By SHARON EBERSON
On a celebratory night of songs and surprises, Front Porch Theatricals announced the company’s 2025 summer shows, both Tony Award rivals for best musical in 1984. They are:
Baby, a seven-time Tony nominee, comes to the New Hazlett Theater in May, followd in August by 10-time nominee and Pulitzer Prize winner Sunday in the Park With George. (In case you are wondering, La Cage aux Folles was the big Tony winner that year.)
The annual Front Porch cabaret and season reveal on Monday night featured a host of artists from past shows and a few new faces, each displaying their considerable individual and combined talents, while hints about the 2025 season were dropped by emcee Rob James.
The directors of the summer shows – Kristiann Menotiades for Baby in May and James for Sunday in the Park in August – closed the cabaret by singing songs from their respective shows.
The event at the Greer Cabaret on Monday was divided into four sections, with Smith and Zionts announcing the May show after the first two, and also revealing that longtime contributing music director Deana Muro would add the official title of artistic consultant.
The producers later surprised Muro, who performed a bitingly funny duet of The Grass Is Always Greener with Sharon Schaller, by also naming her the recipient of the inaugural Leon Zionts Beret Award, to honor the company’s beloved cofounder, who died in 2019.
After Chad Elder and Brady Patsy kicked the event off with a bang, highlights on Monday included were showstopper Drew Leigh Williams singing a gorgeous Sara Bareilles arrangement of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, followed by Allan Snyder crushing Till I Hear You Sing from Love Never Dies.
Drag and theater performer Dixie Surewood, who appeared in Bandstand for Front Porch this past summer, arrived onstage in full queen mode and belted I Am What I Am, perhaps a nod to La Cage aux Folles, perhaps to throw off the guessing game … but no, they would have raised the roof on any night.
Other memorable moments included Carolyn Jerz’s hilarious Alto’s Lament, Victor Aponte on Breathe from In the Heights, Michaela Isenberg individually or as part of a trio … as always, the stage was laden with talent, directed by Muro and accompanied by Shelby Williams.
Baby features a book by Sybille Pearson, with lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and music by David Shire. It tells the intersecting stories of three couples expecting a baby: a young couple still in college and living together, a married couple in their 40s who are caught by surprise at the news, and a 30something couple who are both ecstatic about the news.
Songwriter Stephen Sondheim and librettist and director James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park With George has had several revivals on Broadway but has never been produced professionally in Pittsburgh, Nancy Zionts noted.
Point Park University’s Conservatory of Performing Arts created a “visually stunning” production of the musical in 2019, and music director Camille Rolla is set to join Front Porch from that production.
The musical is inspired by the famed painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Le Grand Jatte, by the pointillist George Seurat. The story merges past and present as the painter struggles to make meaningful art and maintain a relationship with his lover. The second act takes place a century later, with Seurat’s descendant – a struggling artist named George – grappling with the same issues of artistic ingenuity, and a public who just doesn’t understand. The musical explores the nature of love and legacy, and the passion of artists to create at any cost.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
For dates and details of Front Porch Theatricals’ 2025 two-show season, visit https://www.frontporchpgh.com/.
STAGE 62 2025 SEASON
n November 2025, Rob James will direct Oklahoma!, the final show of Stage 62’s recently announced season. Other Stage 62 shows in 2025 (directors in parentheses): Seussical TYA in February (Sara Barbisch), I Love You, Your Perfect, Now Change in May (Connor McCanlus), and The Prom (Nik Nemec) in July. https://www.stage62.org/
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