Pittsburgh Public Theater is taking local theater enthusiasts on an unexpected journey for its 50th-anniversary season.
The nonprofit theater company on Friday announced five of the six shows that it will stage at Downtown’s O’Reilly Theater in 2024 and 2025 to commemorate 50 years of productions. Four of them are Pittsburgh premieres, while one is back by popular demand.
PPT’s golden anniversary season will consist of:
• “Dial M for Murder” (Sept. 11-29), the latest adaptation of Frederick Knott’s 1952 thriller about illicit affairs, desire and deception.
• “The Hobbit” (Oct. 23-Nov. 10), an on-stage version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy tome directed by Pittsburgh Public Theater artistic director Marya Sea Kaminski.
• “A Christmas Story: The Play,” (Dec. 4-22), a play based on the 1983 holiday movie classic that will be returning to the O’Reilly in 2024 for the third time.
• “Trouble in Mind” (Feb. 5-23, 2025), Alice Childress’ 1955 examination of racism and sexism in the world of professional theater.
• “Twelfth Night” (June 27-29, 2025), the William Shakespeare comedy that also ended Pittsburgh Public Theater’s inaugural season and is being presented in collaboration with New York City-based theater initiative Public Works.
Kaminski will also be directing “Twelfth Night” and said in a press release that she feels Pittsburgh Public Theater partnering with Public Works will result in “a truly breathtaking moment to launch our next 50 years.”
Subscriptions to Pittsburgh Public Theater’s 2024-25 season are available at ppt.org. A sixth show that will take over the O’Reilly from March 19-April 6, 2025, will be announced on April 8 at the organization’s “Alchemy” fundraising gala.
Pittsburgh Public Theater is coming off a busy 2023 that included the launch of its joint “CREATE PA” jobs training program with the Pittsburgh Film Office and the premiere of original musical “Billy Strayhorn: Something to Live For” that was forced to go partially virtual due to a rash of cast illnesses.
It’s currently in the middle of a 2023-24 season that’s still set to include “The Importance of Being Earnest” from March 27-April 14 and “The Coffin Maker” — written by Pittsburgh theater stalwart Mark Clayton Southers and directed by City Theatre Company co-artistic director Monteze Freeland — from May 29-June 16.
For Kaminski, the way Pittsburgh Public Theater programmed its 50th-anniversary season was designed to celebrate both that momentous occasion and “Pittsburgh’s legacy of holding art at the center of its identity.”
“This monumental anniversary season at the Public is brimming with what makes Pittsburgh so special,” Angela Blanton, Pittsburgh Public Theater’s board chair and Carnegie Mellon University’s CFO, said in that same press release.
“And we’re seeing this vision of being a true public theater come to life on and off stage alike.”
Joshua Axelrod: jaxelrod@post-gazette.com and X @jaxelburgh.
First Published: March 22, 2024, 4:24 p.m.
Updated: March 22, 2024, 7:34 p.m.
