Watch a ballet adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast," check out a new 24-hour play festival or celebrate "100 Years of Columbia Pictures" — here's what to do in Pittsburgh this weekend.
Film
Fans of classic cinema on the big screen should keep an eye on the Harris Theater over the next two months, as it rolls out the weekly series Celebrating 100 Years of Columbia Pictures. It starts Wed., Feb. 14, with the Valentine’s-appropriate 1934 screwball comedy “It Happened One Night,” with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. The series continues with one-night showings of “Boyz in the Hood” (Tue., Feb. 20), “Devil in a Blue Dress,” “On the Waterfront,” “Bridge on the River Kwai,” “The Last Picture Show,” and more.
Theater
The wrenching real-life story of a Black teenage girl who went missing inspired “Teaira Whitehead,” a new play by local playwright Melanie Taylor. The story follows three friends in 2014 whose school has been closed as they confront crime, racial injustice, and the turmoil of interpersonal relationships. The show, part of the New Hazlett Theater’s Community Supported Art series, gets three performances, Thu., Feb. 15, and Fri., Feb. 16.
Dance
A 300-year-old fable that’s been adapted for the screen by both Disney and Jean Cocteau clearly has some staying power. So does the ballet adaptation of “Beauty and the Beast,” set to a score by Tchaikovsky, which dates to 1958. Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre offers its own visually sumptuous new production of the classic love story. It gets eight performances at the Benedum Center over two weekends, Fri., Feb. 16-Sun., Feb. 25.
Opera
Pittsburgh Opera stages the local premiere of “Proving Up.” Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s 2016 chamber opera is based on a Karen Russell short story about Nebraska homesteaders in the 1870s whose lives of struggle take a supernatural twist. The production starring tenor Fran Daniel Laucerica and soprano Emily Richter gets four performances at the Bitz Opera Factory, in the Strip District, Sat., Feb. 17-Feb. 25.
Music
The Pittsburgh Symphony continues its PSO Disrupt series of informal concert experiences with “Re/Create: Disturb the Silence.” PSO Disrupt shows feature a relaxed atmosphere (including themed cocktails), an onstage host, and shorter run times. The Sat., Feb. 17, edition welcomes composer Katherine Balch and cellist Pablo Ferrández to Heinz Hall for a performance and discussion of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto.
Theater
It starts with actors auditioning in front of playwrights … to perform in their still-unwritten 10-minute plays. Next, the playwrights write overnight, and pitch their completed works to directors the next morning. Then the individual casts and crews have just a single workday to put it all together before the 8 p.m. curtain. Full-Day Suspension is the inaugural 24-hour play festival from Suspension Theatrical Arts, the in-house theater company at Mr. Smalls, where the show happens Sat., Feb. 17.
