 I'm okay, don't worry about that. Okay, we'll just share this line here. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. I want me to pass down there. It'll always, no. All right. All right, good morning. Good morning. Welcome to our live off-script from Pittsburgh TCG conference. We've done these live versions of our podcast for some years. Going back to Portland, D.C., St. Louis, and Miami. So we're happy to be here in Pittsburgh and, you know, to get a crash course in Pittsburgh Theater and in the arts. I'm Rob Weinerkent. I'm the editor-in-chief of American Theater. My pronouns are he, him, and I'm here with my colleague. Alexander Pearson. I'm the associate editor of American Theater, and my pronouns are she, her. This is the entire staff of American Theater, which is something we'll talk about at our lunch, at our lunch with American Theater after this. That's the 1 p.m. to hear more about the magazine. But this is not about the magazine. This is about Pittsburgh. So I'm really honored to have with us the leading drama critic and reporter for Pittsburgh, Sharon Eberson. She was a former sports writer. In fact, she told me she was the first woman covering sports at a Pittsburgh paper. It was a milestone. A theater and entertainment editor was the theater critic for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and now is a co-editor of onstagepittsburg.com. So Sharon, welcome to Offscript. Tell us a little bit about, we were talking about earlier, about specifically onstagepittsburg.com, why that started. But then we'll talk more about the Pittsburgh scene. Hi, it's great to be here. Sharon Eberson pronounced she, her. Thank you for having me. Pittsburgh is a theater town. I'm hoping that you're all getting to know that. I'm hoping that you're all getting to know that you can tell I'm not a performer, right? And I write. I'm not a broadcaster. And I worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which from the 90s till today is the most prominent mainstream media in town. And they, at some point, decided performing arts was not as important to them as it had been. And that was an hour through the heart. And I left at a specific time during the pandemic. And someone who was also concerned about it got in touch with me and we created a website. It's a startup. It's called onstagepittsburg.com, as you said. And professionals are covering as much as we can of Pittsburgh theater from community theater to the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust tours that come through. So, yeah, that's what we're up to right now. Great. I wanted to go back in. So how are you a Pittsburgh native, Sharon? No, I'm from Brooklyn. But I came here when I was 22. OK. So you've had some time, right? Yeah. And you covered, can you give us a sense of your sense of Pittsburgh and how it's changed as a city and as an arts destination? Well, Pittsburgh is a big small town. I've heard a lot of people describe it that way. And that's, you know, it's cosmopolitan, but obviously it's not New York City. So it has that. And not a lot has changed in terms of, you know, the arts since I've been here other than it just keeps growing. One of the things that has going for it is besides a very traditional base of foundation support, you know, the Fricks, the Melons, the Carnegie's, they started here. But there are two universities, the most prominent universities maybe in drama and dance in the country or among those, Carnegie Mellon and Point Park. And not only do they produce great artists, but it gives artists a way to stay here and support themselves too as teachers and instructors. I think that's a really big part of what helps us maintain the great artists that we have here. We were just talking, Cotter Smith is among several actors I can name who's fairly prominent. If you saw him, you'd know who he is. And he came here to do work, to film something and decided he loved it. He left a teaching position at Pace and, you know, he came here and he lives here now. It's his base, yes. And he's not the only one. I bring up who did the national tour of the Lion King, is Zazu. And he came here for work and he has never left. His wife is also an actor. So, you know, there are people who come here and they see our artistic community and are so taken with it, it's expansive. You know, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust is an $85 million entity with lots of real estate and other things. And then down to our small theaters, our community theaters, our immersive theaters, our environmental theaters, which you'll get to hear about a little bit here. We are wide range. If you love new theater, if you like traditional theater, you can find it here. You find a wide range. It also strikes me geographically that it's not, like the Philly scene is close enough to New York that there's a bit of exchange there with people. That's not the case here. There's not another major arts center super close. I mean, so like Chicago, it's sort of on its own, building its own art. I would say that, you know, Cleveland is a hop-skipping. That's right. That's right. The people from Ohio did drive a lot of it. And West Virginia too has some of it. But yes, we are a center and people