Nov 17 2009
Every demographic speaks in its own cultural shorthand. For instance, if a woman says, “I went on a date last night. He was very Mr. Spock,” a huge number of people will imagine the guy’s personality, (and maybe his ears), because they are familiar with the Star Wars phenomenon. More selective would be the understanding of the saucy riposte, “That’s what she said,” but it will be instantly recognizable to fans of TV’s “The Office.” So what do you make of director Ted Pappas’ off-the-cuff description of The Little Foxes as Agamemnon meets “Dynasty” meets Hello Dolly? Think about it a minute. There’s a wealth of artistic history and pop culture experience packed into this brief statement that sums up the play currently onstage at The Public! In case you don’t “get” it, here’s Ted’s explanation: “The comparison to Agamemnon is fairly obvious,” he says. (Well, as long as you know the premise of this greatest of Greek tragedies by Aeschylus.) “A wife eagerly awaits a husband’s long overdue return to their home, but for a sinister purpose,” Ted says. As for the “Dynasty” reference, you have to have seen, or at least heard of, the infamous 1980s prime time soap opera. “The characters in ‘Dynasty’ engage in the same squabbling and quest for power and money that characterizes the Hubbard family in The Little Foxes,” Ted explains. OK, that makes sense, but Hello Dolly? “And of course in Hello Dolly everyone wears spectacular clothes and makes grand entrances for the sheer delight of the audience,” Ted concludes. What more could you ask for: delicious deception, family feuds, and a fashion show all rolled into one great evening of theater. For a more standard description of the show and tickets, visit www.ppt.org
Oct 21 2009
Pittsburgh Public Theater these days is buzzing with activity. Yesterday, director Ted Pappas welcomed the cast of The Little Foxes to their first rehearsal. The morning Meet ’n’ Greet had the atmosphere of a class reunion because so many of the actors have worked together before. Sitting side by side were Helena Ruoti and New Yorker Michael McKenzie, who had played brother (Creon) and sister (Jocasta) in The Public’s Oedipus the King. In The Little Foxes they are husband and wife, in a marriage made in hell that could only come from the deliciously wicked pen of Lillian Hellman (who never married). Lara Hillier, who moved to New York after graduating from Carnegie Mellon last spring, is back as their daughter, Alexandra. Lara was in Metamorphoses here last season and her image as part of the “kissing birds” has been all over The Public’s Dream Big advertising campaign. Another Little Foxes couple, John Shepard as Oscar and Deirdre Madigan as his wife Birdie, appeared together in The Public’s Mary Stuart. In this role Deirdre gets to nip at the Southern Comfort, but you’d drink too if you were married to him. Deirdre’s much nicer real husband, Ross Bickell, is here to play wily business man Ben. Making their O’Reilly Theater debuts are Linda Haston, Wali Jamal, Chris Landis, and Phil Winters. While The Little Foxes is just gearing up for its Nov. 12 first preview, Ella is in full swing – literally. Audiences are pouring in for this swinging bio-musical about Ella Fitzgerald and loving every minute of it. If you haven’t yet caught Tina Fabrique and her band, there are just 15 performances remaining. Ella runs through Nov. 1. For tickets to either show call 412.316.1600 or buy online at ppt.org.
Aug 13 2009
If you regularly attend plays at Pittsburgh Public Theater, you appreciate the quality of talent seen onstage. You might not realize, however, how much talent is behind the scenes. Mindy Miller Gregory, who works in the costume shop, and wardrobe master Kari Kramer, are two of The Public’s most accomplished backstage staff members. On Saturday, August 22, both women will get the chance to step into the spotlight when their clothing designs are included in Synergy, a big fashion show and multi-media event taking place at the Meter Room in Pittsburgh’s West End.
Kramer’s line is called IronNiece and her specialty is wearable art. The six dresses she’s showing at Synergy, made mainly from repurposed fabric, are more sculptural than useful. “They’re hugely impractical,” she says. “You can’t even sit down in them!”
MMG by Mindy Miller Gregory will feature inspiration bourne out of pulsating creativity. “These glamorous outfits are not your everyday office-wear,” she says. “They blur the lines between life and theater.”
The models will be an eclectic mix of sizes, such as curvaceous Becky Rickard. “I get to wear a supercool poofy bubble creation by MMG that is definitely different than my usual clothing,” she says.
