Johnstown, PA native and Brooklyn, NY based actor, writer Dan Ruth returns to the Pittsburgh area with his multi-award-winning, critically acclaimed black comedy solo work, A Life Behind Bars, at Carnegie Stage in Carnegie, PA this coming October 24th, 25th and 26th at 8pm. The tour-de-force show performed to sell-out houses in Pittsburgh earlier this year.
A Life Behind Bars was the critically lauded winner of the 2018 "Producer's Encore Award" at Hollywood Fringe Festival in Los Angeles, the 2018 "Best Spoken Word Artist" winner by the Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs, the 2018 winner for "Outstanding Solo Play" by the NYC Bistro Awards and the winner for "Best Autobiographical Show" at the 2016 United Solo Festival.
Fermented in over two decades of working and surviving in the dives and bars of New York City, A Life Behind Bars is an unapologetic, funny and transcendent tale of what can happen when you reach for the stars but grab for the bottle instead. Dan Ruth brings A Life Behind Bars to life through comedic monologues; interwoven with characters he's encountered while working and drinking in the bars and dives of pre-Giuliani Brooklyn and Manhattan. A Life Behind Bars is directed by multi-MAC and Bistro Award winning Producer, Director, Tanya Moberly.
A Life Behind Bars was first developed with David Drake's Solo Show Shop at the The Abrons Center in 2014. Ruth performed A Life Behind Bars to a single sold-out audience on December 19th, 2015 at Dixon Place in NYC in their main stage space and later went on to mount sold-out performances at both The Gutter Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and at Theatre Lab in Richmond, Virginia in April and May of 2016 before bringing the show to The United Solo Festival and The Laurie Beechman Theatre in 2017.
As Ruth continues to book A Life Behind Bars throughout the country and in festivals around the world, he's writing a new solo piece as well as directing other artists, including Mary Goggin, the winner of the "Best Storyteller" Award at the 2018 United Solo Festival and singer-actress, Andrea Bell Wolff.
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