Category: The Shaker

PITTSBURGH, PA (December 11, 2013)—After a sold-out, extended run last winter, City Theatre presents the encore production of South Side Stories, a vibrant, hometown adventure written and performed by Tami Dixon. Directed by Matt M. Morrow, South Side Stories is a City Events special presentation that will run in City Theatre’s Hamburg Studio from January 8–26, 2014, with performances Wednesdays through Sundays.

This one-woman show portrays the dynamism of a neighborhood. Embedded in the concrete of South Side’s city steps are testimonials of teenage mischief, steel mill toil, and townie haunts. This is a neighborhood where parking chairs mark territory and “paradise” is one turn off of 26th Street. Join us for the return of this audience favorite.

“I am interested in stories of survival,” says actor and playwright Tami Dixon. “For over 100 years the South Side was cast in the shadow of The Jones and Laughlin steel mill. The steel helped to build our country, and the mill defined this region, its people, and the culture. Now, with barely a trace of the mammoth structure left behind, the South Side continues to be home to families that descended from this industrial past. Living in the Slopes, I became curious about the neighborhood’s transition. I could feel the mill’s history burning beneath my feet. I could see it in the faces of my neighbors. The stories in this play are theirs—vivid, funny, poignant, and true.”

Tami Dixon’s local theatre credits include, South Side Stories, The Clockmaker, Marriage Minuet, The Missionary Position, and The Muckle Man with City Theatre; The Hothouse, Celebration, and Rock n Roll with Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre; The Task and El Paso Blue with Quantum Theatre; The Chicken Snake with The Rep; Metamorphoses with Pittsburgh Public Theater; and Midnight Radio, STRATA, Dutchman, Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, and Key to the Field with Bricolage Production Company. Ms. Dixon is entering her 9th season as Producing Artistic Director for Bricolage Production Company, which she runs alongside her husband, Jeffrey Carpenter. She is a recipient of a TCG/Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship and was named 2012’s “Performer of the Year” by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Most recently, Ms. Dixon received the 2013 Carol R. Brown Creative Achievement Emerging Artist Award from The Pittsburgh Foundation.

Tami Dixon and City Theatre are participants in the Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowships, funded by the William & Eva Fox Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group.

The original staged reading of South Side Stories was produced by City Theatre during MOMENTUM: new plays at different stages on June 4, 2011 with funding provided in part by The Fine Foundation, The Hillman Foundation, and generous donors to City Theatre’s Artistic Excellence Fund.

The world premiere of South Side Stories was commissioned and produced by City Theatre, November 10 – December 16, 2013, and enjoyed an extended run the following January.

The creative team for South Side Stories includes Tony Ferrieri (Scenic), Sylvianne Shurman (Costume), Andrew David Ostrowski (Lighting), Nathan Leigh (Sound), David Pohl (Projection), Carlyn Aquiline (Dramaturgy), and Sheila McKenna (Dialect).

CITY THEATRE PRESENTS

South Side Stories

Written and performed by Tami Dixon
Directed by Matt M. Morrow

When: January 8–26, 2014

Wednesdays at 7pm

Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm

Saturdays at 2pm and 5:30pm

Sundays at 2pm

Where: City Theatre, 1300 Bingham Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15203 (South Side)

Tickets: $35 to $55

Box Office: 412.431.CITY (2489) or citytheatrecompany.org

South Side residents receive $10 off by phone or at the Box Office. Must present valid ID with 15203 zip code. Tickets will be held at Will Call. One ticket per ID.

Season subscribers may purchase $30 tickets by phone or at the Box Office.

Groups of 10 or more are eligible for discounts.  Call Kari Shaffer at 412.431.4400 x286.

City Events is City Theatre’s annual series of limited engagement special presentations.

City Theatre is now in its 39th season. Located on Pittsburgh’s historic South Side, City Theatre specializes in new plays, commissioning and producing work by playwrights including Adam Rapp, Jeffrey Hatcher, Theresa Rebeck, and Christopher Durang. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Tracy Brigden, Managing Director Mark R. Power, and a 45-member Board of Directors, City Theatre’s mission is to provide an artistic home for the development and production of contemporary plays of substance and ideas that engage and challenge a diverse audience.  CityTheatreCompany.org

photo by Craig Thompson

“Would you know a miracle if you saw one?”