In addition to IroNiece and MMG, nine other designers will show their work: Marmalade by Marissa Miskanin, Artful by Virginia Phillips, Eltamia by Angelica Joy, tvuseeme by e.p. baker, Suz Pisano, Vivifie by Jennie McCulloch, Brian David, Zoe Collins, and Sew Addicted by Angela Fec. Luxx and Salon Nuvo will do hair and makeup.
There will also be performances by Pillow Project and Sadiqa Bellydance; music by Ishtar, Nadina, Kellee Maize, DJ Mad Tom Brown and Teagarden Sound; and visual art by Johnross, Merissa Lombardo, Jesse Riesmeyer, and Katherine Young.
The Meter Room is located at 2637 Chartiers Avenue (go past the West End Bridge on Carson, turn left on Corliss Street, which becomes Chartiers, and it’s a half-mile on your left). Doors open at 8 pm, performances begin at 9 pm, and complimentary refreshments will be served. The suggested donation is $12. If you have questions, email synergyfashionshow@yahoo.com.
Aug 04 2009
Tickets went on sale this morning for The Public’s big season opener, Ella, and it’s gratifying that the phones are ringing and the Internet is buzzing with people interested in the show. Selling Ella in Pittsburgh is kind of a no-brainer. First of all, we’ve always been a jazz town, so having the chance to see a bio-musical about Ella Fitzgerald, the First Lady of Song, is something people are jumping on. Secondly, the press for the show and its star, Tina Fabrique, has been amazing. Not only are the reviews glowing, but the usually snarky trade magazine, Variety, recently ran the piece “Ella Enchants Regional Theaters” (click here).
If you read the story, you’ll probably recognize the name of the show’s co-creator, Rob Ruggiero. Rob has directed a diverse range of plays at Pittsburgh Public Theater, including Rabbit Hole, Anna in the Tropics, Lobby Hero, and The Subject Was Roses. In 2005 he came up with the idea for Ella, which Variety calls “the little show that could, racking up big numbers across the country.”
Sales figures aside, it will be fun to have Rob return to The Public. And while it’s always good to welcome back old friends, it’s a real thrill to make new ones. That’s the case with First Niagara Bank, which is generously presenting Ella. Although the financial services company is 139 years old, it’s doubled in size over the last five years and will enter the western Pennsylvania market in September.
Ella, featuring an ensemble of six actor/musicians, runs at The Public Oct. 1 – Nov. 1. On Fri., Oct. 2, smoking hot percussionist George Jones and the New View Trio will perform in the main lobby as part of TGIF. For tickets, go to www.ppt.org or call 412.316.1600. While you have someone on the phone, ask about the dream deal on subscription packages because, after all, Ella is just the beginning.
Jul 07 2009
Last week the O’Reilly Theater lobby was filled with old tires and used car parts. No, Pittsburgh Public Theater hasn’t opened an auto repair shop. It was just the load-out of Harry’s Friendly Service, which concluded its very successful run on June 28. “I was delighted that the show seemed to move so many people,” said playwright Rob Zellers. Both Rob and director Ted Pappas attended the final performance, and then on Monday were back at their desks, where work for next season is in high gear.
This week the theater’s lobby is filled with students. During the day, Amy Landis is leading an improv workshop for kids aged 13 through 17. On Tuesday night, Lisa Ann Goldsmith is teaching an acting class with 14 adults which continues through July 28.
Next week, Lisa Ann’s work will double (double toil and trouble) when she begins a three-week Shakespeare Intensive with 17 teenagers that will culminate with a performance of Macbeth. If you’d like to see what the students can do (with sound and light by The Public’s master electrician Evan Stein), stop by The O’Reilly at 7 pm on Friday, July 31. It’s free and should be a bloody good time.
Also free at The O’Reilly is a performance by Joy Ike and her band on Friday, July 17 from 6 to 8 pm. The Public is opening its doors (and bars) that night to be part of Downtown’s big Gallery Crawl sponsored by The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. In addition to the music, you can register to win prizes the Box Office will be open for some great ticket offers. Be sure to bring your credit cards!
Speaking of the Box Office, summer hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 5:30 pm. Stop by and get your subscriptions so you won’t miss a thing next season.
