Festivals include return of Throughline’s Living News, and newcomers from Ensemble and Becoming Arts Collective

By SHARON EBERSON

Updated to add 2025 Pittsburgh New Works Festival.

It might be presumptuous to declare 2025 as “The Summer of Theater” in Pittsburgh, but here you have it. Alongside seasonal stalwarts such as Pittsburgh CLO, Front Porch Theatricals, Quantum Theatre, community theaters, independent productions and more, there are reading series, festivals and full productions from well-established sources, first-timers … it’s a cornucopia of choices for the theater-going crowd. 

A sampling starts with the headline that Throughline Theatre is bringing back the Living News Festival for the second time. Producer J. Cody Spellman has gathered a team that starts with five playwrights writing 10-minute plays based on curated headlines from local news sources, and culminates in performances at Carnegie Stage July 17-20, 2025, at Carnegie Stage.

Spellman brought the idea for the Living News Festival with him when he migrated to Pittsburgh from Chicago.

“My favorite thing about theater, in general, in Chicago, especially, was in summer, when it gets down and dirty, bringing a lot of people together for a single-weekend kind of event … for just a true community engagement,” he said.

Spellman’s inspirations for the festival include the Federal Theatre Project, a 1930s program established during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal, to fund live artistic performances and programs in the United States. 

He also was heartened to learn that the Pittsburgh theater scene supported similar projects, noting that Bricolage Productions had previously popularized the 24-hour, 10-minute play event known as B.U.S., when playwrights would take a bus ride, then work with directors and performers in a race against time to create compelling original plays in 24 hours.

Such series don’t take place only in summer — in Feburary, Suspension Theatrical Arts presented Full Day Suspension: A 24 Hour Theater Festival (The Squeakuel) at Mr. Smalls. But summer is off to a blistering start, so let’s get back to ways theater is staying cool and carrying on.

The ripped-from-the-headlines topics for the 2025 Living News Festival indicate that budget cuts to everything from public transit to public television could be a running theme. Spellman hopes this year’s choices and how the playwrights reimagine them will inspire new ways to deepen our understanding and engage with the topics.

Througline first offered the ripped-from-the-headlines-as-theater concept in August of 2023, at the same time Spellman was working behind the scenes on Quantum Theatre’s Hamlet at Carrie Furnace. Last summer, he was busy directing Quantum’s stunning Moon for the Misbegotten, another outdoor production, and he served as an assistant to Marc Masterson for City Theatre’s Birthday Candles. His short film, The Circle Children, is an official selection of the 2025 Pittsburgh Independent Film Festival and Loveland Shorts Film Festival in Ohio.

While Spellman has kept busy since the first Living News Fest, bringing it back has been on his mind.

“I would say in my journey to become a Pittsburgher, I’ve been really trying to engage with as many local news sources as possible, and I wouldn’t say any headline specifically [has inspired] me, but if there’s a fun one or a biting one or something that really spoke to me, I would think, ‘Oh, that’d be a fun piece if we ever do this again,’ ” he said.

Spellman acknowledged that just turning on the news “can be daunting these crazy times” we are living through, but “you always have to have some fun.” 

With that in mind, amid “important and serious issues … you always have to have some fun, wacky, crazy articles, too.”

He gave that writing assignment to Theo Allyn, known to Pittsburghers for roles such as Frau Blücher in Pittsburgh CLO’s production of Young Frankenstein. 

“I’m super excited about that one,” he said.

