Author Archives
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Review: Disidentifying on Stage: ‘A Conversation’ in Progress with LaTrea Derome’
By Guilherme Meletti Yazbek Presented over two evenings as part of Kelly Strayhorn Theater’s Freshworks program, A Conversation, by multidisciplinary artist LaTrea Derome, unfolded as a modest yet affectively charged work-in-progress. The piece operated through a deliberately simple scenic device—one that placed personal narrative… Read More ›
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Review: Feeding Desire: On ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ and the Logic of the Pact
By GUILHERME YAZBEK Yesterday, as I made my way to downtown Pittsburgh on the bus, I found myself trying to recall what I remembered about the musical Little Shop of Horrors. Not much, as it turned out—just the insistently catchy opening… Read More ›
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Review: Where the Earth Meets the Sky: On Grappling and Dancing Otherwise
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK 5, 4, 3, 2, 1—lift off! This is not the much-narrated Apollo 11, nor is it the latest Artemis II mission. In fact, the subject here is not the renewed space race currently underway in the twenty-first… Read More ›
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Intensity Without Resolution: Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s ‘Spring Mix’
By GUILHEREME MELETTI YAZBEK There is something inherently unstable about a mixed repertory program. Unlike a full-length work, which unfolds through a sustained aesthetic trajectory—developing its own internal logic and language—a program composed of multiple choreographies often resists cohesion, offering… Read More ›
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‘Beauty and the Beast’: A Familiar Tale, Reimagined on Broadway at the Benedum
Between dazzling spectacle and subtle reinterpretation, this revival reveals how even the most familiar fairy tales continue to evolve alongside the societies that keep retelling them. By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK In 1994, Disney arrived on Broadway not merely by entering… Read More ›
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Review: The Optimism of Annie — and Why We’re Still Waiting for Tomorrow
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK Annie, for me, had long occupied that part of memory where many musicals live: works I know something about, but whose details have faded. Yet as soon as the house lights dimmed and the orchestra began the… Read More ›
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Bringing a Tale as Old as Time Back to Pittsburgh, an Interview with Grace Marie Rusnica
By GUILHERME YAZBEK A tale as old as time is about to take over Pittsburgh. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast arrives in the city in a dazzling new North American tour—the first major U.S. staging of the beloved musical in more… Read More ›
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Review: Washing Dishes, Making History: Friendship, Labor, and Black Life on Stage at City Theatre
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK Opening nights tend to be pleasant occasions, with warm audiences often made up of members of the creative team, family, and seasoned theatergoers. I have the impression that opening-night audiences are generally more inclined to enjoy… Read More ›
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Review: ‘Intersections’: Dance as Bodies Writing in Space
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK Last night, at the wonderful Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, Maria Caruso’s Bodiography presented Intersections, a performance that—true to its name—stages encounters: between artists, between bodies, between modes of expression. Pittsburgh-born dancer and choreographer Maria Caruso invited the audience to learn about and witness her… Read More ›
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Review: The Emotional Force and Contradictions of ‘Next to Normal’
By GUILHERME YAZBEK The Riverfront Theater Company is currently presenting the production that closes its Sapphire Season, celebrating the group’s impressive 65 years. Next to Normal premiered Off-Broadway in 2008 and, due to its success, entered the pantheon of American theater with a… Read More ›
