Author Archives

  • A Night to Cherish: Pittsburgh CLO Concert Salutes 80 Years of Musical Theater

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    PITTSBURGH CLO 80th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT: ONE BRIEF SHINING MOMENT

    During a nostalgia packed night — including the honoring of former CLO intern Stephen Flaherty, the award-winning composer of “Ragtime” — the end of an eight-decade era was mentioned several times, as well as the hopes for the future in combination with Pittsburgh Public Theater. Wisely, the night was focused on the local musicians and performers who have graced stages from Pitt Stadium to the Melody Tent to the Civic Arena to every stage in the Downtown Cultural District, plus Heinz Field.

  • Review: Throughline Theatre’s Living News Festival, Where Fiction Tweaks the Truth

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    When truth is stranger than fiction, in a playwright’s hands, it can go a few steps further into bizarro world, or find a pathway to grounded reality. Such is the case of the third annual Living News Festival, a Throughline Theatre Company creation that distributes local news stories to six Pittsburgh playwrights, who each write a 10-minute play, ripe for production. The results are currently being presented at Carnegie Stage through Sunday, June 14, 2026.

  • barebones’ Quartet of Newcomers Summon ‘Our Dear Dead Drug Lord’

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    The cast of “Our Dear Dead Drug Lord,” the “ferocious, darkly funny” coming-of-age play opening this weekend at barebones productions, answer questions about their first professional production, women working with women in theater, and more. The Alexis Scheer drama at the Braddock Black Box theater, June 12-June 28, 2026 is set in a treehouse, where a quartet of teens tries to summon the ghost of Pablo Escobar.

  • Manfred Honeck Set to Become Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Longest-Serving Music Director

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    MANFRED HONECK SIGNS PSO CONTRACT EXTENSION THROUGH 2032-33.

    Manfred Honeck will become the longest-serving Music Director in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s 131-year history, after signing a contract extension that takes his tenure to 25 years, through the 2032-2033 season. 

  • The Shows Will Go On at Carnegie Stage

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    GREAT NEWS OUT OF CARNEGIE!

    Claire DeMarco has put her money where her theater dreams are, and partnered with theater artist and administrator Erika Cuenca to save Carnegie Stage, that vital black box at 25 W. Main Street in Carnegie. 
    “My hope,” DeMarco said, “is that it will remain a theater forever.”

  • 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.

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