If you’ve ever wanted to have an intimate conversation about Oreos or Fig Newtons with the fellow who invented them, stop by Homewood Cemetery on the afternoon of September 28th and meet Sylvester Stephen Marvin.
While Marvin died in 1924 at age 83 after founding Nabisco and other landmark baking companies, he’ll be one of eight Homewood Cemetery residents portrayed by professional actors in period costumes during Prime Stage Theatre’s 2nd Annual Cemetery Walk.
Homewood Cemetery was established in 1878 from the estate of William Wilkins, a 19th-century Pittsburgh judge who served as U.S. Minister to Russia and Secretary of War under President John Tyler. Nearly 79,000 graves lie within 200 acres of well-maintained landscape dotted by monuments ranging from angels and obelisks to mausoleums and illustrated headstones.
Besides Marvin, notable figures on the tour include a Civil War nurse, a 1910s suffragette, a Roaring Twenties stockbroker, the first director of the Carnegie Hero Fund, the wife of a Pittsburgh city councilman and Irish emigrant Charles Arbuthnot offering recollections on surviving the Great Pittsburgh Fire of 1845.
Pittsburgh actors taking on historical identities are Sandy Boggs, Jeff Boles, Mark Boles, John Dolphin, Rebecca Godlove, Mairead Roddy, and Suzanne Ward.
“Many of our mainstage plays have history as a central focus,” says Prime Stage Theatre artistic director Dr. Wayne Brinda. “The Cemetery Walk is a chance for us to present audiences with a personal look at historic Pittsburghers and the impact they had on shaping our community.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
The rain-or-shine event offers 11 one-hour walking tours from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, at Homewood Cemetery, 1599 S. Dallas Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, in Point Breeze. Tickets are $20 per person and are available online and presale only at https://primestage.com/events
Categories: Arts and Ideas, Show Previews
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