The remarkable version of Jitney in Italian finished up three days of captivating sold-out Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre audiences on Sunday, ending a quick American tour that celebrated the years-long journey that carried the production from Vicenza, Italy, to August Wilson’s hometown.
Carl Kurlander led a University of Pittsburgh crew to Vincenza, Italy, in 2024, to document the first production of August Wilson’s “Jitney” in Italian. With that production arriving in Pittsburgh this coming Friday, May 8, presented by Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre and the August Wilson House, Kurlander shares his experiences chronicling the production with onStage Pittsburgh.
onSTAGE PITTSBURGH WEEKLY CALL BOARD
Stephen Flaherty to receive the Richard Rodgers Award, presented at the Pittsburgh CLO 80th Anniversary Gala in June!
MORE MUST-SEE PITTSBURGH for April 29, 2026
With news about Actor Matt DeCaro, Pittsburgh Youth Symphony, John Noble’s Night of the Stars, New Horizon Theater’s ‘Motown Extreme,” Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre reading, and more.
In Ty Greenwood’s powerful new drama, “Paradox of Education,” a group of Black students discover that scholarships to a PWI — predominantly white institutions — come with student debt, living up to academic expectations and piles of obligations, along with shouldering racially-charged, passive-aggressive encounters and outright hostility.
Produced by Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, in a dynamic directorial debut by Maurice Redwood, the play comes out of the gate swinging, and doesn’t let up.
Writer Ty Greenwood and Director Maurice Redwood Connect on Work Inspired by James Baldwin By SHARON EBERSON Few works on Pittsburgh stages have deeper roots within the city limits than Ty Greenwood’s Paradox of Education, directed by Maurice Redwood, and… Read More ›
onStage Pittsburgh presents the top 15 local theater stories that captured readers’ imaginations in 2025. Festivals and activities roundups were big draws, along with exits and entrances, legacy prospects, and bold, new experiences. A few late-in-the-year stories continue to have… Read More ›
With news about the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, ‘Wicked,’ Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company and more. PITTSBURGH CULTURAL TRUST NAMES INAUGURAL CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER: JSAON WITZBERGER Pittsburgh Cultural Trust President and CEO Kendra Whitlock Ingram announced that Jason… Read More ›
A Dinah Washington Christmas, a combination of beloved Christmas songs, a celebration of the “Queen of the Blues,” and nod to the jazz heritage of the Hill District, had its debut on Thursday in the festively decked out cabaret space at Madison Arts Center. The show on opening night was held up for a short time, in anticipation of the arrival of the playwright, Ernest McCarty. Mark Clayton Southers, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company’s founder and artistic director, learned later of the passing that night of Mr. McCarty, 84. (Condolences to the McCarty family and friends. Details to come.)
Mark Clayton Southers kicked off opening night of Two Trains Running by announcing that everyone present was now a part of history: Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company was about complete a second round of all 10 plays in the August Wilson American Century Cycle. As history-making goes, Saturday was a night of two plays running in the Hill District, where Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson spent his formative years, and where he set nine of his plays, one in each decade of the 20th century, about the Black American experience. Two Trains Running, representing the late 1960s, a time when the Civil Rights Movements and Black Power were in full swing, is at Madison Arts Center in the Upper Hill, through August 30, 2025. Fences, set in 1957, can be seen outdoors in the Lower Hill, at the August Wilson House, through September 6, 2025.
Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company and the August Wilson House have made it official, setting the schedule for a 2025 three-play summer festival, titled August Wilson’s American Century Cycle Experience. with Stephen McKinley Henderson scheduled to direct “Fences.”