The Librarian in Glen Berger’s Underneath The Lintel doesn’t merely ponder this question, he is confronted by it – in the form of a library book returned 113 years overdue.

Randy Kovitz, as The Librarian, leads us through an existential detective story, an obsessive search for the library offender that takes him out of his orderly, insular world and on a globe-trotting, possibly quixotic quest. In the process, The Librarian discovers a string of “evidences,” some dating back thousands of years, finding connections to mysteries and myths, past and present, as well as his own dormant spirit.

Variety praised Underneath The Lintel, calling it “A theatrical miracle . . . a cosmic puzzle that makes The Da Vinci Code seem like a game of hide-and-seek” and “powerfully human and ultimately sublime”

Kovitz saw the author do a reading of it in New York in 2009, and knew immediately that he wanted to make it his own.

“The play spoke to me on a deep level as both an actor and a human being.  The central questions of life and death, purpose versus futility, are universal.  But the artistry of the writing makes it exciting and accessible.”

 

Underneath the Lintel performs February 5 – 26, 2014

At Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater,

937 Liberty Avenue, 3^rd Floor, Pittsburgh, PA  15222

Show dates:         Wednesday –Saturday, February 5 – 8, 8 p.m.

Thursday – Saturday, February 13 -15, 8 p.m.

Monday & Tuesday, February 17 & 18, 8 p.m.

Monday – Wednesday, February 24, 25 & 26 8 p.m.

*Monday, February 17 is industry, pay what you can night.

$15 / $10 with student ID at the door.

Tickets & Info: www.12peerstheater.org

 

About the Performer

Underneath The Lintel is a solo show, but it is hardly Kovitz’s first time alone on a stage. Pittsburgh theatregoers might remember his well-reviewed 2007 music and spoken word performance, Happy to Be Here and its 2009 follow up, Still Happy to Be Here.

In Los Angeles in the 1990’s, he fronted the spoken word band, Lies Like Truth, a legacy of his earlier one-man show, Grizly Cargo.

Kovitz grew up in California, but his Pittsburgh connections are strong. He attended Carnegie Mellon University and worked in several productions at WQED, appeared in Dawn of the Dead and Knightriders for George Romero, and was a member of the resident company City Players, now known as City Theater. After many years working in New York and Los Angeles, he returned to Pittsburgh in 2005, working in over 20 local productions in his first three years here.

Recently he has been active in film and television, appearing on Parks and Recreation, Supah Ninjas, The Fault In Our Stars and a number of homegrown projects, including his own short film Lightweight, which has won awards at several film festivals.

As a fight director, Randy stages violence for many theaters in town, as well as in film and video projects. Randy also teaches acting at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and leads intensive private acting workshops.

About the Playwright

Glen Berger is a prolific, Emmy and Ovation award-winning playwright, known most notably as Julie Taymor’s co-writer for the Broadway Musical adaptation of Spiderman. Lately he has been in the news for his tell-all book The Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History.

About the Company

12 Peers Theater was founded in 2011.  Taking the name from the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne, its mission is to provide challenging and engaging theater for Pittsburgh audiences. 12 Peers Theater highlights social, political, and ethical issues in classical and contemporary works exploring myth and cultural identity, endeavoring to open a dialogue with the audience.

12 Peers Theater presented a reading of Underneath the Lintel with Kovitz in June 2012.  On the strength of that reading and audience responses, Founding Artistic Director Vince Ventura and Producing Artistic Director Sara Fisher decided to include it this year in their third full season.

 

– barebones productions has a tradition of doing new and edgy plays.  And they hold to that tradition with their current offering The Motherf**ker With the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgus.

As evident from the title, the language is spicy, and this show is assuredly not for those easily offended.

Motherf**ker is a love story.  A depressing love story.  And it’s populated with five totally unlikable characters.

A recovering alcoholic named Jackie (Patrick Jordan) finds another man’s hat in the studio apartment of his cocaine-addicted girlfriend Veronica (Ruth Gamble), and the fireworks begin.

