By SHARON EBERSON
“A man brought a $30,000 stolen harp to Point State Park, left it on the riverbank, and jumped into the icy water. …”
When truth is stranger than fiction, in a playwright’s hands, it can go a few steps further into bizarro world, or find a pathway to grounded reality.
Such is the case of the third annual Living News Festival, a Throughline Theatre Company creation that distributes local news stories to six Pittsburgh playwrights, who each write a 10-minute play, ripe for production. The results are currently being presented at Carnegie Stage through Sunday, June 14, 2026.
Among the six, 21 local actors proved game for anything, comedy reigned, Pittsburgh was everpresent, and nostalgia was a frequent theme.
In order of appearance, with introductions by enthusiastic “reporter” Jennifer Welch:
- Family Trees Have Long Branches by Dan J. Kirk: A curmudgeon isn’t happy when a couple moves into the former funeral home next door.
- Frownie Brownie Is the Icon We Need by Michael Buzzelli: The wrong dessert for a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner.
- It’ll Always Be Star Lake to Me by Brian Knavish: Frustration over traffic gets on the nerves of a diehard rock fan.
- Oh Deer! by Edward Kuntz: It’s an oblivious day in the neighborhood for one sly deer.
- Pom Pom Boom Boom by Arabelle Pollick: The competition to become a Steelerette takes a turn.
- Harp On It by A.J. Wittman: How did that harp get into the wrong hands?
Among the least outrageous of the plays, there was sweetness, dare I say, in Buzzelli’s Frownie Brownie, and a sweet twist, with an Alexa personified by Stephanie Swift.
Family Trees Have Long Branches took a turn that I didn’t see coming, which is hard to pull off in 10 minutes. As a real-life news story, it would have killed.
Knavish’s paean to The Pavilion at Star Lake, its many names over the years, and the traffic jams that cause many of us to stay away (I’m raising my hand as one among the “us”) was hilarious, in part because of the antics of Rick Dutrow, as a rock fan with a Peter Pan complex, and especially if you’ve ever been stuck in traffic going in, or going out, of Star Lake. Also, if you still say “Heinz Field,” this play has you in its sights.
The commitment to being outrageous, as the scripts demanded, was evident in all the pieces, no more so than in the two-hander Harp On It, with Matt Henderson and Jeffrey Johnson as bros looking for something to do on a frigid winter day in Pittsburgh.
Likewise the casts of the cutthroat competition Pom Pom Boom Boom and Oh Deer!, which may make you think twice about the sight of an innocent-seeming stag, waiting outside your door.
The roster of actors comprise: Brian Shumaker, Chris Duvall, Amy Baschnagel, Terri Davis, Dannette Pemberton, Kayla Williams, Elizabeth Glyptis, Tom Protulipac, Rick Dutrow, Erika Krenn, Carly Chotiner, Timothy Syciarz, Jeffrey Johnson, Matt Henderson, Apryl Peroney, Tom Sarp, Brian Kadlecik, Dewayne Curry, Andrea Disch, Adam Hawkins and Stephanie Swift.
The six one-acts are stringed together, with no intermission. What they have most in common is the ability to find audience members to nod in agreement as they laugh at the absurdity of it all, and acknowledge the truth between the lines.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
The 2026 Living News Festival at Carnegie Stage, 25 W. Main St., Carnegie, runs through June 14. It takes a village to produce a festival. For a look at all those involved, check out the online program at https://www.throughlinetheatre.org/lnf2026 . Tickets: www.throughlinetheatre.org.
Leave a Reply