Pittsburgh Playhouse Spring Virtual Season Announced

Point Park University's Pittsburgh Playhouse plans to continue to offer one-of-a-kind virtual productions this coming spring with the continuation of Here. Now. Next!, building on the wildly inventive body of productions this fall. The spring will include bold and provocative theatre and dance productions, the popular Dance Speaker Series, and a reimagined Media Innovators Workshop & Speaker Series. The dance productions are generously sponsored by UPMC.

"Our students, staff, faculty and creative teams are creating and producing work unlike any other artistic institution in the country," said Steven Breese, Pittsburgh Playhouse Artistic Director and Dean of the Conservatory of Performing Arts. "We are boldly breaking the boundaries of what it means to present performances online. In turn, we are giving our creative teams, students, staff and patrons unforgettable experiences."

THEATRE & DANCE PRODUCTIONS

Pittsburgh PlayLab: A New Play Reading Series

@ the Pittsburgh Playhouse - Stage Struck

Broadcast: March 6 - 7

By Tracy Brigden

Bram Stoker, author of the Gothic masterpiece, Dracula, spent much of his career in service to the British Theatre's most famous leading man, the actor/manager of the London's Lyceum Theatre, Henry Irving. Together, Irving and his leading lady, Ellen Terry, ruled the London stage for the later part of the 19th century. Stage Struck follows Stoker through his years with Irving and Terry while interweaving the story of a different troupe of players in the 1980s downtown theatre scene as they navigate the sex, drugs and rock and roll of that golden era of NY theatre to mount a production of Dracula. The two worlds collide in theatrical ways and reveal that a life in the theatre is both fraught and joyous in any century.

ChoreoLab 3

Broadcast: March 10 - 14

Sponsored by UPMC

Conservatory dance students and faculty collaborate in the choreographic process to create incredible works that showcase the creative and innovative brilliance of seasoned professionals and budding young artists ranked among the best in the nation.

Dead Man's Cell Phone

Broadcast: March 10 - 14

By Sarah Ruhl
An incessantly ringing cell phone in a quiet café. A stranger at the next table who has had enough. And a dead man - with a lot of loose ends. So begins Dead Man's Cell Phone, a wildly imaginative comedy by MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Ruhl. A work about how we memorialize the dead - and how that remembering changes us - it is the odyssey of a woman forced to confront her own assumptions about morality, redemption, and the need to connect in a technologically obsessed world.

Polaroid Stories

Broadcast: March 10 - 14

By Naomi Iizuka

A visceral blend of classical mythology and real-life stories told by street kids, Naomi lizuka's Polaroid Stories journeys into a dangerous world where myth making fulfills a fierce need for transcendence, where storytelling has the power to transform a reality in which characters' lives are continually threatened, devalued and effaced. Iizuka's Polaroid Stories takes place on an abandoned pier on the outermost edge of a city, a way-stop for dreamers, dealers and desperadoes, a no-man's land where runaways seek camaraderie, refuge and escape. Serpentine routes from the street to the heart characterize the interactions in this spellbinding tale of young people pushed to society's fringe.

Student Choreography Project

Broadcast: March 17 - 21

Sponsored by UPMC
A creative variation of the live performance, this fresh, new take will feature the works and the dancers of tomorrow performed today.

Dance Nation

Broadcast: April 28 - May 2
By Clare Barron

Somewhere in America, an army of pre-teen competitive dancers plots to take over the world. And if their new routine is good enough, they'll claw their way to the top at Nationals in Tampa Bay. A play about ambition, growing up, and how to find our souls in the heat of it all, Dance Nation was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and heralded by The New York Times as "A blazingly original play... marvel at how close what you see cuts to the bone."

Passing Strange

Broadcast: May 5 - 9

Book and Lyrics by Stew; Music by Stew and Heidi Rodewald

Created in Collaboration with Annie Dorsen

Fresh, exuberant, funny and full of heart, this daring musical event takes us on a journey across boundaries of place, identity and theatrical convention. Part musical theatre, part rock concert, part performance art, Passing Strange traces the creative life of a young bohemian who charts a course for "the real." Loaded with soulful lyrics and overflowing with passion, the show takes us from black middle-class America to Amsterdam, Berlin and beyond on a journey towards artistic and personal authenticity.

ChoreoLab 4

Broadcast: May 12 - 16

Sponsored by UPMC

Conservatory dance students and faculty collaborate in the choreographic process to create fresh, incredible works that showcase the creative and innovative brilliance of seasoned professionals and budding young artists ranked among the best in the nation.

Guests for the Spring 2021 Dance Speaker Series and Media Innovators Workshop & Speaker Series will be announced soon. As of now, the Media Innovators Series is initially planning two workshops: Emerging Tech in Journalism on Feb. 17 and TikTok 101 on March 24; additional events will be announced in early 2021.

Tickets are on sale now - visit pittsburghplayhouse.com for updates.

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