World-Premiere Comedy Draws Line Between Tinder & Art!

Milo de Venus is a world premiere play by Brian Pope, featuring local actors Joanna Getting, Hazel Leroy, Jalina McClarin, Max Reusing, and Mike Zolovich, and directed by Shannon Knapp. It is the inaugural production of a new theatrical collective Non-State Actors. In the play, a young artist (McClarin) spends money she doesn't have to pay for an art class from a famous local visual artist (Getting) only to find out that the man (Reusing) she has been messaging on Tinder is the class's model.

Milo de Venus is a comedic mashup of the classical and the millennial. Playwright Brian Pope says of the process "My goal with the script is to subvert the artist-muse complex I watched play out in shows like Sunday in the Park with George, not just by casting a woman in the role of the artist and a man in the role of the muse but also by bringing that conflict down to earth."

About the Company: Brian Pope (Playwright) is a Philadelphia-born and Pittsburgh-based playwright and theatre critic. He is a founding member of Non-State Actors, serving as the Literary Director. His plays Paper Trail and The Elephant Walk have been produced by Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, Yinz Like Plays?!, and Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. He also reviews local theatre for the online publication Pittsburgh in the Round.

Shannon Knapp (Artistic Director) is a Western PA native who has been making theatre in Pittsburgh since 2008, recently becoming Communications and Administrative Associate at Quantum Theatre. She also works as Volunteer Coordinator for Throughline Theatre and the Production Manager for folkLab: in our voices. Her passion is for the development and direction of new and devised plays because "the canon is representative of what we have inherited, but not necessarily of the future we can envision

Non-State Actors is a brand-new performance collective in Pittsburgh, PA which aims to be a laboratory for creating risky performances that are entirely new, devised, and/or local. Artistic Director: Shannon Knapp; Managing Director: Joanna Getting; Literary Director: Brian Pope; Marketing Director: Matthew Russak.