Visit the Mattress Factory during their half-price admission days, enjoy the classic "Romeo and Juliet" at the ballet or watch a new play about the Tuskegee Experiment — here's what to do in Pittsburgh this weekend.
Visual Art
Every Wednesday in February, Mattress Factory is offering half-price adult admissions from 4 to 8 p.m. That’s $11 per adult to experience four temporary room-sized art installations including Azza El Siddique’s haunting “Echoes to Omega,” two multi-room installations including Isla Hansen’s playful “How to Get to Make Believe,” and one house-sized work, Luke Stettner’s intriguing “State of the Sky.” Not to mention all the North Side museum’s long-term attractions, like Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Dots Mirrored Room.”
Theater
A new play about the infamous Tuskegee Experiment makes its Pittsburgh debut. For 40 years starting in 1932, the federally funded project in Alabama secretly withheld treatment from Black men infected with syphilis in order to study its effects. Layon Gray’s “Feed The Beast: The Tuskegee Experiment on the Negro Male” is staged by New Horizon Theater beginning Fri., Feb. 13, in Pittsburgh Public Theater’s Helen Wayne Rauh Rehearsal Hall. Performances continue through Feb. 23.
Dance
In 1996, shortly after becoming artistic director of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, Jean-Christophe Maillot debuted his new take on “Romeo and Juliet.” It’s since been performed some 260 times around the world. The ballet, which portrays the Shakespearean tragedy through the sympathetic eyes of the friar, focuses on the youthfulness of the star-crossed teen-age lovers. Pittsburgh Ballet stages a new production, with Prokofiev’s iconic score played by the PBT Orchestra. The four performances, Fri., Feb. 14, through Sun., Feb. 16, include Saturday and Sunday matinees.
Music
Musicians love telling stories. And some singular ones are sure to be shared at Late Night Stories: An Evening with Artist-in-Residence Ray Angry. MCG Jazz’s evening of conversation and performance with veterans of late-night TV bands is hosted by keyboardist and composer Angry (of The Roots and “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”) and features musicians from both the Colbert and Letterman versions of “The Late Show,” including guitarist Felicia Collins, bassist Will Lee and percussionist Joe Saylor. Two shows, an early set and a late set, are at the North Side’s MCG Jazz Concert Hall on Sat., Feb. 15.
Music
A concert this week reflects a unique collaboration between three culturally distinct Pittsburgh-based choruses. The CrosSING Bridges Concert features the Heritage Gospel Chorale, Coro Latinoamericano and the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh. The blend of Black choral music, music from Central and South America, the Caribbean and the Iberian peninsula, and the European classic tradition takes place Sat., Feb. 15, at Shadyside’s Third Presbyterian Church.
