Plus: GPAC Funds the Arts and PICT 2025
COMMENTARY
You go away for a week, you could come back humming, What’d I Miss?
Or, when it comes to Pittsburgh theater, you can check out What’s On Stage and say, “What’s next?”
Post-election, I took a week off for a much-needed road trip with old friends, here and back to first Scranton and then New York, with stops in the Catskills, Cooperstown and the Hobart “Book Village.” (For a travelogue: @SharonEbersonPGH.)
of Steel Pier, at Pittsburgh Playhouse. (Image: John Altdorfer)
Easing back into theater life was not an option when I arrived home on the same day that Steel Pier – with Tomé Cousin directing triple threats from Point Park’s Conservatory of Performing Arts – was debuting at Pittsburgh Playhouse.
I had never seen the rarely revived Steel Pier, a Kander-Ebb musical nominated for 11 Tony Awards in 1997. The show, conceived by director Scott Ellis, choreographer Susan Stroman and librettist David Thompson, is about the desperate participants in a Depression-era dance marathon held in Atlantic City.
(Mostly) unpacked and laundry (mostly) done, I had to go.
Cousin has a special connection to Stroman, who choreographed the original Steel Pier: After appearing on Broadway in Stroman’s Contact, he has long served as the directing supervisor for that Tony-winning musical.
as emcee Mick Hamilton. (Image: John Altdorfer)
In a pre-show greeting, Playhouse head Kiesha Lalama noted that Stroman granted the rights to Point Park because of Cousin’s involvement.
Among those cheering on the production were Telly Leung, the Carnegie Mellon University graduate and Broadway veteran, who was just back from the Ogunquit (Maine) Playhouse world-premiere musical My Best Friend’s Wedding – Leung played the Rupert Everett role – directed by Kathleen Marshall.
Leung will be back in town to direct Titanic, the Musical, an April 2025 show at Carnegie Mellon.
Having just seen Cousin on Wednesday at the Steel Pier opening, it was a surprise when I saw him next.
and David Conrad. (Image: Sharon Eberson)
I was at The Lindsay Theater and Cultural Center in Sewickley to catch the Pittsburgh-shot movie Basic Psych, a twisty thriller that is part of Film Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Film Festival. The movie stars two-time Tony Award-winner Michael Cerveris (currently on Broadway in Tammy Faye) and David Conrad, directed by Melissa Martin (The Bread, My Sweet).
During a post-show Q&A at the Lindsay, the panel on Saturday included co-star Cotter Smith, moderator Kathryn Spitz Cohan of Film Pittsburgh and screenplay writer, mystery novelist and my son’s pediatrician (true story), James Tucker.
It was noted that Smith and Cerveris both appeared in Mindhunter – Cerveris’ character replaced Smith’s in the locally shot HBO drama. In Basic Psych, Cerveris shares most of his screen time with co-star Conrad, who heaped praise on the actor as a scene partner.
Martin said there would be a further run of the movie after the festival’s theatrical and virtual screenings, as well as plans for it to arrive on a streaming service.
I admit to playing “spot the Pittsburgh theater folks” in Basic Psych. Wali Jamal, Cheryl Bates and Patrick Jordan are among those who grace the tense film.
It started with the first face you see in the movie. A door opens, and it’s Tomé Cousin.
I took that moment as proof of what I have long suspected: He gets so much done by being able to appear in two places at once.
THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS
Missing Jason Robert Brown at the Trust Cabaret on Monday (watch for Jessica Neu’s review at onStage Pittsburgh), I ventured out last-minute to City Theatre’s second City Rewind offering, Having Our Say by Emily Mann. It’s the true story of the 100+-year-old Delaney Sisters, read by the starry pairing of Pittsburgh treasure Etta Cox and Sharon Washington, who developed her autobiographical solo show Feeding the Dragon at City. Washington has appeared on film most recently in Joker: Folie à Deux and the buzzy drama Sing Sing.
Coming full circle, she also was Tony-nominated as co-writer of New York, New York, choreographed by Stroman, which hit Broadway last year.
Creative Hive on November 14, 2024. (Image: Patrick Fisher)
FUNDING THE ARTS
The Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council has awarded 118 artists and arts workers across Allegheny, Beaver, Greene, and Washington counties with $3,000 individual grants, totaling $354,000 in financial relief, made possible through the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Department of Community and Economic Development. These Artist Income Recovery grants were designed to ease some of the ongoing financial challenges that artists and arts workers have faced due to the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The GPAC press release noted that “artists and arts workers were – and remain – among the most severely affected segment of the nation’s workforce, according to Americans for the Arts. At the height of the pandemic in 2020, 63% experienced unemployment and 95% lost creative income.”
The Arts Council also noted that “artists of the Global Majority had even higher rates of unemployment than white artists in 2020 due to the pandemic (69% vs. 60%) and lost a larger percentage of their creative income (61% vs. 56%).”
Read more about the grants, including a full list of AIR grantees, and follow the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council’s support of local arts and artists in the organization’s Arts Blog. While you’re there, learn more about The Creative Hive, a free arts networking event, held on the second Thursday of every month
and The Smuggler by Ronan Noone (bottom right).
(Images courtesy of PICT)
PICT 2025
While I was away, Pittsburgh International Classic Theatre confirmed two productions coming in 2025, including the American premiere of Amy Ng’s adaptation of Miss Julie, followed by the previously announced one-man show, The Smuggler.
Award-winning playwright, screenwriter and historian Ng has reimagined August Strindberg’s 1888 classic to explore race and class in colonial Hong Kong, circa 1948.
This Miss Julie follows productions in Hong Kong and London, with The Guardian review noting that the original play was previously adapted by Yael Farber, “who added the legacy of South African apartheid to her celebrated Miss Julie.” Similarly, Mark Clayton Southers adapted Strinberg’s work as the acclaimed Miss Julie, Clarissa and John, moving the action to a Reconstruction-era Virginia plantation.
Ng’s Miss Julie arrives April 18-May 4, 2025, at Carnegie Stage.
On June 3-23, 2025, Michael Patrick Trimm will be directed by Melissa Grande in Ronan Noone’s The Smuggler, a thriller in rhyme set in 2023. Learn more about the productions at https://www.picttheatre.org/.
And one more thing about theater in Carnegie …
Sandwiched between Steel Pier and Basic Psych, I had journeyed to PICT’s theatrical home, Carnegie Stage, where the community group The Haunted Pittsburgh Players presented a screwball comedy / murder mystery, titled The Case of the Carbolic Smoke Ball. I was there to support my friend Samantha Bennett, the only performer to appear in all 24 years of Off the Record, and also to support that venue during a rough time in the neighborhood.
Carnegie Stage is just a few blocks along Main Street from the catastrophic fire that hit Riley’s Pour House, which had been announced as the venue for The Smuggler. Here’s to the new season for PICT, and, hopefully, a Riley’s comeback.
Categories: Arts and Ideas
Leave a Reply Cancel reply