come to us. I would say that that's especially for national tours. And once you've seen our cultural district and gotten to know it, I hear that people do come back. We'll get into this a bit more when we talk to the theater leaders. But could you talk a little bit about how the last couple of years have been for the arts scene? I think you told me that no theaters had, you know, had to close or... We lost shows. And we actually recently very heartbreakingly lost the last weekend of a show due to COVID that, again, a small theater, they do a mix of professional and amateur. It's called Front Porch Theatricals. They do two musicals a year. They did the very little done Man of No Importance, which, by the way, is going to be John Doyle's last, his Going Away production at Classic Stage. And they did it here with the blessing of Stephen Flaherty, who's from Dormand, local boy. Okay. And it was a lovely production. And we lost that. I'll say that it was really interesting covering things and the words we used. There were... It was so long before I stopped writing about what we lost instead of writing about Quantum Theater. Carla Booze's Quantum Theater coming back with A Current War, which was, you know, a new production and only the way they can do it. But still, for a while, was using the word pivot constantly and how wonderfully all the theaters here did try to do different things. And that was, in a way, really cool to see and to see them move outdoors or to see people work with married couples. We have a lot of married couples who are artists in things we did online. And it just was interesting to see what everyone was doing, lots of seminars and webinars, that sort of thing. But when I stopped using what we lost and talked about what we've gained and stopped talking about pivoting and saying, here is a production, that was just a very heartwarming time. Obviously, one of the most... Martha Graham is from Pittsburgh, I guess, right? Yes. One of the most famous artists, obviously, is August Wilson. And it's interesting the relationship of Pittsburgh to August Wilson. It's obviously his work, but it's not where he made his work, mostly. And he didn't live here after a certain point. But there's obviously a huge embrace of his work and it's inspired a lot of, you know, a whole center across the street, but also artists, you know... Oh, well, right now is sort of the height of realizing, you know, this treasure that we have and paying tribute to it. If you haven't been to the center to see a writer's landscape, which is an amazing exhibition to take you through his work, and the August Wilson house was very belatedly named a national landmark and will soon open as a center in the Hildristic, which is what he wrote about. August Wilson lived here for what you think is a relatively short time in his youth, but he wrote about it for the rest of his life living and working at Yale or Minnesota or in Seattle. It made such an impression and it doesn't necessarily reflect well on Pittsburgh. You know, a lot of two trains running, which is just finishing up the public theater, is about what urban renewal does to certain communities, and that's a continuing problem in Pittsburgh. But we've been lucky enough that there are people who care to preserve his work. Montez Freeland, who's with us, he's worked a lot with Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater, and they're on their second go-round through the cycle, the American Century cycle, which we hear in Pittsburgh called the Pittsburgh Cycle. Only one play is set in Chicago and it's all indoors. And it was filmed here. So Denzel Washington, who is a major contributor to the August Wilson House, he made a commitment that as he does the cycle, as he produces the cycle, that as many as he can of the plays will be filmed here. Okay, that's great. So the first two, Fences and Ma Rainey, and Samuel L. Jackson is bringing the piano lesson back to Broadway, and my understanding is it'll be filmed here too. That's great. I know that I just thought of Radio Golf as a black mayor in it, I believe, and that was prophetic because you just finally have one, right? Yes, how exciting. Yeah. So I wanted to also now introduce the artists we have with us today, artists and leaders from Pittsburgh. Montez Freeland, you might have heard at the previous panel, and if you're from Pittsburgh, you definitely know his work. He's a co-architecture director of City Theatre. He's a Baltimore native. We'll talk a little bit about that. He graduated from Point Park University, the conservative performing arts. I'll just go through a few credits. He was named Pittsburgh Post-Git as performer of the year in 2017. He's multi-hyphenate, as is Carla. He's directed for Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, Prime Stage, Country Rep, A Sale of Summer Academy, City Theatre. As a playwright, I love these titles. His original musical, Colopsia, J.H. Mechanics of a Legend, Santa's Ted Talk, and Fishy Woo-Woo. He's also a participant artistic associate with the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre. And then also with us is Carla Booze, who founded Quantum Theatre 32 years ago, 22 years ago, as an experimental theater that