for Pittsburgh CLO’s Education and Arts programs.
“This company was founded on two things: community engagement, to bring the community together for a common experience, and launching careers and nurturing homegrown talent, and that will continue to be a cornerstone of Pittsburgh CLO,” Fleischer said.
He notes that Smithton native and former Miss Pittsburgh, Jones appeared with PCLO in 1953 (Lady in the Dark at Pitt Stadium, the company’s first home), and in 1955, she was appearing on the big screen in Oklahoma! Flash forward to 2024, and dozens of careers launched, and you will find Carnegie Mellon alum Savannah Lee Birdsong – seen most recently for PCLO in The Color Purple – is now a swing in off-Broadway’s Little Shop of Horrors.
“To me, that’s that magic sauce – that balance of emerging from schools or emerging professionals, local Pittsburgh professionals and Broadway professionals. And it’s that mix that I think makes our shows special and different,” Fleischer said, recalling Broadway stars of 2024 shows, Nikki Renee Daniels and Beth Malone, working side by side with CLO Academy students.
That number “3” certainly is not all there is to Pittsburgh CLO year-round, but it does reflect what so many producing companies are facing, especially those creating productions for a 2,800-seat venue such as the Benedum Center.
It also signals that we are living in a world that continues to be shaped by seismic shifts, including how we consume and create arts and entertainment.
For Fleischer and other theater leaders, that means, “Talking with stakeholders and others of what makes the most sense for what I’m calling ‘a transition period,’ to really figure out who CLO is in this post-pandemic world and what niche we serve. And we felt after talking to people about it, the top comment we got was, ‘We love the Benedum’ … and that’s where we came up with doing the three shows there.”
Supporters for the season are singular, foundations and corporations. Season-opening Camelot is sponsored by Joan Clark Davis, a lead sponsor of West Side Story and The Music Man in 2024. Other sponsors of the upcoming season include the Allegheny Regional Asset District (your tax dollars at work), The Heinz Endowments, KDKA-TV and PNC, the summer series title sponsor.
That number, “3,” isn’t written in stone. There remains the possibility that more programming may be announced in 2025. How things shape up for Pittsburgh CLO’s summer of 2026 is still under discussion.
Fleischer has tried not to be an alarmist through these tough times, but a realist. He is proud of the cost-saving and service initiatives that CLO has tried since the scourge of COVID hit the live performing industry like a sledgehammer, and continues to wreak havoc with some productions. The executive producer even returned to his acting roots to fill in when illness struck a star of The Drowsy Chaperone in 2022.
“My hope is that people will engage with us, that they’ll see this institution that’s 78 years old, and appreciate it,” Fleischer said. “I just found out that when the first subscriber called into the box office, not only did they renew, they made a $500 donation.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Summer-season renewal subscriptions are on sale now, with new subscriptions available starting September 23, at https://www.pittsburghclo.org//buy-tickets/clo-subscriptions .
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