2025  LIVING NEWS FESTIVAL 
THROUGHLINE THEATRE COMPANY

Headline: Freeman Health Food Store Opens in Pittsburgh; no price tags.
Playwright: Patrick Cannon
Director: Alex Manalo
Cast: Chelsea Davis

Headline: Trump approves U.S. Steel Sale to Nippon Steel
Playwright: Nafi Ayvaci
Director: Nathan Walter
Cast: Maddie Kocur, Andy Coleman

Headline: Fred Rogers Productions, WQED among those facing cuts tied to Trump executive order 
Playwright: Tammy Ryan
Director: Michael Trimm
Cast: Audrey Chester, Michael McBurney, Cecilia Staggers

Headline: Pittsburgh Regional Transit votes to send proposed major service cuts to public comment 
Playwright: Matt Henderson
Director: Marsha Mayhak
Cast: Becky Hukill, Devin Marshall

Headline: Three men charged with trespassing at abandoned school 
Playwright: Theo Allyn
Director: Caitlin Dobronz
Cast: Jeyneliz Ortiz, Emma Baker, Marsha Mayhak

TICKETS AND DETAILS: The 2025 Living News Festival runs July 17-20 at Carnegie Stage, 25 W. Main Street, Carnegie. Tickets: $10 online at https://www.showclix.com/event/living-news-festival-2025 or at the door. For July 17, a $20 ticket will include an opening-night party with refreshments.

MORE FOR YOUR LIVE THEATER
SUMMER VIEWING LIST

PITTSBURGH INTERNATIONAL CLASSIC THEATRE
BARDS FROM THE BURGH

Now in its third year, PICT’s full-play reading series guarantees that one of the selections by local writers will be chosen for a full production in an upcoming season. Casts for the four works have been announced on social media by artistic director Elizabeth Elias Huffman. Performers in the opening play, Matt Henderson’s Gloria Jean and The Sexy Ghost Show, are Matt Dowd, Jocelyn Hillen, Cav O’Leary, Ivy Mackinson and Brandi Welle. 

• July 8: Gloria Jean and The Sexy Ghost Show by Matt Henderson, directed by Daina Griffith
• July 10: Run Wild by Anya Martin, directed by Ponny Conomos Jahn
• July 12: Wanderlust or The Adventures of The Keystone Kid by Wali Jamal Abdullah, directed by Art DeConciliis 
• July 13: Playboy of Manhattan by Anthony McKay, directed by Ricardo Vila-Roger 

TICKETS AND DETAILS: Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. at Carnegie Stage, 25 West Main Street, Carnegie. Tickets are pay-what-you-can, at https://pictclassictheatre.ludus.com/200485754

ALL THINGS PITTSBURGH PLAY FESTIVAL
ENSEMBLE ACTORS STUDIO

The All Things Pittsburgh Play Festival – 10 original,10-minute plays by local playwrights – will run August 1–3, 2025, at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s newly refurbished Three Stories Peirce Theater, Downtown.

Presented by Ensemble Actors Studio, the festival is an opportunity to check out the former home of Bricolage and Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company and experience a “fast-paced, collaborative festival” with works  “inspired by quintessentially Pittsburgh prompts, like inclines, pierogies, and jagoffs.”

• PLAYWRIGHTS INCLUDE: Tammy Ryan, Brian Pope, Kim El, Gayle Pazerski, Chris Clavelli, Joseph Martinez, and student playwrights Chris Duvall, AJ Wittman, Donovan Shives, and Jason Burke. 
• DIRECTORS INCLUDE: Ensemble artistic director Jaime Slavinsky and resident directors Justin Zeno and Chris Clavelli, as well as teaching artist Cynthia Dallas, student director Brooke Echnat, and guest director Wali Jamal. 
• CAST INCLUDES: 36 adult actors from Ensemble Actors Studio.

TICKETS AND DETAILS: Ensemble’s The All Things Pittsburgh Play Festival is 8 p.m. August 1-2 and 2 p.m. August 3 at Three Stories Peirce Theater, 937 Liberty Ave, Downtown. Tickets: $20 at https://www.ensembleactors.com/theater-co.

