By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK Before the curtain even rises at the Benedum Center, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream has already begun casting its spe…
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK Upon entering the George Rowland White Theater for CORNINGWORKS’ Foolish Assumptions, the audience is met by a sparse black-box arrangement: two black woode…
By GUILHERME YAZBEK Upon entering Attack Theatre for the informal showing of Jeanine Durning’s The Play presented in Pittsburgh this past Friday, one is met by a sparse scenic arrange…
By Guilherme Meletti Yazbek Presented over two evenings as part of Kelly Strayhorn Theater’s Freshworks program, A Conversation, by multidisciplinary artist LaTrea Derome, unfolded as …
By GUILHERME YAZBEK Yesterday, as I made my way to downtown Pittsburgh on the bus, I found myself trying to recall what I remembered about the musical Little Shop of Horrors. Not much, as i…
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK 5, 4, 3, 2, 1—lift off! This is not the much-narrated Apollo 11, nor is it the latest Artemis II mission. In fact, the subject here is not the renewed space ra…
By GUILHEREME MELETTI YAZBEK There is something inherently unstable about a mixed repertory program. Unlike a full-length work, which unfolds through a sustained aesthetic trajectory—devel…
Between dazzling spectacle and subtle reinterpretation, this revival reveals how even the most familiar fairy tales continue to evolve alongside the societies that keep retelling them. By GU…
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK Annie, for me, had long occupied that part of memory where many musicals live: works I know something about, but whose details have faded. Yet as soon as the hou…
By GUILHERME YAZBEK A tale as old as time is about to take over Pittsburgh. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast arrives in the city in a dazzling new North American tour—the first major U.S. …
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK Opening nights tend to be pleasant occasions, with warm audiences often made up of members of the creative team, family, and seasoned theatergoers. I have the imp…
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK Last night, at the wonderful Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, Maria Caruso’s Bodiography presented Intersections, a performance that—true to its name—stages enc…
By GUILHERME YAZBEK The Riverfront Theater Company is currently presenting the production that closes its Sapphire Season, celebrating the group’s impressive 65 years. Next to Normal pr…
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK Last night was Halloween, and arriving at the opulent Benedum Center was an experience in itself. Zombies, witches, and all manner of creatures roamed freely th…
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK Pittsburgh CLO’s production of The Rocky Horror Show, now running at the Greer Cabaret, delivers top-tier entertainment while adding its voice to the fight …
By Guilherme Meletti Yazbek This one-act play by multidisciplinary artist and actress Moire del Carmen is the result of a creative process developed during the Freshworks artist residency …
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK In This Moment celebrates the 15th anniversary of Texture Contemporary Ballet, and the company takes the stage with maturity and strong presence. Under the arti…
Nick Fradiani as ‘Neil – Then’ (center) and ‘The Noise’ in A Beautiful Noise The Neil Diamond Musical – (Image credit Jeremy Daniel) By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK Guilherme is a Br…
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK (Guilherme is a theatre actor, director, and educator currently pursuing a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.) I felt like an…
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK A community theater production marking Bruce Zewe’s debut as a playwright, with a simple and honest script well worth seeing. Last night, I went to see Coach a…
By GUILHERME MELETTI YAZBEK Guilherme is a theater actor, director, and educator specializing in actor training. He is pursuing a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of …
By MARIA SCIULLO Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is your onstage summer cocktail, an unabashedly silly musical by Jeffrey Lane (book) and David Yazbek (music and lyrics). Against a rum-punch-hu…
By Sharon Eberson It wasn’t a raucous crowd that welcomed Broadway back to Pittsburgh Thursday night. But then, the musical they were seeing wasn’t that kind of show. It was an appreciat…