does not work in one space. Works site specifically around Pittsburgh, all over the place. Booze frequently directs, less frequently performs, although she's now in rehearsal for Cherry Orchard as Run Up Sky, I imagine, yes, okay. Recent projects, oh, this is the old bio, but projects include the Baroque Pastiche Winners' Tale in the Union Trust Building, all the names adapted from Jose Saramago's novel at the Northside Carnegie Library. I think a big focus of her work has been championing the work of other mid-sized performance companies. Pittsburgh does seem to have that tradition. So Montez, Carla, it's wonderful to have you. I want to just ask you about some of the top sort of things we're talking about. What's it been like in Pittsburgh the past couple years? Well, thank you for having me and us. I'm a transplant to Pittsburgh, so I grew up in Baltimore and I'm a student of the Arena Players, which is the oldest continuously run African-American community theater in the country. And so I started there when I was seven or eight years old, and I stayed until I was 18, then they put you out. And I'm hoping that you go on to bigger and better things. And so coming to Pittsburgh for college, going to Point Park University, was a highlight as it expanded my mind away from Baltimore and looking into theater as more of a universal world and coming from a very homogenous place of black culture coming to Pittsburgh, I had to seek it out, had to find it. And luckily I found two people who were so instrumental to me as a person, but also as an artist. And those are Dr. Vanell Lilly and Mark Clayton Souther. And they both took me under their wing and said, let's figure this out. Let's make some of your dreams a reality. Very plainly, very openly and very deliberately and putting my name next to theirs on monikers and on playbills. And that was the spark for me to be able to eventually be, what I hope to be a community leader, not just in theater, but looking holistically at some of the challenges that face Pittsburgh. But right now I'm starting with theater because that's what I know and eventually hoping to expand beyond that. But the theater community here is loyal. It's rich. It's full of life and support. It holds the door open for new people. You hear a lot of times in other cities that people have a hard time breaking in. I think we actually embrace new artists here in Pittsburgh. When they get here, we're excited about their talent. We're excited about what they can bring to our community. And we hold those doors open. Of course, there's more work to do, but we have a breadth of theater that allows for that to happen on many different levels. Fine, thank you. I made it from rehearsal across the city. It has road closures for Juneteenth. Parades, yes, you know, but I made it. Gosh, I just really want to piggyback on some things that my beautiful colleagues have said. I want to say that journalism is so important to our artistic present and our evolution. The publication that brought Sharon to Pittsburgh, her former senior guy in theater criticism, Chris Rawson, who is known to American theater, I'm sure really was instrumental in providing global context and an informed opinion that is completely connected to the success of my company, Quantum Theater, 32 years old. I founded it to be experimental in this city, which was not necessarily a place where experimental theater could thrive. You know, journalism is still so important. I want to piggyback on Montez and his comments that we feel connected. It's a really little known fact, but I'm talking about it more in these days that we are all in the present in the theater, the spiritual brothers and sisters of August Wilson in 1990 when I was incredibly young and wanted to start a theater in Pittsburgh, I sought August Wilson and found him in the Crawford Grill and talked to him. I was no one from nowhere about my idea to start a theater and that man extended his generous spirit and it was instrumental. And so he is not kidding when he says we have a tradition of embracing people for, in my experience, 30 years and we love our differences and we love a kind of collegiality that makes all boats rise. I want to kind of counter Sharon who is, you know, from the day that I'm from and that not much has changed but growth in Pittsburgh in the last 30 years. I think there's actually been a lot of change. I think there's been a lot of reflecting of change in general and a sort of, you know, I make work that's global and interdisciplinary which is everybody does now, right? You know, but 30 years ago, not so. I think we have reflected trends that are not American but, you know, about how technology informs things. Our university is so key to it over the last 30 years, you know. So all these things together make this a really great theater town and my company Quantum Theater is an example of what can come of it, I would say. Well, speaking of Quantum, I'm hoping you can tell me a little bit of the, some of the challenges and some of the benefits of making site-specific theater. Sure. You know, I'm going to use this platform to say we are an experimental company. Environmental theater-making is one of our experiments. The one that has