'Burgh Vivant

Preview is April 10, show runs April 11-19 in Rauh Theatre

PITTSBURGH – Point Park University’s Conservatory Theatre Company closes its 2013-2014 season with a production of John Millington Synge’s classic Irish comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, April 11-19 in the Rauh Theatre at the Pittsburgh Playhouse.

Performances will be at 8 p.m., Thursday through Saturday, and 2 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. Please note, there will be no performance on Easter, April 20. Instead, there will be a performance at 8 p.m., Wednesday, April 16. Tickets range 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. There will be a preview performance at 8 p.m., Thursday, April 10, with tickets discounted at $12. Patrons can take advantage of the “Pay what you will” performance at 2 p.m., Saturday, April 12, subject to availability.

Directed by Kim Martin, The Playboy of the Western World is set in the early 1900s in a country tavern, where Christy Mahon hilariously enjoys his celebrity amongst townsfolk while, unbeknownst to him, the truth will soon be revealed. When this play first appeared on stage in 1907, it started the Playboy Riots in Dublin and, years later, more controversy in its 1911 New York appearance.

Martin has directed The REP’s productions of Becky’s New Car, The Lonesome West, and Mojo. A graduate of Point Park University, Martin has directed, acted in, and stage-managed more than 150 productions. Some favorites include Glengarry Glen Ross, Guys & Dolls, Drinking in America, Deathtrap, The Dumb Waiter, Annie, La Ronde and Three Sisters. Martin is the Director of Production at the Playhouse, and serves as an adjunct faculty member instructing students pursuing a technical theatre degree.

The Conservatory Theatre Company’s production features scenic design by Gianni Downs, costumes by Joan Markert, lighting by Scott Nelson, and sound by Steve Shapiro.

Pittsburgh, PA • March 24, 2014 –Pittsburgh CLO is pleased to announce the return of the off-Broadway sensation, Dixie’s Tupperware Party, to the CLO Cabaret September 4 – October 12, 2014. Tickets go on sale Thursday, March 27 and start at $34.75.  Purchase tickets online at pittsburghCLO.org, by calling 412-456-6666 or at the Box Office at Theater Square.

About the Show

Not Your Grandmother’s Tupperware Party!
Dixie Longate, the fast-talking Tupperware Lady, packed up her catalogues, left her children in an Alabama trailer park and took Pittsburgh by storm in 2012! Now, join Dixie as she returns to Pittsburgh to throw a good ol’ fashioned Tupperware Party filled with outrageously funny tales, heartfelt accounts, FREE giveaways, audience participation and the most fabulous assortment of Tupperware ever sold on a theater stage. Loaded with the most up-to-date products available for purchase, see for yourself how Ms. Longate became the #1 Tupperware seller in the U.S. & Canada as she educates her guests on the many alternative uses she has discovered for her plastic products!  Recommended for adult audiences.

Group Sales & Special Events

Pittsburgh CLO has designed special group discounts and corporate ticket programs to accommodate any size group.  Interested parties should call Group Sales at 412-325-1582 or email Groups@pittsburghCLO.org to learn more about these fantastic opportunities.

Dixie’s Tupperware Party Performance Schedule

Wednesdays    7:30pm
Thursdays        1:00pm* & 7:30pm * Thursday matinees – 9/25, 10/9
Fridays            7:30pm
Saturdays        2:00pm & 7:30pm
Sundays          2:00pm

Tickets

Tickets start at $34.75 and are available online at CLO Cabaret.com, by calling 412-456-6666 or at the Box Office at Theater Square. Groups of 10 or more can call the Group Sales Hotline at 412-325-1582 to learn more about special discounts, priority seating and corporate discounts. Visit CLOCabaret.com for more information.

2014 CLO Cabaret Series

Dixie’s Tupperware Party joins the world premiere of Judge Jackie Justice, Now – April 27 and Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash, May 22 – August 17  to complete the 2014 Cabaret Series.  Three-Show Cabaret Series Subscriptions are on sale now and can be purchased for $100 by calling 412-281-2822. 

Media members may also access photos and other show materials by visiting the Press Room at pittsburghCLO.org. When prompted, simply enter “pressroom” as the username and “pittstadium” as the password.

