By SHARON EBERSON
With the season-opening rolling premiere of Refugee Rhapsody, the 30-year evolution of PICT is firmly in the Elizabeth Elias Huffman Era.
What started as Pittsburgh Irish & Classic Theatre under Andrew Paul has been rocked by ousters at the top, the sudden death of Board Chair Eileen Clancy in October 2023, and the same financial woes that plague most American theater companies, large and small. Huffman, who took over as Artistic Director of what is now Pittsburgh International Classic Theatre in February 2023, has put her stamp on the company, with the emphasis on “international.”
in Refugee Rhapsody, PICT’s rolling premiere production at Carnegie Stage.
(Image: ee huffman)
Monongahela-reared Huffman has returned to theater roots that, in the mid-1980s, led her to cofound the Beacon Project — dedicated to staging rarely produced classics — and then onto leadership at Classical Theatre Lab in Los Angeles. Since returning to her hometown to bring PICT out of crisis mode, she also has been a champion of developing new works written by Pittsburghers, notably with the Bards From the Burgh reading series.
“Whether it was under Andrew, whether it was under Alan [Stanford], or as it is with me, the [years of PICT are cumulative and they count as far as I’m concerned, even as the company’s evolving very much in a different direction,” Huffman said. “I am adding to it programming that is really important to me, which is primarily doing more international work. My reach is a lot further, and my desire is to really strengthen that, and build that aspect of the company. And that also extends into the classical work that I want to do,”
As an example, she mentions PICT’s production of Miss Julie, set in British colonial Hong Kong, and her desire to be both “multicultural and multilingual.” The latter was in evidence in the recent staged reading of A Winter’s Tale, which Shakespeare set partly in Sicily, and performed partly in Italian by PICT.
“That’s something I’m trying to develop based on my work with my company in L.A., which was an international company,” Huffman said.
Refugee Rhapsody, directed by Huffman, is part of a rolling premiere of his play, seen this summer at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in West Virginia, and at Sound Theatre, Washington. Egyptian-born, London-raised playwright Yusseff El Guindi, winner of the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Citation of Excellence, is based in Seattle. He will be at Carnegie Stage on PICT’s opening weekend, and participate in a post-matinee talkback on Sunday, October 11.
His play is described as: “A chance encounter between Emily, a wealthy socialite heiress, and a young Arab-American couple — Sakinah and Fouad, children of refugees working at a Goodwill — unfolds as a darkly comic and unsettling exploration of race, class, and privilege in modern America.
“As their lives intersect, tensions escalate, culminating in a violent crime driven by jealousy and desire. As the investigation deepens, questions of culpability and motive take center stage, with sharp humor, unexpected surprises, and a bit of magic.”
The Seattle Times described the playwright’s work as exploring immigrant lives with “insightful, open-hearted … humor, warmth, and all-around compassion.”
Refugee Rhapsody, at Carnegie Stage October 9-25, 2026, features Hari Bhaskar as Fouad, Milia Ayache as Sakinah, Dominique Dobson Briggs as Jenny, Erika Krenn as Emily and Dionysius Akeem as Richard/Waleed.
Among the cast, theater and film actor Bhaskar is a native of India, based in New York. Ayache is an assistant professor and director of acting in the Conservatory of Performing Arts at Point Park University.
Huffman said it can be a challenge casting local actors for roles that require specific ethnicities, and she understands that attracting audiences to unfamiliar theater territory can be challenging as well.
“I know that what I’m trying to do is going to take some time … which is reaching into those communities and getting them to come to see plays about their culture, plays that are speaking to all of us on a humanitarian level,” Huffman said.
In a United States where ICE is targeting refugees and asylum seekers, including those working toward legal status, the title Refugee Rhapsody strike a chord for many of us.
I think we have to move beyond the traditional limited storytelling that has been done in America and expand that to other countries.” — Elizabeth Elias Huffman
“My biggest challenge is that I haven’t been able to get the word out to the refugee community, to the international community, the way I’d like to. I’m working on it,” Huffman said. “Every time I do a cultural night, I meet a lot more artists who are turning me on to other artists. I have a goal where I need to train them if they have not been trained in classical theater. If they have been actors in their country, they may have had a training that I would want to learn about. So I’m trying to find a way to get the word out to this community that I am seeking actors from all over the world.”
With the production of Miss Julie, Huffman was able to meet artists from the Chinese community who are now not only friends, but “one of them is now on my board.”
“It was such a great thing for me to look into the audience and see people who have never walked through the doors of theater here at all. So it’s kind of a mission that means a lot to me because I think we have to move beyond the traditional limited storytelling that has been done in America and expand that to other countries.”
Looking ahead, Huffman mentions a musical and past work within the Latino community, and more work in development by local writers, but she is not ready share. Not yet.
“We all can appreciate these plays, but we can expand our diversity to include Asian plays, Latino plays, African plays. … I’ve got one up my sleeve that I’m excited about,” she said, adding, “Very excited.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
PICT’s production of the rolling world premiere of Refugee Rhapsody is October 9-25, 2026, at Carnegie Stage, 25 W. Main St., Carnegie. Tickets: https://www.picttheatre.org
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