become most notable, easiest to grasp. You know, I'm making an opera directed by Claire von Kampen who's married to Mark Rylance, you know, a former co-artistic leader of the Globe Theater. It's going to be in the Bayam Theater and star the greatest Baroque singers of our present. So that's not something you would have guessed, right? You think steel mills and you think, you know, we just experiment on every level but the environmental thing stuck and it's beautiful and it allows you to express the layers of a community. It allows you to engage with the layers of a community and be in the moment as well as the past of your city in your art-making and it enables you to connect your audience to the many, many communities of your town. So it's great. Lots of people do it now, not so much 30 years ago and Pittsburgh is a city that's really provided an endless source of inspiration for that. Speaking of sort of environmental, I think City Theater did us a drive-in situation. Can you tell us a little bit about that, Montez, and maybe how that was one of your adaptations of the pandemic, right? Yes. This was around, I would say, late summer of 2020 and we had, you know, come to the understanding that we would not be able to produce a season inside as everyone sort of had to swallow that difficult pill. Maybe not Carla, but everyone in the city sort of had that observation and so this was born out of two things. One, how do we create programming for our audience, an audience that missed Theater dearly but then also how did we serve our community of artists who had not had the opportunity to perform at that point for over about six months. And so we came up with the Drive-in Arts Festival that didn't necessarily have traditional theater components to it, as you would think with City Theater. I think there was actually only one night in which people performed spoken word but we engaged artists, different musicians from around the community, from one hood media to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Texture Ballet for Dance, in addition to some of the, you know, Stalwarts and Jazz working with MCG Jazz as well. We even had a magician and we had a disco dance activism group, activist group as well and so what it did, we broke out of the south side and went to, I'm about to say, Hartwood Acres, that's not what, it's a wood green. And so we went into a new community which was different for City Theater. We are good about going into communities and bringing them to our productions but to go into a community meant that we couldn't just plop down that we had to get to know its residents, its businesses so that we could point our audiences to go to those restaurants so that we could work with different community, like community kitchen to potentially provide safe food for our patrons who wanted to know where the concessions were. So it was an opportunity for us to expand as a company, meet the moment, meet the community and every artist who walked off stage said that was my first time performing in months and it was different because as opposed to applause, they had cars honking their horns at them and so it was a very different experience but not only did we do the Three Week Arts Festival what we kicked it off with a production of F Seventh Grade, I don't know the content warnings here. You can say whatever you want. So we did Fuck Seventh Grade by Jill Sebel because it's a great title, right? Yeah, because Fuck Seventh Grade and so we did more of a concert version of that and filmed it and was able to put that into the household of our patrons and then we also had manual cinemas Frankenstein which we were supposed to produce on stage and so we actually put them right on our stage in Hazelwood Green so we ran for about at the end of summer to the top of fall. We were up there in shorts at the beginning and we were wrapped up in coats at the end and so it was a great opportunity to service our community to learn. It was incredibly big undertaking for our staff and for our team but we rose to the occasion. As the father of Seventh Grade, I think I can second that title. I wanted to just follow up on one thing about that Montez and this might be applicable also to the racial justice conversation that's been going on. In the case, a lot of theaters adapted the pandemic with outdoor performance or virtual and they did it and now they're back in their theaters and everything's not quite back to normal as you know but things are more like they were. Can you talk about the things you learned about going out in the community? Are you going to take with you? Are you going to continue to do some of these programs? Maybe not Drive-In, maybe not as virtual plays or whatever but do you feel like there's learnings you took from the pandemic that you are part of city, part of the city DNA? 100% of course the collaboration and partnerships. In the last year, our entire season, every production we've partnered or collaborated with another entity either locally or nationally to produce the productions whether it was the Pittsburgh CLO, MCG Jazz. We also partnered with City Company coming into town, Universes as well looking at the sanitation department locally to partner with. Looking at