Celebrate Juneteenth with the annual celebration Downtown, enjoy "Summer Fridays" at The Frick Pittsburgh or hear the iconic "Firebird" with the Pittsburgh Symphony — here's what to do in Pittsburgh this weekend.
Theater
Kinetic Theatre returns for its summer season, this year featuring two plays by David Mamet. First up is an early work, 1977’s “A Life in The Theatre.” It’s a comedy about the evolving relationship between veteran actor Robert (Pittsburgh stage luminary Sam Tsoutsouvas) and up-and-comer John (Joseph McGranaghan). Kinetic founder Andrew Paul directs, with performances Thu., June 13, through June 30 at the Rauh Studio Theatre, in the Cathedral of Learning.
Festival
The Western Pennsylvania Juneteenth Celebration returns Downtown for a full weekend of free live music and more, Fri., June 14, through Sun., June 16. Highlights include the big annual parade down Liberty Avenue, with grand marshall Master P. And there’s music all three days in both Market Square and Point State Park, with headliners like Arrested Development, Keke Wyatt, Stokley, Klymaxx and The Blackbyrds.
Music
The Frick Pittsburgh resumes its long-running monthly outdoor music night Summer Fridays with Make Music Pittsburgh. The evening features Vocal Confluence, an a capella group that performs a range of classic and contemporary jazz and pop songs primarily in a barbershop style. Vocalists from Homewood’s The Lighthouse Project perform at intermission. The free event includes food trucks and more on Fri., Jun 14.
Music
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra wraps its season with a program featuring renowned pianist Yefim Bronfman performing Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto and Stravinsky’s iconic Firebird. For hometown audiences especially, another highlight will be composer Michael Daugherty’s “Fifteen: Symphonic Fantasy on the Art of Andy Warhol,” inspired by the Pittsburgh native’s 1964 portrait of Elizabeth Taylor and more. There are three performances, Fri., June 14, through Sun., June 16.
Exhibit
A giant wooden dragonfly is just one of the new attractions this week at Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. The Oakdale arboretum’s woods and gardens host “David Rogers’ Big Bugs + Pollinators,” a pair of exhibitions that have toured the country for decades. Rogers works in carved wood and bent or assembled tree branches. An oversized bee, damselfly, spider and several sculptures more will inhabit the Botanic Garden Sat., June 15, through Sept. 15.
Film
“Come Back Baby” is something of a time capsule in black and white. Carnegie Mellon School of Drama student David Allen Greene shot the feature-length drama, featuring dozens of his classmates, in 1967, against the backdrop of Oakland’s South Bouquet Street and the Hill District, and landmarks like Forbes Field, the Cathedral of Learning and now-vanished steel mills. A rare screening Sun., June 16, at the Harris Theater, includes a post-film discussion with Greene, film historian Michael Prosser, and Pittsburgh Sound + Image’s Steven Haines.
