Author Archives

  • 2026 Three Rivers Arts Festival Opens at Arts Landing

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    With 2026 Dollar Bank Three RIvers Arts Festival opening in its new Arts Landing home, the next phase of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Downtown renovations turn to Katz Plaza and the Byham and O’Reilly Theaters.

  • Alumni Theater Company Moves ‘Once on This Island’ From O’Reilly Theater to Oakland Venue

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    Alumni Theater Company has announced a venue change for its summer production of Once on This Island. Originally scheduled to be presented at the O’Reilly Theater, the production will now take place at the University of Pittsburgh’s Charity Randall Theatre.

  • Pittsburgh CLO Names Casts of 2026 Summer Musicals ‘Beautiful’ & ‘Mean Girls’

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    Pittsburgh CLO has announced the casts of productions for its 2026 summer season, a mix of frequent PCLO performers, Pittsburgh-based artists, and newcomers. After 80 seasons as the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, this is the company’s final season of locally produced professional musicals under that name. A new entity that combines elements of Pittsburgh Public Theater and Pittsburgh CLO will be announced in January 2027. Also this summer, PCLO also will presents the National Tour of Suffs, July 21-16, 2026.

  • Review: Bonkers ‘Pickleball’ Lands a Banger at Little Lake

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    REVIEW: “PICKLEBALL” at LITTLE LAKE SERVES UP LAUGHS.

    I took along a good friend who plays pickleball to see the Jeff Daniels satire about the sport, and nonstop laughter told me all I needed to know. “Pickleball’s” dinks and bangers aside, this madcap satire of the fastest-growing game in America serves as an endless vessel for sports obsession, skewed socialization, aches and pains, triumphs and catastrophes, with each measurable in seismic proportions.

  • A Converstation With Stephen Flaherty: Composer’s Ragtime’ Red-Carpet Ride Stops in Pittsburgh for Richard Rodgers Award

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    A CONVERSATION WITH “RAGTIME” COMPOSER AND DORMONT NATIVE STEPHEN FLAHERTY

    Coming home to accept the Richard Rodgers Award is “a big, beautiful arc,” Stephen Flaherty was saying just the other day. Catching up with Flaherty was no easy task – he and his songwriting partner, lyricist Lynn Ahrens, have been on a seemingly endless red-carpet ride with the acclaimed revival of “Ragtime” ahead of the 2026 Tony Awards on June 7. Flaherty will then head home to the Pittsburgh CLO Gala on June 12, when he will become receive the award that has been bestowed on an impressive list of luminaries, starting with Mary Martin in 1988.

  • A Brutal Week in Pittsburgh Theater Demands A Reset: Let’s Do Better

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    I have seen the fallout from mismanaging expectations and a lack of transparency when jobs are lost, and the rift it can create between people practicing their calling and those entrusted with their livelihoods. The team transitioning Pittsburgh Public Theater and Pittsburgh CLO into a single entity, as well as those performing a “strategic review” of Point Park University’s Pittsburgh Playhouse, chose to fire a whole bunch of people (three at the Playhouse) within a few days of each other, without providing any public-facing explanation.

    Did they think no one would notice?

    Here’s my plea: Le’s do better.

  • 14 Community Theaters Featured in Downtown Pittsburgh Showcase

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    An event titled Pittsburgh Community Theater Showcase seemed like a good time to check out the Dollar Bank Lobby Series at the O’Reilly Theater. The three-day showcase illustrates the possibilities of the series, announced by Pittsburgh Public Theater in February as “intimate performances and community‑centered events designed to bring fresh artistic voices into the heart of Downtown Pittsburgh,”

  • Review: ‘Working’ Musical Uncovers the Lives Behind the Livelihoods

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    The arrival of “Working,” the first of Front Porch Theatrical’s two summer musicals, marks a sign of the season that’s as sure and welcome as a robin is to spring.

  • Review: Campus Activism in 1969-70 Brims With Connections to Today in New Play

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    If you lived through the era of the Vietnam War draft lottery, the independent production of the new play, “Sixty-Nine — Seventy,” is sure to force a visceral reaction. As it pertains today, it is a study as to how the timeline of the “peace, love and war” era is knocking on the door of 2026.

  • Director Griffith Digs Into the Art of ‘Working’for Front Porch

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    Daina Michelle Griffith has memories of “Working” dating back to her college days, when her friend was performing in a Theatre Factory production of the musical. “I went out to see it and loved it,” recalls Griffith, who will direct the musical to lead off Front Porch Theatricals’ 2026 season, opening Friday, May 15, 2026. To take on Working, Griffith will direct back-to-back shows (next up is barebones productions’ “Our Dear Dead Drug Lord,” June 12-28, 2026. When Front Porch came calling, she thought she knew exactly what she was getting into – until it was explained that the show, conceived and first produced by Stephen Schwartz in the 1970s, was to be the 2012 revised version, updated with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

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