By SHARON EBERSON The headline of The New York Times review declared: “ ‘Trouble in Mind,’ 66 Years Late and Still On Time.” That was in 2021, when Alice Childress’s 1955 play made…
By SHARON EBERSON Christopher Jackson was asking about place to eat and things to do in Pittsburgh, and suddenly, an idea painted a vivid picture: It was of the regal General George Washingt…
By SHARON EBERSON This year marks 20 years since the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report on clergy abuse. It also marks 40 years since actor Jay Sefton went from carefree 13-year-o…
Director Ron Daniels and historian Marcus Rediker recount the play’s journey to Quantum Theatre By SHARON EBERSON Side by side on the Zoom screen, avoiding icy streets and freezing tempera…
By SHARON EBERSON Three puppeteers morphing into one regal, fearsome Bengal tiger in Life of Pi requires harmonious teamwork, not unlike a band that has found its groove. The musical c…
By SHARON EBERSON Update on Saturday, January 18, 2025: The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust website has tickets on sale for a 7 p.m. show only. https://trustarts.org/production/98660/performance/9…
By SHARON EBERSON A magazine article that cast James Bond in a new light changed Christopher Rivas’ life. Vanity Fair wasn’t the first to write that Ian Fleming’s enduring 007 characte…
The search is on to replace artistic director, who will leave after seven years to ‘have a more expansive and personal response artistically to the world’ By SHARON EBERSON Marya Sea Kam…
By SHARON EBERSON Playwright August Wilson will be honored posthumously with the 2,799th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Tuesday, January 7, 2025 at 2:30 p.m. EST. Denzel Washington…
Barebones productions will kick off 2025 with Jay Sefton’s one-man autobiographical show Unreconciled, written by Sefton and Mark Basquill and directed by Geraldine Hughes. The play, in wh…
By SHARON EBERSON Amid a sea of 2024 A Christmas Carol adaptations on Pittsburgh area stages, for the comfort and joy of my own traditions, I chose a couple that began on Friday the 13th: …
By SHARON EBERSON The Bennet sisters and their beaus have some unfinished business to attend to, two years after the events of Pride and Prejudice. So ingloriously did Jane Austen make that …
By SHARON EBERSON It’s A Musical Christmas Carol for the hat trick, in Charles Shaughnessy’s 21-year journey with Pittsburgh CLO. The UK-born 5th Baron Shaughnessy, who most TV audiences…
By SHARON EBERSON On a celebratory night of songs and surprises, Front Porch Theatricals announced the company’s 2025 summer shows, both Tony Award rivals for best musical in 1984. They ar…
By SHARON EBERSON Everything old is new again isn’t just a saying this holiday season. It’s a promise of more of what has proven popular, and in one case in particular, a welcome back. …
By SHARON EBERSON Jed Harris had declared The Odyssey for Quantum Theatre as his directorial swan song … until he was lured back by a tantalizing title. The invitation to collaborate came …
Bricolage Productions’ Midnight Radio is set to burst back on the theater scene with Die Hard N’At, billed as a “Pittsburgh-ified holiday romp” that parodies the action film and pres…
By SHARON EBERSON For those of you who give jukebox musicals a general thumb’s down, even you might find yourself giving a high five to & Juliet. Star-crossed though they may seem, i…
By SHARON EBERSON Brothers Malcolm Washington and John David Washington were in the spotlight in Pittsburgh on Monday, as they asserted how meaningful it was from them to be in the childhood…
By SHARON EBERSON I thought I had every possible iteration of The Hobbit seared in my brain. Now I have to make room for another: Pittsburgh Public Theater’s mashup of clever staging, pupp…
By SHARON EBERSON Corey Mach was on a balcony in Charlotte, N.C., last week, looking out at a cloudless sky and talking about coming to Pittsburgh as William Shakespeare in the hit musical &…
By SHARON EBERSON Pittsburgh CLO’s 2025 summer just got one-production bigger with the announcement that it will present the premiere of Madame Clicquot: A Revolutionary Musical, a lead-in…
City Theatre ventures into spooky season this week, with the original Halloween storytelling event Ghosted: Tales from Carson Street, an immersive experience throughout the company’s South…
By SHARON EBERSON Black Angels Over Tuskegee, perhaps the best-known of works by Layon Gray, last week opened the 33rd season of New Horizon Theater, the writer-director-actor’s production…
Commentary By SHARON EBERSON It’s 10 days to Game Day No. 24 as I write this, and I’m feeling the pressure and the pride. I come to you today as producer of Pittsburgh’s 24th musical s…