By SHARON EBERSON

It’s been a bumpy road to get to the best-of list, with a forecast of potholes and promise for the foreseeable future. So fasten your seatbelts, and let’s go. 

If achievement were assessed solely in artistry, then certainly 2024 was, by any measure, a very good year for Pittsburgh theater. 

It was also a year when theater-makers pushed hard against the challenges of mounting a live show in the pandemic After Times, employing innovative programs, fruitful partnerships, community outreach and creative practices

I’ll start with Pittsburgh CLO. With Mark Fleischer leading the way, the region’s musical theater giant has been most transparent about the company’s financial struggles and continually trying new ways to stay afloat. For summer 2024, PCLO got creative with a six-show season in Downtown Cultural District venues large and small, and introduced childcare and shuttles from suburban locations in an effort to boost patronage. 

However, challenges persist, and loyalists have made it clear that they prefer summer shows in the Benedum Center. Now entering its 78th year, Pittsburgh CLO has announced a three-show subscription season for summer 2025, all at the Benedum, plus a world premiere musical at the Byham Theater.

It’s worth noting that, besides their always high-quality productions, PCLO produced two of my favorite moments of 2024: The Wizard of Wicked, Jeff Goldblum, and the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra at the Benedum, and the star-studded, heartfelt tribute concert, Shirley Jones: A Gala Celebration of her Life, Career, and Legacy.

While PCLO is taking steps to ensure its future in Pittsburgh Cultural Trust venues, a couple of other tenants have moved to neighborhoods outside the Golden Triangle: Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre is ensconced in a home of its own, Madison Arts Center in the Upper Hill District, where in addition to plays, Mark Clayton Souther’s company has hosted music and comedy nights.

His former Downtown downstairs neighbor, Bricolage Production Company, has regrouped and is breaking ground next year on a performance space in Wilkinsburg’s Community Forge.

They are among the signs that, while prominent regional theaters from North Carolina to Los Angeles have closed or been in flux since the pandemic shutdown, Pittsburgh has maintained a mind-boggling wealth of choices when it comes to spending your entertainment dollars — with seemingly more every day. In addition to long-established companies and artists, at least once a month throughout the year, I have received a request for coverage and/or funding attention for startups and one-offs in Southwestern Pennsylvania. 

While some are looking to entrench as neighborhood staples, Quantum Theatre has succeeded for 34 seasons by operating without a performance space of its own. Founder Karla Boos knows its adventurous audience will follow her company anywhere it lands, from a shooting range at Longue Vue Country Club to the uppermost reaches of the Union Trust Building. 

Quantum delivered the production and performance that tops my best-of list: Melessie Clark’s richly realized portrayal of Josie Hogan in A Moon for the Misbegotten, staged in a picturesque setting overlooking the Allegheny River.

Before I get to that, one more digresssion is a necessity, to celebrate a feat shared by City Theatre and Pittsburgh Public Theater. Both turned 50 this year, with what I feel is relatively little — too little — fanfare.

The Public in 2024 presented New Horizon Theater at the O’Reilly Theater, hosted the national August Wilson and local Shakespeare monologue contests, and created a fellowship program for aspiring theater critics, among other initiatives.  

In 2024, City Theatre celebrated the 25th anniversary of its Young Playwrights Festival, looked back with the City Rewinds reading series, and announced a co-commission for a new version of Little Women, by prolific and popular playwright Lauren Gunderson. 

Changes are afoot on the South Side, with Marc Masterson having retired and co-artistic director Monteze Freeland leaving City in June, to take charge of Alumni Theater Company. So stay tuned. 

Consider this a bravo not just to those turning 50 and those mentioned below, but to all those who, in the best and worst of times, pursue excellence and enrich our lives with arts and culture.

BEST OF PITTSBURGH THEATER IN 2024

1. Quantum Theatre’s A Moon for the Misbegotten. I was so taken with Melessie Clark’s performance and this production, staged against a verdant hillside, that I returned to see the final show. The retelling with Black actors playing father (Wali Jamal) and daughter enhanced Eugene O’Neill’s’ tale of love and loss, forbearance and perseverance, with a cast including Brett Mack as the doomed James Tyrone, directed by Cody Spellman. Clark, known mostly as a musical theater actress, balanced strength and vulnerability, humor and heartbreak in the classic American tale. The haunting view of Mack ascending spotlighted steps in the night was a beautiful melding of creativity and environment, a trademark of Quantum productions.

2. When you can’t pick just one: The casts of Fat Ham and POTUS at City Theatre. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Fat Ham, a co-production with TheatreSquared of Arkansas, was a “juicy” showcase for Brandon Foxworth and a handful of local actors, including Maria Becoates-Bey, LaTrea Rembert, Linda Haston, Jordan Williams and Elexa Hanner. In the hilarious POTUS, Lara Hayhurst’s ditzy presidential mistress was a favorite among an all-star cast of Tamara Tunie, Tami Dixon, Theo Allyn, Missy Moreno, Saige Smith and Amelia Pedlow. Comedy is hard, but the Fat Ham and POTUS performers doubled down on providing much-needed laughter.

3. The cast of The Animal Kingdom for barebones productions. Barebones’ three-show season featured all women playwrights, with Ruby Thomas’ family drama The Animal Kingdom a soul-searching triumph. Patrick Jordan directed a stellar mix of veteran actors — Daina Michelle Griffith, Darren Eliker and Juan Rivera Lebron — and exciting newcomers out of local universities, Greyson Taylor of Carnegie Mellon and Alexandria Casey of Point Park. I can’t wait to see what Taylor and Casey do next.