Jun 19 2009
There are only a dozen performances left of Harry’s Friendly Service, the big world premiere at Pittsburgh Public Theater written by Rob Zellers and directed by Ted Pappas. There are lots of reasons to see the show: authentic writing full of humor and heart, first-rate acting by a cast of seven, and a story that feels like it could have been ripped from today’s headlines. But Harry’s is set in 1977, so that means “period” costumes by Martha Louise Bromelmeier and hairstyles by Sherry Deberson that might look over-the-top – except that’s how people were actually dressing some 30 years ago.
“My wig should take its own bow,” said Brooks Almy, an actress you are likely to recognize from numerous TV appearances and is here to play Tina, the ex-stripper of a certain age who hangs out in Harry’s gas station for the daily pinochle games. Her red cotton-candy up-do streaked with blond goes perfectly with her form-fitting double-knit jump suits and leopard accessories.
Not only John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever wore polyester pants suits. “I had one in turquoise with chains,” admitted Venise St. Pierre, the show’s Draper. St. Pierre explained that the chemically treated, wrinkle-free fabric known as “permanent press” became popular in the 70s because, “All the housewives put down their irons and went to work.”
Kari Kramer, a local fashion designer who is also The Public’s Wardrobe Master, said that in addition to building some of the show’s clothing in the theater’s costume shop, they also shopped for real “vintage” looks. “People were wearing huge pointy collars, large lapels and patterns with checks and houndstooth,” she said. “But it’s hard to find,” St. Pierre added, “because a few years ago young people were buying it up.”
Joel Ripka, who plays the young lawyer in Harry’s (described in one review as a “Jake Gyllenhaal look-alike”), sports bell-bottoms with wide cuffs, a three-piece brown corduroy suit and a clip-on tie. Daryll Heysham, who gets to rant and sneer as the mobster Sammy, also gets to wear Cuban heels, an Italian horn pendant on a gold chain, and a long leather jacket. As the mob boss Carmine, Alex Coleman (known locally as Stephen), looks timeless is a beautifully cut black suit. But it too is polyester: “As long as they don’t smoke around me I’m fine,” he said.
May 22 2009
Back when she ran New Yorker magazine, famed editor/writer Tina Brown said, “I edit for a sensibility, not an age group.” The same is true for theater, where all types of people congregate, united by their interest in the quirkiness of the human condition and an appreciation of the people who try to capture and understand this amazing variety by turning it into art. It follows that this strong shared sensibility would exist in a theater’s staff as well. At The Public, Rob Zellers, 57, is Director of Education and author of the upcoming play Harry’s Friendly Service. Kristin Garbarino, 24, is the Marketing & Promotions Assistant, as well as an aspiring actress who will take a five-week leave from work this summer to study at the Moscow Art Theatre School, a program of the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard. Below, Kristin reports on a recent conversation she had with Rob.
Yesterday I sat down with Rob Zellers, author of our new play, Harry’s Friendly Service, to chat about how the rehearsal process is going. As a huge fan of the theater, the rehearsal process is what fascinates me the most—all those pieces of scenes and moments of character development that hopefully come together to create a work of art. So I asked him, “How does it feel to be rehearsing the world premiere of your newest show?”
“How does it feel? I’ve been too busy,” he says. “I haven’t allowed myself the time—that’s not the way it works; we’ve been too busy. It’s not glamorous. It’s boot camp.”
The play has been what Rob describes as “a long time coming.” It started with a reading in October of 2007. The audience was so excited about the new play that when Artistic Director Ted Pappas announced the 2008-2009 season in March last year, he decided to make Harry’s Friendly Service the season finale.
Fifteen months after the season announcement, many rewrites, changes, and a little over three weeks of rehearsal later and here we are—one week away from the opening of the run.
Two days ago, I saw they were doing a “stumble through.” Today it’s the official run through, and this weekend is “tech” when all that has been rehearsed comes together with costumes, props, lighting, and sound—all on the gas station set that is currently being built.
The process has included a lot of collaboration with Ted and our resident dramaturg, Heather Helinsky.
“Rehearsal is intense, but it’s a great team of collaborators. I gotta tell you, I gave them a lot to do,” Rob says. “It’s a single set, and there’s a lot of stuff on it, but I’m astonished at what Ted has done, how he gets the actors around the stage. A table, workbench, making tea, whisky bottles to hide, long speeches to set, arguments, fights, jokes to tell—all had to be staged.
“I just love being a part of a team. Maybe that’s my jock orientation. We played sports and football, stood in the locker room and strategized and went out and played. I love teams and teamwork and I can’t imagine a more motivational, collaborative team,” he says.