Directed by Tomé Cousin, show previews March 20, runs March 21- April 6 at Pittsburgh Playhouse.  Photo by Jeff Swensen.

PITTSBURGH – The REP, Point Park University’s professional theatre company, continues its compelling 2013-2014 season with Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage’s Hollywood satire, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark.

Directed by Tome’ Cousin, the show previews Thursday, March 20, and runs Friday, March 21 – Sunday, April 6, in the Studio Theatre at the Pittsburgh Playhouse, 222 Craft Ave. Performances are 8 p.m., Thursday – Saturday, and 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Tickets range from $24 to $27; preview tickets are $15. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Pittsburgh Playhouse box office at 412.392.8000, or online at www.pittsburghplayhouse.com. Patrons can take advantage of the “Pay what you will” performance at 2 p.m., Saturday, March 22, subject to availability. New in 2013-2014, The REP’s Talkback series, where the audience is invited to stay after the performance and discuss the show, has been moved to the matinee performance on the second Saturday of every show. For By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, the Talkback session will be held after the 2 p.m. performance on Saturday, March 29.

Vera Stark is a budding actress in an era where the only roles for African-American women are maids. When she is cast in the same Southern epic as her employer, an aging star grasping at her dwindling career, sparks fly. By the Way, Meet Vera Stark is a hilarious satire of race in the glamorous days of Old Hollywood.

The REP’s production of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark features Maria Becoates-Bey as Vera Stark, Kelly Trumbull as Gloria Mitchell, Bria Walker as Lottie/Carmen, Corinne Scott as Anna Mae/Afua Assata Ejobo, Tru Verret-Fleming as Leroy Barksdale/Herb Forrester, Jeff Howell as Fredrick Slasvick/Brad Donovan, and Andy Kirtland as Maxmillian Von Oster/Peter Rhys-Davies. Scenic design by Britton Mauk, lighting by Andrew David Ostrowski, sound design by Steve Shapiro, and costumes by Don DiFonso. Caitlin Roper is the stage manager.

Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ruined premiered at Manhattan Theatre Club and Goodman Theatre (OBIE, Lucille Lortel, New York Drama Critics’ Circle, Audelco, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play).  She won the 2010 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award, Horton Foote Prize for Outstanding New American Play (Ruined), and Helen Hayes Award (Ruined). Her other honors include the 2007 MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant, National Black Theatre Festival’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, 2005 Guggenheim Grant for Playwriting, and the 2004 PEN/Laura Pels Award for Drama.

Point Park University graduate Tome’ Cousin is an internationally recognized director, choreographer, educator, performer and creator of musical theater works, ballets, films, new opera, song cycles and art installations, as well as a published author. Cousin has appeared on Broadway in Contact, A Free Man of Color, and Dreamgirls, national tours of Dreamgirls, My One and Only, and A Chorus Line, and internationally in Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity (Switzerland), The Who’s Tommy, La Cage aux Folles, Starlight Express, and Tabaluga und Lilli (Germany). He serves as the directing supervisor for original director/choreographer Susan Stroman’s Tony Award-winning musical Contact, having staged 12 companies worldwide including premieres in Hungary, Korea and Poland. In 2007-2008, he directed the revival of the Susan Stroman, David Thompson, Harry Connick Jr. musical, Thou Shalt Not, at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Last season, he co-directed/co-authored the workshop revival of June Havoc’s Marathon 33 (M33), at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Cousin teaches at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama and has been commissioned by the estate of the famed Harlem Renaissance photographer James VanDerZee to create and direct an original new multimedia opera based on his life and works.

“Gripping” —The New York Times

“A searing piece of writing”—The Guardian

“Compelling and provocative” —San Francisco Chronicle

Directed by Jenn Thompson

March 29 – May 4, 2014

PITTSBURGH, PA (March 17, 2014)—City Theatre continues its 2013-2014 season with Grounded, a high-intensity drama by George Brant. Directed by Jenn Thompson, Grounded runs from March 29 to May 4, 2014 in City Theatre’s Hamburg Studio, with an Opening Night performance on Friday, April 4 at 8pm.