Pittsburgh Playhouse and Point Park University. These were sort of ideas in the past and touch points in the past but now they are becoming the bedrock of our company. It is important that we collaborate, it's important that we share resources to we're all working to get the same audience to a degree. You know, it's the people of Pittsburgh that we would like to come see our shows and if we're in this deficit of audience then I think it is important for us to rally together and see how we can connect where there are differences, where there are things alike and so going into another community, we were cautious. We knew that we know that it takes not just we're coming to your area, let's set up shop it takes a trust, it takes an understanding that we're not going to abuse their product or their resources and that we're going to replenish inside of the community not just with our art but with our physical dollars with our physical bodies being in their spaces not to make an announcement and leave but to actually go to that space and to listen to what they're saying to sit in community kitchen and to talk with the people there and not just in the office with the folks who are saying, you can do this. So those tenants I think are now becoming some of the bedrocks and core values of City Theatre moving forward. Yeah, speaking of being engaged with the community I'm really curious about the social justice response to the murder of George Floyd and the WCU Red American Theatre document and all of those important influences how has Pittsburgh responded? Well, it's been interesting to watch. I wanted to piggyback first on what Montez was saying and I think this leans into that. Quantum Theatre when it goes into a community they always partner with local restaurants. I mean, I don't think there's a theatre that goes out into the community doesn't make that a point of getting, you know, embedding themselves there and letting their patrons know that this is a place that you are coming into where there are these other things happening too and the spirit of cooperation here is amazing. Really quickly, just this past week there's a small theatre called Kinetic Theatre that's at City Theatre. It was a problem, I know, I don't know if it was COVID related or not where they couldn't get their sets up, where they thought they were. Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre came in, built their sets, hauled them and put them up and this is the kind of cooperation that you see here in Pittsburgh and I'm sure in other smaller towns too. So you know, there was a giant immersive several years ago maybe Carla can talk about too a little bit that involved just a ton of theatres here that got together and created this huge thing in a downtown building a walk-through, like sleep no more, that sort of thing. So I think that when George Floyd happened Black Theatre United came into being, this was a conversation that was a long time coming maybe was in the shadows and people were talking about it but there also had been a gathering here and Montez was a part of it and Diel Mentzor and some other people you might have seen here about hiring practices here in Pittsburgh. We're not perfect like any city and where theatres got together Bridge Douglas who's now in DC was one of the leaders, Deep Tran came in and she hosted this discussion about hiring practices and it centered around a production of Anna and the Tropics where Latino actors had to drop out and they were going to hire non-Latino actors to replace them and that production was closed down and so this is a conversation that was happening and continues to happen. Nothing is perfect, people are trying but I think everyone is learning as they go along here and from the university is on up. The fact that they're having the conversations I think matters but there's still long ways to go and I think everybody here would want to maybe say something about that. I'll just add that in Pittsburgh specifically young people galvanized in the streets that not only was there national violence that was happening there was local violence happening and young people Antoine Rhodes and beyond who had suffered from police brutality and in a city that is segregated and has its pockets of racism and white supremacy stamped all around it the young people went into the streets and they did exactly as they had been doing all across the country so there was no difference there but inside of the theaters there was a sort of reckoning and calling out of practices that we all understood were sometimes happening and that some people didn't realize the true ramifications of it some theater companies decided to face it head on some theater companies have not said a word and so it was important that as Sharon said a lot of these conversations were happening sort of internally and bubbling but now there is agency to speak up and speak out about it I'm still excited about what can come from those conversations we have not solved every problem I don't think anyone expects us to at this point and immediately but the call to action inside of companies I can speak only for cities well I can speak for city theater and Pittsburgh playwrights for both that decided to