By Eva Phillips A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is one of those shows that vividly proves that the Greco-Romans of the B.C. era really knew how to live with drama nerd flair. …
On Tuesday night I had the pleasure of seeing Pittsburgh CLO’s opening night performance of Rock of Ages. A campy, jukebox musical featuring hit 1980s rock`n`roll anthems from artists such…
Pittsburgh Festival Opera is wrapping its summer season with Scandals and Schicchi, and its premiere last evening was received enthusiastically by a pleased and cheering crowd. It’s import…
By Casey Cunningham How do you save a person who doesn’t want to be saved? How do you convince a person that life is worth living when life has never once been kind? Is it nobler, (to para…
By Eva Phillips Pittsburgh Classic Player’s A Streetcar Named Desire is not an easy thing to sit through. This is in no way a reflection on the quality of the show as a whole—which is ex…
It is Paris in the 1960s, love is zooming through the air – and so are planes. Bernard is a bit of a playboy with his American, Italian, and German flight attendant fiancées. He likes to …
By Eva Phillips There is an embarrassing truth that should be addressed before I embark on a review of Stage 62’s Mamma Mia! I could write about Mamma Mia! in my sleep—not just because o…
The first performance of Wagner’s epic The Valkyrie was given last night by Pittsburgh Festival Opera in the Falk Auditorium at Winchester Thurston – an abbreviated, spliced version t…
By Eva Phillips Mob bosses. Murderous fathers. Ill-fated romance. Deceit and chicanery. Florida. Moliere. If these somewhat incongruous elements seem like a combustive recipe for intrigue an…
In looking at popular media from the last fifty years, you’d be forgiven for thinking every single high school in America is an inescapable hellscape where the popular students are mercile…
The Love of Danae (Die Liebe der Danae), an opera in three acts from the later years of Richard Strauss’ long and illustrious career, was presented last night as the opening performance of…
Tennessee Williams is a master of diffusely permeating the social consciousness and cultural lexicon. His inimitable style is why his works are held in the esteemed canon for theatre and fil…
It’s hard to delve into a review of a play with a title as bold and salacious as Apple Hill Playhouse’s latest, Sex Please, We’re Sixty! I mean, just look at that title. Both def…
In 1999, at the zenith of my adolescent paranoia that was fixated on the imminent cataclysm of Y2K, a film called Blast From the Past spoke to me and my fretfulness. The film centered around…
Mystery, mentalist Mark Toland notes in his new show Mind Reader, is in fairly short supply these days. After all, most of us carry infinitely-knowledgeable computers in our pockets; at a m…
Electra, a one-act tragedy by Sophocles, explores the story of Electra that has been passed down for generations beginning in ancient Greece. It all goes back to Tantalos, a son of Zeus w…
Pittsburgh Festival Opera, our local “Intimate Opera Theater,” has added much to the summers’ musical offerings for some years now, and the ambitious company’s new season begins F…
This past weekend I had the opportunity to see Pittsburgh CLO’s Oklahoma!. You may be familiar with the current production on Broadway that recently won Best Revival at the Tony Awards.…
A stunning cast and handsome designs support the retelling of superbly satisfying adventure with one of the most popular detectives, Sherlock Holmes. He is quite at home on the Charity Ra…
By Linda Harkcom Last weekend I was assigned to cover Split Stage’s production of Titanic The Musical at The Lamp Theatre in Irwin. I’ll admit that I didn’t know much about the show, o…
By Eva Phillips Gone with the Wind was the perfect storm of an unfathomably successful novel, insatiable industry hype, and the biggest names (and egos) in Hollywood in one tempestuous press…
A Letter from the Editor, Well, y’all, we’ve fought our way tooth and nail to the golden promise land of Summer. The Spring saw some phenomenal changes and growth for all of us at PGH…
Monsters are real. Danger can happen. And theatre as we know it will never be the same. Don’t fret. This isn’t some Orson Welles-esque announcement warning of Godzilla’s doomed fora…
Pittsburgh is a city that is proverbially filled to brim with theatre companies and artistic collectives. Which is by no means a gripe—that there are well over twenty theatre companies, a …
Kinetic Theatre is one of the few companies in Pittsburgh that prospers on the nomadic model. Helmed by tireless and resourceful Producing Artistic Director Andrew Paul, who has directed all…