Author Archives

• Inclusion and the Unknown: Pittsburgh Fringe Festival 2018

  By Mark Skalski on March 5, 2018

  “I guess I’d call it…an interactive Bingo comedy.” I’m sitting at a coffee shop in the North Side, typing away at first draft of my coverage for the 2017 Fringe Festival, which (for me) began with Joey Buchecker’s Betsy Carmichael’s… Read More ›

• A Space to Subvert: The New Hazlett Theater’s Community Supported Art Fall Season

  By Mark Skalski on September 4, 2017

  Theater is essential for its immediate nature, and for its ability to exist suddenly and without warning by people left out of pop-cultural conversations. For a few of my friends, the theater is something different, a fun but limited part… Read More ›

• Finding New Solutions in Old Problems: Pitt Stages’ Upcoming Season

  By Mark Skalski on August 21, 2017

  For an extraordinary variety of reasons better cataloged elsewhere, it is a confusing time to be a young person in America. Thanks to a blame game-y media environment, one needs only type in the phrase “Millenials Are Killing” into Google’s… Read More ›

• Unpredictable Treasure: The Fringe Fest Day 3

  By Mark Skalski on April 5, 2017

  The conclusion of my Fringe Festival experience took place in the chilly Artist’s Image Resource building, a small yet colorful space dotted with anti-Trump art pieces. I would be seeing 5 completely disparate one person shows here. As with the… Read More ›

• Apocalypse, Adventure, Sex, and Bingo: A Fringe Odyssey

  By Mark Skalski on April 4, 2017

  As a first time attendee and critic of the Pittsburgh Fringe Festival, I had a certain set of expectations in terms of tone for the shows I was about to see, expectations that were exploded immediately. Rather than a series… Read More ›

• The New In The Mythical: 12 Peers Theater’s Latest Season To Seek Unity In Discord

  By Mark Skalski on February 27, 2017

  Artistic director Vince Ventura and Literary Manager Matt Henderson of 12 Peers Theater do not want you to feel as if you’re on familiar ground once you leave their upcoming shows. While we were speaking about the theater’s newest productions,… Read More ›

• Community, Celebration, and Risk Taking: McKeesport Little Theater’s Fall Season

  By Mark Skalski on September 6, 2016

  The culture of a theater is dictated by hundreds of elements, one of the most significant of which is its size. Any theater worth its merit has a soul, a family, a crew, and, not insignificantly, usually a ghost. The… Read More ›

• Student-Run Red Masquers to Push Boundaries in Upcoming Season

  By Mark Skalski on August 21, 2016

  Red Masquers, Duquesne University’s theater program and Pittsburgh’s longest running amateur theater begins a new season this fall with a host of new productions. Besides several brand new student productions, the theater will be putting on several notable contemporary plays,… Read More ›