This powerful one-woman show follows a gutsy fighter pilot whose unexpected pregnancy puts her career on hold. When she gets back in the game, flying has a whole new meaning: operating remote-controlled drones in Afghanistan from an air-conditioned trailer near Las Vegas. Hunting terrorists by day and being a wife and mother by night, the pilot’s struggle to navigate her dual identities is her toughest mission yet.

“Grounded is a riveting drama filled with powerful storytelling about the dualities of war and family,” says Tracy Brigden, City Theatre’s Artistic Director. “Both relevant and original, George Brant’s award-winning script tackles issues of surveillance, drones, and the ambiguities of warfare in the twenty-first century. This vivid play demands a strong female actor who can own the show, and we’re thrilled to welcome Kelly McAndrew back to perform. Last seen at City in Precious Little, Kelly embraces commanding roles with intensity and authenticity.”

Kelly McAndrew returns to City Theatre, having last been seen in 2011’s Precious Little. Most recently she has been seen Off-Broadway in Almost, Maine (Transport Group) and Good Television (Atlantic Theatre Company). On Broadway, she played Maggie the Cat in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Additional Off-Broadway credits include: Still Life (MCC), The Cataract (The Women’s Project), and Book of Days (Signature Theatre). Other New York theatre credits include: My California (Here Arts), Greedy (Clubbed Thumb), Topsy Turvey Mouse (Cherry Lane Mentor Project), Trout Stanley (Culture Project), Lyric is Waiting (kef productions). Recent regional credits include: Other Desert Cities (The Guthrie), Good People (Pittsburgh Public), August: Osage County, Alive and Well, Dividing the Estate, and Sight Unseen (The Old Globe). Other regional theaters include: ART, Huntington, Cincinnati Playhouse, Denver Center, Shakespeare on the Sound, Arena Stage, Baltimore Centre Stage. TV: “Smash,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Gossip Girl.” Film: Appropriate Behavior (Sundance 2014), In the Family (2011 SPIRIT nomination), Everybody’s Fine (with Robert DeNiro), Superheroes, New Guy, Out of the Darkness. Training: UMKC. Member: TACT.

George Brant’s plays include Elephant’s Graveyard, The Mourners’ Bench, Any Other Name, Salvage, Grizzly Mama, Three Voyages of the Lobotomobile, and Dark Room. A Core Writer at the Playwright’s Center, his scripts have been produced internationally by Trinity Repertory Company, the Studio Theatre, the Gate Theatre of London, Cleveland Play House, Page 73, and the Traverse Theatre, among others. He has received a Kennedy Center National Playwriting Award, the Smith Prize, an Edinburgh Fringe First Award, a Creative Workforce Fellowship, an NNPN Rolling World Premiere, two OAC Individual Excellence Awards, and the Keene Prize for Literature. He has been awarded writing fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the McCarter Theatre Center, Blue Mountain Center, the Djerassi Resident Artist’s Program, and the Michener Center for Writers. He is published by Samuel French, Oberon Books, and Smith & Kraus.

Grounded features Kelly McAndrew as the Pilot. The creative team includes Anne Mundell (Scenic), Sabrina Zain (Costume), Martin Vreeland (Lighting), Toby Algya (Sound), and Larry Shea (Projections).

CITY THEATRE PRESENTS

Grounded

By George Brant
Directed by Jenn Thompson

When: March 29 – May 4, 2014

Preview Schedule

Saturday, March 29 at 5:30pm

Sunday, March 30 at 7pm

Tuesday, April 1 at 7pm

Wednesday, April 2 at 7pm

Thursday, April 3 at 8pm

PRESS / OPENING NIGHT

Friday, April 4 at 8pm

Regular Run Schedule

Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7pm

Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm

Saturdays at 5:30 and 9pm

Sundays at 2pm

Weekday matinees will be performed on Wednesday, April 9 and Wednesday, April 16 at 1pm.

There will be no performances on Wednesday, April 30 and Thursday, May 1.

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

Tickets: $35 to $55

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

Audiences under 30 may reserve $15 tickets in advance for all performances except Fridays 8pm and Saturdays 5:30pm. On Fridays and Saturdays, rush tickets are available two hours prior to show time and based on availability.

