1,755 stories by "Ghoover"
By Eva Phillips Obsession and compulsion are curious things. Often, there is an ascetic sterility that’s assumed—fastidiously organizing all the marginalia of one’s existence so nothin…
By Eva Phillips Dungeons and Dragons (D&D, colloquially) has achieved and maintained a level of popularity, notoriety and infamy since its creation in 1974 that is just as grandiose as t…
By Cayleigh Boniger With the resounding success of the U.S. Women’s soccer team and their dramatic win of the World Cup, Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan have become household names. But wh…
By Brian Pope Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The patriarch of a white (usually Southern) family dies. This tragic inevitability sets his family (primarily his adult children) on …
I don’t believe there was a more viscerally tempestuous and discombobulated time in my young life than when I was fully immersed in team sports. Questionably coordinated and ravaged by …
Pittsburgh Opera’s “Second Stage Production,” always a sure sign that spring is around the corner, and this year Peter Hilliard and Matt Boresi’s The Last American Hammer, will have …
Once more, Shammen McCune is immersed in an iconic Shakespearean role. In 2017, McCune portrayed Lady Capulet in PICT Classic Theater’s Romeo and Juliet. In 2019, she inhabited Caliba…
By Eva Phillips Selling audiences on a musical that delves into the excruciating morass a woman traverses as she faces grief, mental illness, a stymied marriage, and a romance, of sort, with…
As is customary once its current season is at the midway point, Pittsburgh Opera has made public details on the works to be presented during the next season – the company’s 82nd. The l…
On exceptionally rare occasions Pittsburgh hears the premiere of an opera. Operas in English translations are more common. But it’s a safe bet that the English language premiere of The …
By Eva Phillips Let’s not beat around the bush here (yes, that’s a hair pun right off the bat, but I think it’s the apropos mood for the show)—HAIR is fundamentally chaotic. Which is…
Next up at Pittsburgh Opera is George Frideric Handel’s Alcina – a baroque work that, while centuries old, is anything but “time honored.” The opera (“Alcheenah” to American spea…
2019 was a preponderance of things: chaotic, joyous, concerning, impeaching, meteorologically unpredictable, mournful, hilarious, and so on. But in the sea of adjectives, expletives, and oth…
By Eva Phillips There’s an inescapable dread and ennui that comes with the holiday season. If the despotic demands to buy the best gifts, prepare the best meals, and have the best life-cha…
By Eva Phill;ipsWe exist in a remarkable sort of renaissance for musical theater. Indeed, the past 10 to 15 years has been characterized by an abundance of shows that successfully marry the …
By Eva Phillips It is surprising how a horrific accident or cruel twist of fate can catapult a career. Just ask Buddy Holly, or Lynyrd Skynyrd, or Otis Redding. Or ask the strapping young la…
By Eva Phillips Transcendentalism undergoes many changes as humans evolve. Whether this transcendentalism manifests the thirst to conquer the elements by mastering a flying apparatus, or dev…
By Brian Pope The timeless compositions of Alan Menken have been the heartbeat of many memorable musical tales dealing with the themes of duty, love, and morality. Should Ariel abandon her f…
By Eva Phillips The ways girls behave and the things they do to one another within the overwhelming hives of school, their social structures, and their own minds is the source of great, and …
By Eva Phillips In remarks discussing the nature of violent and racist language, Claudia Rankine cited the post-structural linguistic semiotics of fellow intellectual Judith Butler, stating,…
By Eva Phillips Harper York, not unlike two infamously fabled star cross’d lovers, had a feverish, impassioned vision that she was driven to bring to life. Thankfully, unlike those two lov…
By Eva Phillips Maybe Sweeney Todd isn’t being egregiously hyperbolic when he says there is a place in the world full of shit called London. The plague looms heavy; perfidious law-makers a…
Shakespeare’s Will. Perhaps the two-word title of Quantum Theatre’s autumn 2019 production sums up what many people think they know about the playwright’s wife. That very document and …
Saturday evening, November 9, will mark an important milestone in the long history of Pittsburgh Opera, when the curtain goes up on Florencia en el Amazonas, the first-ever Spanish-langua…
By Eva Phillips I first encountered Lisa Kron’s remarkable, one-person “show,” 2.5 Minute Ride, as a referential framework characteristically unconventional mechanisms through which qu…
