City Theatre

Labor Day heralds the start of the fall arts season in Pittsburgh. And in any other year, theater companies, dance troupes and other performing-arts groups would be preparing to pack indoor stages with performers, and fill seats with patrons.

But as with nearly everything else in public life, it’s all rather different in 2020.

On today's program: First-term state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta speaks at the Democratic National Convention; arts groups in Pittsburgh reimagine their productions during the pandemic; and the Pittsburgh Foundation organizes funds to help smaller nonprofits. 

The school-to-prison pipeline is the inspiration for a new show at Pittsburgh's City Theatre. Obie award-winning playwright Dominque Morisseau wrote PIPELINE to explore the disproportionate disciplining of minority students, which can put them on the pathway to eventual incarceration.

Each night, an old man that lives on a cliff fills up the moon with liquid light. He and his wife have been doing the same routine for so long, they’ve forgotten who they are and why they started filling up the moon in the first place.

Dressed in all black, Tamara Tunie stands on the stage of the City Theatre, which has been transformed into a supper club, complete with tables and candlelit lamps. She’s singing “Papa Loves Mambo.”

Most people know Tunie as Dr. Melinda Warner from “Law & Order: SVU,” but she wasn’t always solving TV crimes.

“A lot of people don’t know I have a degree in musical theater from Carnegie Mellon,” she says.

Singer-songwriter Benjamim Scheuer's critically-acclaimed, autobiographical, one-man show The Lion is currently onstage at City Theatre. Scheuer performed three new songs, "American Flowers," "Reykjavik" and "Williamstown" exclusively for Essential Pittsburgh. 

The Internet and television provide access to unbelievable amounts of art, all that can be experienced in the comfort of one’s living room, but is it stopping people from experiencing art at theaters and museums?

While marketing directors like City Theatre's Laura Greenawalt and Christian Cox of Pittsburgh Opera are aware of the challenges of getting folks to leave their home, both are constantly working to bring in new patrons.

Musical artist Benjamin Scheuer is no stranger to heartbreak. He lost his father early into his teenage years, suffered a difficult break up in his adulthood and was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer at the age of 28. For many, such intense trials would be enough to stifle their spark, but Scheuer decided to turn the bad into something good.

We'll go between the lines of City Theatre's four person on court drama that unfolds during the course of a tennis match between an aging American champion who is a cross between Pete Sampras and Tim Mayotte and a fiery young Russian. We'll talk with actors Danny Binstock and JD Taylor who portray the two players at the center of the story.

From the murderous Phantom in the musical Phantom of the Opera to the ex-convict Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, theater is notorious for making seemingly villainous characters appear sympathetic. But could anyone imagine feeling sympathy for an alleged Nazi war criminal? Some Brighter Distance, a new play premiering tonight at the City Theatre in the South Side, explores the possibility .

Some Brighter Distance tells the story of Arthur Rudolph, a German aerospace engineer who participated in Operation Paperclip, a post-WWII program in which scientists, technicians and researchers from former Nazi Germany were brought to the United States. Playwright Keith Reddin says Cold War-era American officials hoped these individuals would help the country achieve an edge over the Soviet Union in the Space Race.

Actress Judy Holliday played the dumb blonde in many films but in real life she had a genius IQ and outsmarted Senators engaged in a communist witch hunt. We'll talk with playwright Willy Holtzman and artistic director Tracy Brigden about creating the musical "Smart Blonde" based on the life of Judy Holliday and the world premiere production at the City Theatre.

While many kids spent the summer swimming, playing video games or going to camp, six area kids spent theirs working with theater professionals to produce plays they’d written.

City Theatre’s Young Playwright’s contest takes six works from middle and high school students in Western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia. The contest is in its 15th year, and this year’s selections were whittled down from more than 300 submissions.