Before the play is over, Jackie will turn for help to his Cousin Julio (Leandro Cano), his AA sponsor Ralph D (Edwin Lee Gibson) and Ralph D’s wife Victoria (Daina Michelle Griffith).

Jordan, barebones founder and artistic director, gives a solid performance as Jackie.  Gamble’s Veronica lacks levels, so she comes across as a bitch.  Why does Jackie love her?  Hard to tell.

Cano has two memorable moments.  One is when he reveals his feelings about Jackie; the other recounts a powerful childhood memory.  In both cases, Cano overflows with powerful emotions, and he commands the stage.

On opening night, Gibson seemed to get tongue-tied throughout the performance.  The final scene he shares with Jordan seems to go on forever—but that’s not the fault of the actors or of director Rich Keitel, who has paced the play very well.

Griffith does the best she can with the badly underwritten role of Victoria.

The play switches quickly from location to location (Veronica’s apartment, Ralph D’s home and Cousin Julio’s place), and set designer Douglas McDermott does an outstanding job making those locations appear and re-appear.  Kudos to that hardworking stage crew who make the changes at a rapid-fire pace.

Lighting designer Andrew David Ostrowski also makes magic, giving each of the play’s locales a unique look.

Director Rich Keitel and his cast do their best, but they aren’t getting much help from this script.  Perhaps if playwright Guirgis had given one character worth rooting for, worth caring about Motherf**ker might be salvageable.  But as it stands, it’s not.

The Motherf**er With the Hat continues through December 7 at the New Hazlett Theater on Pittsburgh’s Northside.

– F.J. Hartland

Show runs Dec. 10-15 in Rauh Theatre at Pittsburgh Playhouse

PITTSBURGH – Point Park University presents an original, irreverent comedy, The Alchemists’ Lab, directed, written and devised by Gab Cody in collaboration with students of the Conservatory Theatre Company.

Under the master tutelage of seriously funny playwright, filmmaker and storyteller, Gab Cody, Point Park students have created a work never before seen anywhere. Ever. This amalgamation of wild characters, intricate storylines, improvisation and stand-up humor is loosely based on Ben Johnson’s comedy, The Alchemist, first performed in 1610, and twisted into a more contemporary satire. The wildly creative mind of Cody, a Point Park alum, fuels a theatrical experience not to be missed.

The Alchemists’ Lab opens Tuesday, Dec. 10 and runs through Sunday, Dec. 15, 2013.  Performances will be held Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. with one final show on Sunday at 7 p.m.  Tickets range in price from $18 to $20 and can be purchased by calling the Pittsburgh Playhouse box office at 412.392.8000, or online at www.pittsburghplayhouse.com.

The Alchemists’ Lab features an all-student design team. Scenic design by Deborah Thomas, costumes by Kelsey Bower, lighting by Mike Papinchak, and sound by Brittany Mellerson. Layden Jenson-Bunch is the stage manager.

Classically trained actor, improviser and standup comedienne Gab Cody uses her skills to create hilarious, yet thought provoking works, be they inspired by Commedia Del Arte, Nietzsche, 1930s screwball comedy or 1960s horror films. Her plays have been staged at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, New York City’s Urban Stages, as well as Bricolage Theater Company’s 24-Hour play festival B.U.S., and nonameplayers’ SWAN Day festival. Her full-length play Prussia: 1866 received a staged reading at The Workshop Theatre in New York in January 2011. Her film works include shorts, documentaries and many PSAs, and have screened at Greetings From Pittsburgh: Neighborhood Narratives, the Cleveland International Film Festival, NYC Horror Film Fest, San Francisco Independent Film Festival, San Francisco’s Disposable Film Fest, and 11/22 International Comedy Short Film Festival in Vienna, Austria. Her bilingual Franco-English play, Fat Beckett, received a full production in December 2011 at Quantum Theater in Pittsburgh and was named a Top 10 Production of the Year by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Cody served as lead writer on Bricolage Production Company’s immersive urban adventure, STRATA, which was named best play of 2012 by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.