Announcement of new year-round company includes two productions for first season
By SHARON EBERSON
The history books will record that Pittsburgh Public Theater and Pittsburgh CLO made it legal on Friday, July 31, 2026, when they officially merged into a single theatrical company with year-round programming in Pittsburgh Cultural Trust venues, to be called … title to be named later.
The unveiling of a name that attendees were told would come at an event Friday afternoon at the O’Reilly Theater took an unexpected turn, when the New Hazlett Theater announced its own new producing title: ForgeWorks. That name had figured into the plans of the team charged with unifying 51-year-old Pittsburgh Public Theater and 80-year-old Pittsburgh CLO. A vote by the Board led to the decision to launch “a community input process. … We want to hear the themes, values, and ideas that matter most to the people this company serves.”
To view alternative names and enter your own, visit https://www.menti.com/al7puzk3j5nu?source=voteCode.
“We pivoted, and it made us forge ahead,” Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford, acting Executive Director/Producer of the new entity said to knowing nods. “A rose is a rose … Our identity is about what we do, and it’s about the people we work with.”
By now, most Pittsburgh theatergoers know that the two largest producing theater companies based in the Cultural District, both organizations suffering from dire financial straits, had made the decision to dissolve and rebuild as one.
With the official “Agreement and Plan of Affiliation” now a done deal, the acting Board of Directors becomes the inaugural Board, and the search for an Executive Director of the unnamed company begins Monday.
Information about the business model for the new company and some programming news were revealed at the event, but the work to reinvent a resident theater company for Downtown venues is far from over.
The proposed budget has not yet been approved by the Board, “but we have money to spend,” Crawford said. “That money is being used to transition the existing staff into the new company so we can pay staff. We will be using that money to have productions like How Shakespeare Saved My Life, A Musical Christmas Carol and Who’s Holiday! in the next season. It’s going to take a couple of months to get all the staff and everything moving, but that’s the plan.”
She said the company would be headquartered in three places: The production staff will be at the flex office and warehouse building next to the Bloomfield Bridge, the education staff, a melding of the Pittsburgh Public and Pittsburgh CLO programs, will be combined at CLO Academy, Downtown, and staff offices will be at the O’Reilly.
At the podium on Friday were Crawford, Tom McGough, chair of the new company’s Board of Directors; and Carnegie Mellon’s Kyle Haden, the Interim Artistic Director who announced the first titles in what promises to be year-round programming at various Downtown venues. A Comedy of Errors, and Purpose, the Tony Award-winning play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
In announcing the Shakespeare comedy, Haden said, “Now if that isn’t poetic, I don’t know what is. It’s a comedy about two sets of long lost twins separated by a shipwreck, spending the whole show a few feet apart, before they finally find each other. Four hundred years 400 years on, Shakespeare’s writing press releases, y’all.”
Loren Prisuta. (Image: Sharon Eberson)
Attendees at the O’Reilly included legacy stakeholders, supporters, and artists from the Public and CLO, including Ted Pappas, the Artistic Director of the Public for 18 years, former Public Managing Director Lou Castelli, and Van Kaplan, who led Pittsburgh CLO for 24 years.
The unification team had previosuly announced a fall Prologue Season, which includes Pittsburgh CLO’s traditional holiday offerings — A Musical Christmas Carol and Who’s Holiday!, plus a CLO Academy student program — and the Pittsburgh debut of Jacob Ming-Trent’s How Shakespeare Saved My Life in November, after the NYC debut at the off-Broadway at the Public Theater. Ming-Trent, who originated roles in Broadway’s Shrek and the 2024 revival of Gypsy, was a Gene Kelly Award winner for Pittsburgh CAPA in 1996.
The event on Friday included a performances by Gene Kelly Award winners and actors from the Public’s productions of A Christmas Story: The Play: Louisa Butler, Lily Fontaine, Paxton Master, Eamonn McElfresh, Loren Prisuta, Avery Schneider, Siobhan Wadhwa, and Neal Wadwha, accompanied by Bob Neumeyer.
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I was very fortunate to have worked for both organizations while I was in Pittsburgh. I was concerned as I learned the two organizations were merging into one entity. But as I talked with former coworkers I learned it was absolutely necessary to keep great theater in Pittsburgh. As you begin the next chapter of theater in Pittsburgh remember it’s the community who comes to see your shows, it’s the community that will help with donations, it’s the community that will embrace your work. Ted Pappas would open doors and engage patrons at every show his first year as Artistic Director, he very seldom missed a show. Embrace your community, nurture your community, help educate your community. Never forget Pittsburgh has a reputation for producing great theater. Now get out there and show the nation just how wonderful Pittsburgh theater is.