1,750 stories by "Ghoover"
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…
It’s 2016, America. A time of vigilant political correction, when we can look at the follies of our past faux pas and indict our recent ancestors for insensitivity. That’s the game, …
It should be noted, in all fairness as a spectator, that I walked into The Red Masquers production of Avenue Q with a profoundly intense ardor for the quirky—at times aberrant—…
I’m Gonna Pray For You So Hard is a play about a genius playwright father and his daughter, an aspiring actress who cares for him. The potently acted drama is a bit like David Auburn’s P…
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 e…
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…
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 dem…
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? D…
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 ce…
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 tha…
There is a certain acuity and adroitness in presentation and delivery that must be fostered in order for one act plays to be successful. To conceive of a one act play—a scenario, a colle…
In the past few years drag culture has begun to stake its place in the public eye. Drag queens have, of course, been around forever but shows like Rupaul’s Drag Race have provided recent i…
I stumbled upon a conversation rather surreptitiously the other day at a coffee shop, feigning productivity and industriousness, that centered around theatre and its import to those ensconce…
It’s especially moving to revisit this particular geography—a place once so painful, and so overwhelming, and to so tangibly get to recognize the distance one travels in life, especially…
Longevity and loyalty weave strong bonds, so as the venerable Pittsburgh Savoyards begin their 79th season, it’s clear to one of Pittsburgh’s longest running companies. When it comes to …
At last, our hot and humid dog days of summer are yielding to fall, bringing with it quite an interesting range of offerings for musicals in the Steel City this season. We’ve got a bit of …
To open its 78th season, Pittsburgh Opera will present the first of four performances of Verdi’s tuneful warhorse, La Traviata, on October 8, at 8:00 p.m. at the Benedum. The work is well …
A letter from the Editor, To our fantastic readers, We’ve done it; we made it through another Pittsburgh summer. Summer 2016 was a very big season for us. Not only did we review 34 shows a…
Shakespeare. What a hack, right? He forms a few couplets; uses iambic pentameter as a parlor trick; creates a convoluted plot a la Larry David that utilizes misunderstandings, unjustified …
It’s a new day and a new venue for PICT Classic Theatre. “If you want immediacy, you have to change,” says Artistic and Executive Director Alan Stanford. Now the 19-year-old company mo…
This Saturday marks the beginning of the 12th annual Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks show; this year, they’ll be presenting one of Shakespeare’s earliest comedies, The Comedy of Erro…
True confession: I wasn’t initially thrilled at the prospect of attending a two and half hour musical about a man trapped in a cave in rural Kentucky. To me, the premise was dubious at bes…
On a rainy Sunday I sat down with Pittsburgh New Works Festival (PNWF) director, Lora Oxenreiter. A board member for well over a decade, Lora instantly began talking about the time commitm…
There is a certain, almost ineffable, quality of striking mimesis that courses through the entirety of The Summer Company’s staging of Christopher Durang’s 1978 bizarrely (at times even …
Audacious drag queens, a surreal reimagining of The Tempest, the devastatingly pointed Harriet Beecher Stowe slave narrative, and the indomitable grimy charm of a deaf and blind pinball wiza…