AUGUST WILSON’S AMERICAN CENTURY CYCLE EXPERIENCE
PITTSBURGH PLAYWRIGHTS THEATER COMPANY

As previously reported in onStage Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company will deliver three plays by Pittsburgh’s preeminent playwright to two Hill District venues in August:

• August 9-30: Two Trains Running, directed by Mark Clayton Southers at Madison Arts Center in the Carter Woodson Redwood Theater.
• August 8-September 6: Fences, directed by Terrence Spivey outdoors at August Wilson House.
• August 15-24: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, directed by Ashley Southers at Madison Arts Center (ground-floor cabaret space).

TICKETS AND DETAILS: Two Trains Running and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom are at Madison Arts Center, 3401 Milwaukee Street in the Upper Hill/Schenley Heights area. Fences is outdoors at August Wilson House, 1727 Bedford Ave., in the Lower Hill. Tickets: Pricing varies for each play, with some discounts available. https://www.pghplaywrights.org/ 

PITTSBURGH NEW WORKS FESTIVAL TURNS 35
Fourteen Western Pennsylvania theater companies will be part of the celebration as Pittsburgh New Works Festival celebrates 35 years of developing and presenting original one-act plays. Five programs of three plays will add up to 14 fully-produced one-act plays Thursdays-Sundays, August 21-September 14, 2025, at the Genesius Theater at Duquesne University, 1225 Seitz Street. Tickets and details: Watch for information at https://pittsburghnewworks.org/.

THE BECOMING ARTS COLLECTIVE
BRIDGES AND STAGES FESTIVAL

In September (Dates TBA): The Becoming Arts Collective, in partnership with Broken Arts Entertainment, has announced the ambitious Bridges and Stages Festival of two dozen 10-minute plays by 15 playwrights, plus 13 directors and 44 actors. Auditions were being held this month for the two-day event, with no specific dates set, but writers and directors has been announced:

• No More Flowers by Dana Hall, directed by Olivia Hartle
• Unwrapped by Dana Hall, directed by Sue Kurey
• Park Benches by Darrin J. Friedman, directed by Mary Meyer
• Locally Sourced Municipal Frogs by Darrin J. Friedman, directed by Rachel Pfennigwerth
• TLC: A Millennial Horror Story by Debra A. Cole, directed by Jillian Lesaca
• For the Record by FJ Hartland, directed by Rachel Pfennigwerth
• Ancient Wisdom of the Shoebill Stork by Jacquelyn Priskorn, directed by Rachel Pfennigwerth
• From Day One by JD Trafford, directed by Wali Jamal Abdullah
• The Missing by John Mabey, directed by Brett Sullivan Santry
• Shape of Goodbye by John Mabey, directed by Wayne Brinda
• New Level of Intimacy by John Patrick Bray, directed by Mary Meyer
• King of Spades by Kim El, directed by Wali Jamal Abdullah
• No Kiddin’ by Kim El, directed by Sue Kurey
• Summer Solstice by Matt Henderson, directed by Heather Friedman
• Enraptured by Nathan Wagner, directed by Art DeConciliis
• What’s in the Box by Randy Hunt, directed by Brett Sullivan Santry
• Familiar by Robert J. LeBlanc, directed by Jeremy Seghers
• Second Thoughts by Robert J. LeBlanc, directed by Sunny Fitchett
• The World Falls In: A Saga by Sam Lander, directed by Jeremy Seghers
• Confinement by Staci Backauskas, directed by Olivia Hartle
• Rocks The Cradle by TJ Young, directed by Sue Kurey
• Lilies by TJ Young, directed by Heather Friedman
• How About Them Dodgers by Philip Middleton Williams, directed by Wayne Brinda
• First Date 2099 by Mike Byham, directed by Jillian Lesaca

TICKETS AND DETAILS: All TBA. Follow The Becoming Arts Collective on Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/becomingartscollective or at https://www.thebecomingartscollective.com/ 

Categories: Arts and Ideas, Our Posts, Show Previews

Tags: 2025, August Wilson, Becoming Arts Collective, Ensemble Actors Studio, Living News Festival, PICT, Pittsburgh Playwrights, Throughline Theatre