I remember the first time in my life I asked a question that had no satisfactory answer. I was maybe, 11 and asked a buddy at school something about why other kids made such a big deal about school dances,… Read More ›
FallwithPITR
The Fantasticks
Try to remember a time when you were young and in love. You had a certain mindset for how the world would be: you’d fall in love, get married, and live out years and years in perfect bliss. Then reality… Read More ›
La Traviata
Pittsburgh Opera’s 78th season opened Saturday night with the first of four performances of Giuseppe Verdi’s perennial La Traviata. First performed in Venice in 1853, the opera today holds its own as probably the most popular and frequently produced lyric… Read More ›
Hand to God
Meet Tyrone: a puppet on an evil mission in the small town of Cypress, Texas. City Theater’s production of Hand to God is Pittsburgh’s premiere of Robert Askin’s Tony-nominated play. For imagination alone, Askins deserved that nomination. For outrageousness and… Read More ›
The Toxic Avenger
Do you remember The Toxic Avenger? A cult film from the eighties about a little nerd who gets drenched in chemicals and becomes a violent, deformed mutant hero? Bad production value but an excess of gore, camp, and ridiculousness? You… Read More ›
PNWF Program D
One of Pittsburgh’s most treasured annual events, the Pittsburgh New Works Festival has successfully bestowed upon us another year of marvelous original work! I had the pleasure of viewing their fourth round of original one-acts at the lovely Carnegie Stage… Read More ›
The Censor
Often disheartening fodder for plays, films and other creative works, the concept of a world in which art is subjected to critical sanitization and scorning approval from a dispassionate demagogue is one which reasonably breeds discomfort and queasy responses. Perhaps… Read More ›
Next to Normal
Mental health is a tricky subject to approach in storytelling. Do you try to solve the depression of a character, and risk pulling all the weight out from under your story’s credibility? Do you try to define the core of… Read More ›
PNWF Program C
I am consistently impressed by unique staging techniques, and each of the three short pieces at the New Works festival managed to pack a unique idea into a small running time. While it is certainly not mandatory for playwrights to… Read More ›
Beauty and the Beast
There is a certain uncanny valley effect to the popular theatrical adaptation. The more well-oiled productions of a play there are, the less vital the story will feel. This is not to say that a heavily retold story loses its… Read More ›