onStage – It’s been a bumpy road to get to the best-of list, with a forecast of potholes and promise for the foreseeable future. So fasten your seatbelts, and let’s go.
If achievement were assessed solely in artistry, then certainly 2024 was, by any measure, a very good year for Pittsburgh theater.
It was also a year when theater-makers pushed hard against the challenges of mounting a live show in the pandemic After Times, employing innovative programs, fruitful partnerships, community outreach and creative practices
I’ll start with Pittsburgh CLO. With Mark Fleischer leading the way, the region’s musical theater giant has been most transparent about the company’s financial struggles and continually trying new ways to stay afloat. For summer 2024, PCLO got creative with a six-show season in Downtown Cultural District venues large and small, and introduced childcare and shuttles from suburban locations in an effort to boost patronage.
However, challenges persist, and loyalists have made it clear that they prefer summer shows in the Benedum Center. Now entering its 78th year, Pittsburgh CLO has announced a three-show subscription season for summer 2025, all at the Benedum, plus a world premiere musical at the Byham Theater.
It’s worth noting that, besides their always high-quality productions, PCLO produced two of my favorite moments of 2024: The Wizard of Wicked, Jeff Goldblum, and the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra at the Benedum, and the star-studded, heartfelt tribute concert, Shirley Jones: A Gala Celebration of her Life, Career, and Legacy.
While PCLO is taking steps to ensure its future in Pittsburgh Cultural Trust venues, a couple of other tenants have moved to neighborhoods outside the Golden Triangle: Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre is ensconced in a home of its own, Madison Arts Center in the Upper Hill District, where in addition to plays, Mark Clayton Souther’s company has hosted music and comedy nights.
His former Downtown downstairs neighbor, Bricolage Production Company, has regrouped and is breaking ground next year on a performance space in Wilkinsburg’s Community Forge.
They are among the signs that, while prominent regional theaters from North Carolina to Los Angeles have closed or been in flux since the pandemic shutdown, Pittsburgh has maintained a mind-boggling wealth of choices when it comes to spending your entertainment dollars — with seemingly more every day. In addition to long-established companies and artists, at least once a month throughout the year, I have received a request for coverage and/or funding attention for startups and one-offs in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
While some are looking to entrench as neighborhood staples, Quantum Theatre has succeeded for 34 seasons by operating without a performance space of its own. Founder Karla Boos knows its adventurous audience will follow her company anywhere it lands, from a shooting range at Longue Vue Country Club to the uppermost reaches of the Union Trust Building.
Quantum delivered the production and performance that tops my best-of list: Melessie Clark’s richly realized portrayal of Josie Hogan in A Moon for the Misbegotten, staged in a picturesque setting overlooking the Allegheny River.
Before I get to that, one more digresssion is a necessity, to celebrate a feat shared by City Theatre and Pittsburgh Public Theater. Both turned 50 this year, with what I feel is relatively little — too little — fanfare.
The Public in 2024 presented New Horizon Theater at the O’Reilly Theater, hosted the national August Wilson and local Shakespeare monologue contests, and created a fellowship program for aspiring theater critics, among other initiatives.
In 2024, City Theatre celebrated the 25th anniversary of its Young Playwrights Festival, looked back with the City Rewinds reading series, and announced a co-commission for a new version of Little Women, by prolific and popular playwright Lauren Gunderson.
Changes are afoot on the South Side, with Marc Masterson having retired and co-artistic director Monteze Freeland leaving City in June, to take charge of Alumni Theater Company. So stay tuned.
Consider this a bravo not just to those turning 50 and those mentioned below, but to all those who, in the best and worst of times, pursue excellence and enrich our lives with arts and culture.
BEST OF PITTSBURGH THEATER IN 2024
Melessie Clark, with Brett Mack, in A Moon for the Misbegotten
for Quantum Theatre. (Image: Jason Snyder)
1. Quantum Theatre’s A Moon for the Misbegotten. I was so taken with Melessie Clark’s performance and this production, staged against a verdant hillside, that I returned to see the final show. The retelling with Black actors playing father (Wali Jamal) and daughter enhanced Eugene O’Neill’s’ tale of love and loss, forbearance and perseverance, with a cast including Brett Mack as the doomed James Tyrone, directed by Cody Spellman. Clark, known mostly as a musical theater actress, balanced strength and vulnerability, humor and heartbreak in the classic American tale. The haunting view of Mack ascending spotlighted steps in the night was a beautiful melding of creativity and environment, a trademark of Quantum productions.
