OFF THE RECORD XXVI: ONE SINGLE YINZER NATION!
Shameless Plug About What We’ve Been Doing for Love for 26 Years!
Warning: This is a commentary promoting a show that onStage Pittsburgh’s Sharon Eberson has been involved with over the course of many years. Miss it at your peril of avoiding a night filled with music, fun and solidarity, all for a good cause.
“RENT,” the smash hit rock musical that launched Sewickley native PETER MATTHEW SMITH to Broadway, brings him home later this month, to direct the show for the second time in his hometown. When BDE Productions’ Michael Greer and Vince Tresco (directed by Smith for PMT in 2010) asked him to direct “Rent” in its 30th anniversary year, Smith’s answer was a resounding, “Yes!”
‘RENT’ AT THE GREER
The Greer Cabaret continues asthe Downtown place to be for locally produced musical revivals. Coming up in September: BDE Productions rents the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust venue for “Rent,” directed by Peter Matthew Smith.
‘BOOK OF MORMON’ BROADWAY STAR KIM EXUM MAKES PITTSBURGH DEBUT AS THE GODDESS OF LOVE IN ‘ONCE ON THIS ISLAND’
Exum joins her childhood friend Monteze Freeland in the Alumni Theater Company production.
A CHAT WITH “SUFFS” TONY-NOMINATED DIRECTOR LEIGH SILVERMAN
The graduate of Carnegie Mellon’s BFA Directing and MFA Playwriting programs, and an intern for Pittsburgh CLO in 1994 — “We did The Music Man with Gary Sandy, and just a variety of really amazing musicals that we mounted in seven days,” she recalled — is known for the dozens of new works she has directed on and off Broadway.
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.
With news about Throughline Theatre, Jimmy Awards, Throughline’s Living News Festival, CLO’s Beautiful, SQUONK at the Three Rivers Arts Festival 🎭 ICYMI THROUGHLINE THEATRE’S LIVING NEWS FESTIVAL IS BACK! Breaking news from Throughline Theatre Company: The Living News Festival returns… Read More ›
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.
Nominations for the 79th TONY AWARDS showcase the Pittsburgh theater community’s contributions to Broadway, including 11 nominations for the revival of Ragtime. Composer Stephen Flaherty, a Dormont native, won the 1998 Tony for Ragtime’s musical score, and will receive the Richard Rodgers Award on June 12, five days after the 2026 Tonys ceremony, at Pittsburgh CLO’s 80th Anniversary Gala.
For his performance in the current revival of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by August Wilson, Ruben Santiago-Hudson earned a nomination as Best Featured Actor. He previously won a Tony in that category, in 1996, for Wilson’s Seven Guitars. The play’s five nominations also included Best Costume Design, for Paul Tazewell.
For more local ties and full list of Tony Award nominees, read👇
Mark Fleischer will leave as executive producer of Pittsburgh CLO after its 80th summer season in 2026, and take a co-leadership role, with Patrick Cassidy, at Studio Teen Theatre Company in Franklin, Tennessee.
