Pittsburgh Public Theater offers audiences the chance to hop on the train for its next season.
The Cultural District company’s 47th season — titled “All Aboard” — starts out with a digital play and continues with four live performances after an all-digital season of new adaptations called “Classics N’at.”
A comedy in a Pittsburgh restaurant kicks off the season with Wendy MacLeod’s “Slow Food” on Oct. 5-17. A married couple, stressed from travel, walk into a charming Greek restaurant and get more than they bargained for with a neurotic, oversharing waiter. The digital play will be shot in a local restaurant yet to be finalized.
Marya Sea Kaminski, the Public’s artistic director, said the choice to open with a digital play comes from the foothold they found doing the company’s Public Playtime series “Classics N’at.” She and managing director Lou Castelli didn’t want to leave new audiences behind as they expand into bigger and bigger in-person shows.
“Slow Food” also allows for some experimentation. Kaminski said there will be cameos from some well-known Pittsburghers in the restaurant, and Castelli mentioned the possibility of partnering with a food delivery service offering the same menu as in the play.
The first play to return to the O’Reilly stage is one familiar to the Public, an all-new production of “The Chief,” written by Rob Zellers and Post-Gazette columnist Gene Collier. The play centers on Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney, tracing his humble origins as a local boxer to the team’s quest for its first Super Bowl win. “The Chief” runs Oct. 20-Nov. 7.
Bringing back “The Chief” — which Castelli referred to as the Public’s “Nutcracker” — is a chance to introduce the play to new audiences and to provide an underdog story that is timely as the pandemic subsides, Kaminski said.
Have you ever had so many twists and turns in your life that it becomes a little disorienting looking back? That’s the basis for “How the Hell Did I Get Here?,” running Jan. 26-Feb. 13. Award-winning actor Lesey Nicol, known for playing cook Mrs. Patmore on “Downton Abbey,” kicks off the North American tour of her own one-woman musical in which she discusses the ups, downs and triumphs of a career on stage and screen. In her own songs, words and photos (Mark Mueller is a co-writer), Nicol explores her remarkable life.
She will be fresh from the press tour for “Downton Abbey 2” when the play begins in Pittsburgh, Kaminski noted.
“You go digital, a one-person play, then a small musical,” Castelli said. “It just feels like the right transition for us and delivers at that time of year a sweetness that will really appeal to subscribers, ‘Downton Abbey’ fans, musical fans. It just seems to hit all the right notes.”
Two staples of the stage round out the season with stories fitting the “All Aboard” title. Mystery maven Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express” comes to the O’Reilly April 13-May 13, adapted by Ken Ludwig. When a suspicious businessman turns up dead on the famed train, detective Hercule Poirot is on the case. A train full of suspects and a freak snowstorm is no match for the Belgian sleuth, but can audiences solve the mystery before he does?
August Wilson’s “Two Trains Running” follows with a story of the fight for civil rights in the late 1960s. Business owner Memphis Lee faces a battle when the city of Pittsburgh wants to raze his Hill District restaurant in the name of urban renewal. While he and his loyal customers take a leap of faith, some trust the mystical advice of 349-year-old Aunt Ester. “Two Trains Running” travels to the Public June 1-19.
Acclaimed director Justin Emeka will make his return to the Public with “Two Trains.” He previously directed the company’s production of Lynn Nottage’s “Sweat,” a complicated play about social and labor relations in working-class Reading, Pa.
“After every performance [of ‘Sweat,’] we had discussions with the audience members, not about the play but about their experience,” Kaminski said. “I have a feeling ‘Two Trains’ is going to resonate in a similar way. I hope it does, and we’ll be able to use that as a platform for some really honest and compelling conversation here.”
For tickets and information, go to ppt.org.
In addition to the main season shows, the Public, in partnership with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, will welcome back Chicago comedy troupe The Second City for holiday laughs with “It’s a Wild, Wacky, Wonderful Life” in December.
The Public’s featured playwright for the season will be Mark Clayton Southers, founder and artistic director of Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company. Southers will join the Public for a developmental commission of his play, “The Coffin Maker.” Kaminski also said the Public’s writers group, a “boon” to the company during the pandemic, will continue to meet.
“While we won’t have as robust a commissioning program as we did this year as we start to make deeper investments in the season on stage, it was important we continued building those relationships,” she said.
Tyler Dague: rdague@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1569 and on Twitter @rtdague.
First Published: June 24, 2021, 5:13 p.m.
