By SHARON EBERSON
Choreographer Gustavo Zajac has worked with some of Broadway’s biggest names – Chita Rivera, for one, in the Tony Award-winning 2003 revival of Nine.
In 2025, at the start of a gray Pittsburgh evening in June, standing before him was a cast of dozens. They were hanging on his every word, moving to his instructions, holding nothing back.
Pittsburgh Public Theater’s inaugural Public Works production, a musical version of the Shakespeare comedy Twelfth Night, was a few short weeks away from its June 26 opening as Zajac stood at the edge of the O’Reilly Theater stage, leading community cast members in warm-up exercises, breaking to ask if anyone was struggling or had questions before moving on.
Connor McCanlus, who will play Malvolio among the experienced cast members, watched momentarily from a central aisle. He is the academy director at Arcade Comedy Theater and a frequent onstage presence in Pittsburgh, but he seemed a bit starstruck by Zajac.
“Working with Gustavo has been such a gift,” McCanlus said. “He has this treasure trove of experience. We were working on this big flashy Broadway-style song, and his note for me was to play it smaller, to draw them in ‘like Chita.’ And he was talking about Chita Rivera! And he starts sharing this story, and it’s about learning something directly from her, and he’s sharing it with me. And it’s given with such love, I feel incredibly grateful to receive it.”
Director Marya Sea Kaminski, watched the rehearsal from various positions before joining in a conversation with cast members Garbie Dukes (Sir Toby Belch), Brenden Peifer (Sir Andrew), Chelsea Zeno (Viola), José Pérez IV (fight and intimacy coordinator).
of Pittsburgh Public Theater’s Public Works Twelfth Night. (Image: Sharon Eberson)
Kaminski came to Pittsburgh Public Theater in 2018 as artistic director, expressing a hope for creating a Public Works production here, as she had previously with Seattle Rep, using an adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey.
For the current production, her final as AD after announcing she will leave her leadership role after this season-ender, she has chosen a musical interpretation of Twelfth Night, conceived by Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub, with music and lyrics by Taub (Suffs).
The play has a special significance for the Public and the O’Reilly: A more traditional Twelfth Night was the final show of the Public’s first season, 50 years ago. Previous artistic director Ted Pappas brought it back in the 2016-2017 season, after Mark Rylance and Shakespeare’s Globe Company brought the acclaimed all-male production to the theater, via the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, in 2003.
Using the concept of “a major civic artistic program” begun by The Public Theater of New York, Pittsburgh Public Theater has thrown open wide the doors of the O’Reilly not only to dozens of onstage participants, but to audience members. Tickets are free, but reservations are required. The ticket site currently shows availability only on opening night of the five performances, Thursday, June 26 – June 29, 2025, with two performances on Saturday, June 28.
With 60 cast members representing nine organizations, their family and friends alone likely could fill many more days.
PUTTING THE PUBLIC IN PUBLIC THEATER
Attending a recent rehearsal, signs of the ongoing commitment of cast, crew and creative team starts the minute you walk through the theater doors on Penn Avenue, in the Downtown Cultural District.
The cast represents not only partner organizations from all walks of Pittsburgh life, but also ages 3 to 82, and all abilities as well.
The Public Works partners include: Vintage Senior Center, Sarah Heinz House, Mount Ararat Community, Activity Center, Filipino American Association of Pittsburgh, Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburgh, Dynamic Defenders ATA Martial Arts, Big Storm Performance Company, Iron City Circus, and the Hill Dance Academy Theatre.
Organizations that made the commitment to the rehearsals and shows had to meet “certain criteria,” said Dominique Briggs, the Public’s Senior Manager of Public Works and Partnerships. The must-haves included the ability to host pre-rehearsal classes in their own venues, with people who were already a part of standing programs.
“And then they had to be able to commit to what we were building up to, which was this,” Briggs said, looking at a stage packed with the Pittsburghers who had made that commitment.
There were no complaints or slackers as Zajac put the participants through their paces. Briggs said the attitude permeating the scene was enabled by the key words Kaminski has emphasized from the start: equity, joy, and imagination.
With that in mind, Briggs’ job is “making sure that everyone feels comfortable, making sure that anyone who might be in a wheelchair can get to bathrooms easily; they can manipulate the stage easily,” she said. “Once we did find out that we had folks using mobility devices, Gustavo immediately jumped into trying to modify the choreography so that everybody was able to do it. When Marya does blocking, she makes sure that it’s always kept in mind.
“It’s still a learning process for us,” Briggs added. “We stay very open with everyone so that if something doesn’t work for them, it’s like, ‘Come and tell us, and we’ll figure out how to make it work.’ ”
Seated in the uppermost row facing the O’Reilly thrust stage, Briggs was interrupted several times with questions, including from one cast member playing a big role in that day’s rehearsal: her daughter, Rhea.
In Briggs’ lap was a booklet with notes to her mother that Rhea had made during the school year – appropriate, since Briggs made her daughter the star of her children’s book, Rhea the Great Detective and the Case of the Missing Mrs. Bearington.
The family and friends of Briggs go deep in this production. Her mother is part of the cast, and so is her longtime friend, Michael Campayno, who plays Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night. Campayno, whose road through Broadway and touring has lead back home to Pittsburgh, is currently Interim Chair and Artist in Residence at Point Park University’s Department of Theatre.
Briggs’ daughter is named for his sister, Rhea.
Other members of the professional cast include Victor M. Aponte as Antonio, Ethan Davis Butler as Sebastian, Caro Dubberly as Feste, John Ploskina as Fabian, Housso Sémon as Countess Olivia and Georgia Taylor as Maria.
If a community cast member has a question or an issue, Briggs is the first person to call.
“I’m responsible for the entire program in the sense of coordinating all of the efforts regarding our community … Logistics, for example, if they need anything regarding transportation, and just kind of making sure the pieces are in order,” she said. “This was a great lesson in learning how to delegate, because I’m used to just diving in and doing. But everybody has their role. My responsibility is to make sure everything gets taken care of, and I ask the right people for the right assistance.”
AT HOME IN THE THEATER
You can see the effort throughout the O’Reilly Theater.
The lobby was adorned with what looked like a shoe organizer, but one that holds purple-capped water bottles, each with a specific name.
As performers and team members made their way along the ramps to the stage, they saw walls lined with informational tools, including a “Photo Grid” and cast list, schedules, arrows to the bathrooms … everything leading to the conclusion that this is a huge theatrical undertaking.
On the stage, Dukes as Sir Toby Belch takes center stage for a group number of the song, “What Kind of Man RU Gonna Be.”
Atop a set of stairs, an ensemble member at one point holds a sign that reads, “YAY!,” perhaps a hint to what awaits the public who will see Pittsburgh Public Theater’s Public Works Twelfth Night.
“I believe that people are coming to see a professional production with an amazing ensemble of actors, because for us, we don’t like to separate our professional ensemble. This is a full ensemble; it’s a full family,” Briggs said. “So I would say that people who are coming, they’re coming to see a crazy, fun adaptation of Twelfth Night that’s going to be performed by some people that they know and love from the community, and one that also is representative of the City of Pittsburgh.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
The Pittsburgh Public Theater production of the premiere Public Works’ Twelfth Night is at the O’Reilly Theater, Downtown, June 26-29, 2025. Additional seats are set to be released June 2, with added performances to the sold-out run. Public Works has been made possible with the support of the Richard King Mellon Foundation. Visit https://ppt.org/production/94489/public-works-twelfth-night for more about the cast and creative team and ticket information.
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