By SHARON EBERSON
Springtime for performing arts in the Pittsburgh region has come in like a lion and continues to roar as April gives away to May, with theaters either getting ready to close up shop for the summer, or just getting started.
If you are still without power this weekend after the tempest that blew into the region on Tuesday, performing arts companies have their welcome mats out.
This weekend finds Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company’s premiere of Mark Clayton Southers’s Art of Wise and PICT’s Miss Julie coming to an end, while City Theatre’s season finale, King James, is entering midcourt.
Fast approaching is the regional premiere of Waitress, a Pittsburgh Musical Theater production starring Zanny Laird as Jenna, with La’Nette Wallace as Becky and Catherine Baird as Dawn. Broadway veteran performer Danny Herman (A Chorus Line, Leader of the Pack, Contact), who has been making waves behind the scenes at PMT and Pittsburgh Playhouse, returns to the stage as Joe (think the Andy Griffith role from the movie). The Sara Barielles musical will be presented in the West End, May 1-25, 2025, at PMT’s Gargaro Theater.
Also opening this weekend is the classic drama Twelve Angry Men, a Prime Stage Production May 2-11, 2025, at the New Hazlett Theater on the North Side.
A new week brings more choices, including Tony-winning Carnegie Mellon alum Patina Miller closing out the Trust Cabaret 2024-2025 season.
Coming up, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and the PBT Orchestra dance down the Yellow Brick Road with the company premiere of The Wizard of Oz, at the Benedum Center, May 9-18, 2025.
Getting further into the month of May, you will find Kinetic Theatre moving from its usual Oakland haunts to Carnegie Stage for the Christopher Hampton drama Embers, May 15-25, 2025. The Pittsburgh premiere is directed by Andrew Paul, and stars Sam Tsoutsouvas, Jack Wetherall and Susie McGregor-Laine.
Also opening May 15, there’s adventure afoot at Little Lake Theatre, with The Da Vinci Code, based on the Dan Brown best-seller, through June 1, 2025.
Front Porch Theatricals’ first show of 2025 – a sure sign that summer near at hand, is Baby, May 16-25, 2025 at the company’s New Hazlett Theater home. The updated 2021 version of 1984 Tony nominee Baby follows three couples facing pregnancy and parenthood on a university campus .
And now for something completely different, introducing the “new zombie musical” Romero & Juliet, presented in a two-show day on May 17, 2025, at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, by Split Stage Productions. The cast of the staged concert includes Shea Curran as Romero and Véronique Chayer as Juliet, along with Allison Guinn (Only Murders in the Building; Lucy in the Broadway revival of On the Town and more) as Juliet’s nurse.
Before June busts out all over, raise a glass of Veuve Champagne for the world premiere of Madame Clicquot: A Revolutionary Musical – a Pittsburgh CLO production, directed by Mark Fleischer – at the Byham Theater, May 29-June 8, 2025. The show’s stars include Victoria Frings as entrepreneurial innovator Barbe-Nicole Clicquot, who during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars revolutionized the way Champagne was produced, and Paolo Montalban, a Broadway actor best known as the Prince opposite Brandy in the 1997 Disney television film Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella.
Vigilance Theatre scare up Mac Beth at Washington’s Landing May 30-June 15, 2025, while barebones productions gets into the summer blockbuster spirit with The Shark is Broken, May 30-June 15, 2025, at the Braddock black box theater.
The latter, about the antics of actors Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss on the set of Jaws, stars Patrick Jordan, Patrick Cannon and Quinn Patrick Shannon, and I don’t think we’ll ever get tired of saying that trio of Pittsburgh actors in the same sentence.
And that’s not all … but we do try. For a more comprehensive listing of performing arts, including classical music, dance, theater and more, follow What’s on Stage at https://onstagepittsburgh.com/category/our-posts/whats-on-stage/ year-round.
GALA FUNDRAISERS IN MAY
May 1, 2025, Pittsburgh Public Theater at the O’Reilly Theater, Downtown: TRANSFORMATION: A TRUE PARTY AT THE PUBLIC, a celebration and culmination of the Public’s 50th Anniversary season, including “delectable delights,” a live auction and the “11 o’clock number, as we transform the O’Reilly Theater into The Transformations Ball (cohosted by Latrice Royale and Devar Ferguson) — and express yourself with an after party destined to dazzle.” https://ppt.org/ppt_home/pages/transformation-a-true-party-at-the-public
May 2, 2025: New Horizon Theater at the O’Reilly Theater, Downtown: THE SPINNERS, “one of the most iconic and enduring groups in R&B history,” with emcee Chris Moore. https://www.newhorizontheater.org/
May 17, 2025: City Theatre, South Side: THE BASH with headliner LEA DeLARIA, best known as “Big Boo” from Orange is the New Black. The Bash fundraiser celebrates City’s 50th anniversary season with a cabaret-style event featuring music from Hedwig and the Angry Inch and other musical numbers that from City Theatre’s past. Performers include Julianne Avolio (An Untitled New Play by Justin Timberlake, Cry It Out), Maria Becoates-Bey (Fat Ham, Intimate Apparel, Crowns, Constant Star), Shane McLaughlin (Ghosted) and Jerreme Rodriguez (Somewhere Over the Border, Clyde’s), with host Dixie Sherwood. https://citytheatrecompany.org/play/the-bash-2025/
Categories: Arts and Ideas, Our Posts, Show Previews, What's On Stage
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