Relating the process of making a play to sports is no surprise coming from Rob, who co-wrote the Pittsburgh favorite The Chief, a one man show about former owner of the Steelers, Art Rooney, which has returned to The Public every year since it opened.
“I wrote about Art Rooney because he was a colorful character, and now I am writing about colorful characters we don’t see very often,” Rob says.
A native of Youngstown, Rob’s new play is set in his home town in 1977 during a steel strike. While most of the actors are old enough to remember the late 70s, two of the younger actors, Tressa Glover and Joel Ripka, have had to rely on the script and some stories from Rob.
“I have enjoyed a few moments with Tressa and Joel, who are so darling and adorable. I’ve told them stories about their characters and Youngstown. It makes me feel a little old, but I am a little old.”
Rob, who has a strong relationship with his real life daughter, put a lot of heart into writing the father/daughter relationship in the play.
“A father/daughter story is buried in there, so I’m naturally attached to Tressa, who is playing the daughter. Her characterizations are what get to me emotionally. I’m having a hard time being objective when she is onstage. It’s the father/daughter story, and it’s a relationship that’s important to me. I forget everything and get lost in the story when she’s on stage. She’s so honest.”
At the heart of Rob’s play is a sincere and exciting story that pulls from his life experiences in Youngstown with his parents.
“When all is said and done, I just wrote a story, I am just telling a story about a group of characters who are mostly in the post-World War II generation. I’m writing about my mother and father’s generation that came out of World War II—those who survived and built a society. They had seen and been through hell, and they hurriedly got back to life, and they created a way of life that included our middle class.
“In Harry’s Friendly Service there’s fighting and threatening and a bear trap. Violence and threats of violence. Storytelling, a huge amount of storytelling.”
May 15 2009
Welcome to PUBlog, the new blog of Pittsburgh Public Theater. It might seem odd to start off with good-byes, but that's what we were doing here last weekend as the amazing run of A Moon for the Misbegotten came to an end. We caught up with the cast in the Green Room before last Thursday's matinee to find out what everyone will be doing next.
Actor Tom Atkins, who played Phil Hogan, has some unusual events to look forward to in June. The first weekend he'll head to Seattle for a horror movie convention. The next week he'll go to Austin, Texas for a special screening of his movie Night of the Creeps, which Sony is finally releasing on DVD after 23 years http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/18827/1/NIGHT-OF-THE-CREEPS-HITS-DVD-IN-OCTOBER/Page1.htm.
If you're not into the horror genre, you might not know that Tom is considered a legend. In Night of the Creeps he plays the hero, detective Ray Cameron. "People come up to me on the street and say my lines to me," Tom says.
Actor Jason McCune, who had the cool cameo role of Phil's son Mike, is off to Ireland for a vacation with his real father. Dan Krell, who had the hilarious cameo as the snobby oil tycoon T. Stedman Harder, is heading to France - well not really - he's heading to the Benedum for Pittsburgh CLO's production of Les Miserables which opens in July.
Actors Victor Slezak (Jim) and Beth Wittig (Josie) will both be going back to their homes in New York. Victor will immediately begin filming Angelina Jolie's movie Salt http://www.red-carpet.org/2009/03/13/salt-photo/ in which he plays a three-star general. Victor said he worked so hard on A Moon for the Misbegotten that he didn't have time to enjoy much of Pittsburgh, but he loved the architecture here and wants to see more. "I'll definitely be back when I'm not working," he said.
Beth will return to her Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg where she lives with her boyfriend and their pit bull, Stella. While the 26-year-old actress looks forward to getting home, she will also miss the play. "It's been a dream come true to work on my first Eugene O'Neill with talent of this caliber," she says. "I'm still getting started in my career and I've learned so much here. I feel very lucky and grateful," she says.
Many who saw A Moon for the Misbegotten feel lucky and grateful as well. If you have any thoughts about the play that you'd like to share with readers of this blog, please send a comment (see below).
While it's always sad to say good-bye, it's also very exciting to see the next play take shape, especially when it's a world premiere. It's super-exciting that this world premiere is written by our own Rob Zellers and directed by our own Ted Pappas. We'll have more about our brand-new play Harry's Friend Service in the next PUBlog. In the meantime, visit www.ppt.org right now if you want to learn more or get your tickets.