Seniors age 62 and older may purchase $22 rush tickets at the Box Office beginning two hours before show time. Based on availability.

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

As a participating Blue Star Theatre, City Theatre offers 25% off to U.S. military personnel, veterans, and their immediate families. Inquire for details.

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 Daniel Beaty, Jessica Dickey, Christopher Durang, Michael Hollinger, Willy Holtzman, Tarell McCraney, and Theresa Rebeck. 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

by Michael Buzzelli, ‘Burgh Vivant contributor

A one man show is a lot like eating an apple. If the first bite is mushy and tasteless, you’re stuck with it. It’s not going to get any better. The Pittsburgh Public Theater’s production of “An Iliad” is a crisp, clean bite. More than that, its ambrosia; it is the food of the gods.

The one man show rests on the shoulders of one performer, Teagle F. Bougere (always use the middle initial to distinguish him from all the other Teagle Bourgere’s out there). Luckily, Bougere has broad shoulders.

“An Iliad” was written by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare, with a little help from Homer.

Teagle F. Bougere as The Poet in AN ILIAD.  Photo:  Pittsburgh Public Theater.

Homer is known by one name (like Cher). He may not have even been a real person, but the Iliad is attributed to the storyteller, real or fictitious.  Peterson is a real, she is the former resident director to Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum.  O’Hare is also a real, but he is best known for his fictitious identities such as the Vampire King of Mississippi, Russell Edgington, in television’s “True Blood,” and Dr. Sevard from the Oscar-nominated “Dallas Buyers Club.”

The playwriting duo worked from Robert Fagles translation of the Iliad, an epic poem of the horrors of war, written with lyrical beauty. Metaphors spill out like the blood of a freshly-stabbed Trojan soldier.

The show is directed by Jesse Berger, Artistic Director of NYC’s Red Bull Theater, and known to Pittsburgh audiences as the director of “Circle Mirror Transformation” and some other Public shows. Drachmas to donuts, “An Iliad” will be a defining moment in his career.

“An Iliad” is a story of war and remembrance. It’s a story of heroes and villains. Actually, it’s the story of the Olympian gods playing chess with living pieces. All the mortals suffer with trauma and grief, pain and death.  The gods are most definitely crazy.

It begins on a near-barren stage. It looks like the Production Stage Manager, Fred Noel, and Assistant Stage Manager, Kelly Haywood, weren’t finished constructing the set. The Poet (Bougere) trod on a, dare I say, Spartan stage. After a while, the seemingly random location, a dilapidated warehouse, becomes an integral centerpiece.

Before he recants his tale, he invokes the Muses, and bids them to aid him in the telling of his story. After seeing the entirety of the play, it can be easily assumed that the Muses smiled upon him.

The Iliad is an epic poem, a story about the final days of the nine-year Trojan War. The protagonist does not take sides. He talks of heroes both Trojan and Greek; the virtuous Achilles and righteous Hector.

Our poet does not speak in dactylic hexameter, but the modern cadence of an American storyteller like Spalding Gray. This version of the Iliad is more Moth than myth. It’s both funny and tragic in a way all good stories are.

There is a long moment when the Poet recites the names of wars fought around the globe. It’s a somber diatribe about the human condition. It seems to go on for far too long, and then you realize, that’s exactly the point. Wars go on and on, from the sea of Troy to the French-Indian War, the Korean War, to Afghanistan and back again; a continual battle drum beating rhythmically as steady, constant and unknowable as the human heart.

The play is history and literature combined with masterful stagecraft. It is a stunning performance. Bougere is amazing, transforming into warriors, kings, gods and goddesses before your eyes.  His Achilles is a commanding force of nature; his Priam is grief-stricken old man; his Hermes is fleet and fey. It is a song that should be sung in schools, educational and dramatic; a great work for the ages.

Go to “An Iliad” and let the Poet take you on a sensual odyssey.

“An Iliad” runs from April 6 at the O’Reilly Theater, 621 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA.

For more information, tickets and pricing contact the Pittsburgh Public Theater at www.ppt.org

 Teagle F. Bougere as The Poet in AN ILIAD.  Photo:  Pittsburgh Public Theater.