4. Young Frankenstein for Pittsburgh CLO at Greer Cabaret. Nothing was lost in this paring down of a large-cast production for a cabaret venue. Dan DeLuca, a Peters Township native in his fifth PCLO show, displayed boundless energy to power an extended run of the Mel Brooks musical comedy. DeLuca was the glue amid the outrageous antics of the hilarious Anthony Marino as Igor, plus Tim Hartman, Theo Allyn, Christine Laitta, Susana Cordon, Alex Sheffield and Daniel Krell. Speaking of …

5. Daniel Krell in Titanic for Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center, Quantum Theatre’s Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (above, image by Jason Snyder) and PCLO’s Young Frankenstein and A Musical Christmas Carol, and David Whalen in Oleanna and A Sherlock Carol for Kinetic Theatre.

Did anyone in Pittsburgh play more diverse roles than Krell in 2024? He can belt a tune and slide easily between drama and comedy, without missing a beat. Whalen keeps busy at regional houses nationwide, but he always comes home to collaborate with Andrew Paul and other local companies. I have recently chastised myself for too long taking for granted performers who work often on Pittsburgh stages, genre-defying actors such as Whalen, Krell, Karla C. Payne, Christine Laitta, Wali Jamal, Randy Kovitz, Lisa Velton Smith and many more. Lucky for us that we can keep them here, or keep them coming back.

6. The premiere of Mark Clayton Southers’ The Coffin Maker at Pittsburgh Public Theater. Robin R. McGee’s compelling performance stood out as the backbone of a stellar production, with a top-notch cast and Tony Ferrieri’s evocative period set design. I wrote in my review that McGee “brings music and musicality to the role of a woman who is feeling empowered beyond her servitude.” Garbie Dukes, Randy Kovitz, Brandon St. Clair and Connor McCanlus also were caught up in the life-and-death struggle of The Coffin Maker, with McCanlus’ second-act arrival a ray of comedic sunshine.

7. Bandstand for Front Porch Theatricals. As the leading lady of this ambitious production, Marnie Quick’s vocals soared alongside David Toole, following a memorable performance in Front Porch’s Merrily We Roll Along. Kudos go to Bandstand music director Deana Muro and director/choreographer Joe Jackson for pulling together and pulling off a show that requires an orchestra, an onstage band comprising musician-actors and 1940s dances within the context of a post-WWII drama, all packed into the New Hazlett Theater. 

8. Maurice Redwood in Radio Golf for Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company at the August Wilson House and Madison Arts Center. Few moments on stage in 2024 could beat Hill District native Redwood as Sterling, mentioning his own grandfather – August Wilson’s “Mr. Redwood” – offering him important advice when he was young. I wrote in my review, “Maurice Redwood is a terrific match for Sterling’s volatile temperament, philosophical one moment and righteously hostile the next.” Roosevelt Watts Jr., Michael Traylor, Rich Dickson and Dominique Briggs filled out a stirring cast for Southers. 

9. PICT – Pittsburgh International Classic Theatre – returns. The significance of bringing the Pittsburgh-set Andy Warhol’s Tomato to the stage  meant the Elizabeth Elias Huffman Era of PICT was under way in full. Matt Henderson, perfectly cast as young Andy, and nuanced Johnny Patalano as a fictional bar owner reprised their roles from a Bards From the ’Burgh reading, with the production debuting at The Andy Warhol Museum before arriving at the new home of PICT, Carnegie Stage. 

10. Theater everywhere all at once. Officially the home of Hans and Virginia Grunert’s off the WALL Productions and Michael Campayno’s The Collective, in addition to PICT, Carnegie Stage has become one of the area’s busiest performing arts venues. The Main Street venue has hosted everything from solo artists to Elsewhere Theatre’s full-cast Angels in America: Millennium Approaches. Carnegie Stage, barebones’ Braddock Black Box, Pittsburgh Musical Theater in the West End, Madison Arts Center and City’s Lillie Theatre are among the wave of off- and off-off-Cultural District options for theater-makers, with more on the way. (Note: Off-Broadway is defined as between 100 and 499 seats.) Another trying to break into the scene is Mr. Smalls in Millvale, now in the process of adding The Sanctuary, a restaurant, coffee shop, music venue and “Creative.Life.Support Center,” in the former 18th-century church across the street from the main building.

A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A PITTSBURGH THEATER CRITIC

Below is a sample of live theater venues where I attended performances in 2024, plus one where I hope to attend, when it is ready for Bricolage. You will notice I didn’t stray too far beyond a 10-mile radius, except for a matinee excursion to Midland’s Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center. There are other shows and places, such as Ensemble Actors Studio’s Secret Hour, at Java Studios in Lawrenceville, so I emphasize that this is not quite the whole shebang.

THEMES THAT EMERGED IN 2024

• Less may be more when it comes to seats to fill.
• The more the merrier when it comes to choices. 
• Funding is never easy, and it’s getting harder.
• I didn’t come close to seeing all there was to see.
• I appreciate everything I did see, but feel guilty about what I missed.
• If you care to find me in 2025, I’ll be at a live theater performance.

Categories: Arts and Ideas, Arts Funding, Company, Feature Stories, Our Posts, Venue

Tags: 2024 Best of Pittsburgh Theater, barebones productions, Benedum Center, Bricolage Production Company, Carnegie Stage, City Theatre, Daniel Krell, David Whalen, Front Porch Theatricals, Little Lake Theatre, Maurice Redwood, Melessie Clark, Pittsburgh CLO, Pittsburgh Musical Theater, Pittsburgh Public Theater, The Coffin Maker