first to financially support people of color to put money into the pockets of people of color acknowledging the disparity and the history of disparity of payment to people of color and then to look inside and see what practices they could change Pittsburgh playwrights we started a ground up theater which allowed for free theater training for people of color in Pittsburgh to allow them other companies like Quantum and city theater and beyond in the public who are saying we're making these commitments to make sure that we hire diverse candidates for positions well we also want to make sure that those diverse candidates are set up for success and so the second that we announced ground up Carla reached out and said we want those people we want to help we want to join in so once again there was their collaboration under the umbrella of how do we protect enable and lift up people of color in the city specifically with the purpose of making sure that they are within safe environments and field value we can't you know there's a whole nother beast when it comes to the brutality and the instances like George Floyd but I think if we all work inside of our individual you know components and you know containers to do the work that we can do then the work is happening all over I'm happy to yeah you know we are a company that hasn't felt it was right to speak publicly about what we were doing but I'm happy to I'm happy to in this environment say that we have a staff member who I kind of wish was at the mic right now you know who had been on the frontline of activism so supporting her was the first thing that we thought we could do and then internally you know we thought we should lean into the artists who we knew and had relationships with who might take greater leadership even as we behind the scenes not publicly because it doesn't feel right you know to me but lean into the condition of our city where there are ever more artists who feel not only welcome but empowered to enrich our organizations at every level anyway at this point 18 months later we have new leaders on the artistic front and we've been a company that has you know really been under my leadership on the artistic side who are developing projects we thought that maybe that program for developing projects would be distinct and we quickly put something under development on our schedule for next season it's the devil is a lie by Jennifer Chang directed by Kyle Hayden right you know so we're learning we're feeling our way in terms of what our role is to engage with this issue we're grateful that we have people who feel it is their personal mission among our colleagues and can look to them for leadership and support and yeah there's more to do I do want to add that you know that action versus that sort of lip service yeah you know because I mean you know it's the action that's married with that because you can't just say you have to do it and it is important like you know some people sometimes you have to clean up inside of your house before you can open a door and buy people in you know and so at least that's how I was raised and so I think that there's value in that and there's a purpose in that and there's you know we should be looking at those companies as well who are actually doing that work inside from the ground up and making sure that those who are coming into your space know that that work is happening so I'm grateful that what's going on at Quantum I wanted to ask you Carla specifically about Cherry Orchard this is a play that seems to be popular right now there was the Wilma production is the one at the Baryshnikov Baryshnikov yeah I get an email like Cherry Orchard Baryshnikov I think I'll just slip my wrist now so tell me about yours and also tell me about is it One Valley is the name of the place you're doing it yeah it is Hazelwood Green it's like a little subset sub thing of Hazelwood Green so it's cool that I'm in Hazelwood right now you know too but yeah I haven't acted in ten years I am an actress by training but you know a director by Hutzpah of some 25 years so much more experienced I guess ultimately directing than acting and yeah it's it's a trip but it's a lot of fun and the Cherry Orchard does feel very relevant you know it's I mean it's relevant in my personal life because I'm of an age where I go oh I know I represent the past and oh I'm not really dealing well with the future you know and but I think I think the timeless thing of Chekhov is is really registering with me about how this moment is bigger than me personally it's really about a society that I you know I have a 30 year old daughter so it's my personal conversations too we we were so well intentioned and we screwed up so badly and please take from us please be generous that's one of my lines be a little generous you know I find myself saying that to my my daughter and because we were well intentioned but it's yours it's yours to figure out right right I gotta ask is are we gonna it's an since it's outdoors we're gonna hear actual trees shopping at the end the spoiler well you're gonna hear trains because Pittsburgh there's no outdoor show we've ever done that hasn't had trains for anyone that knows any quantum Sharon's nodding away there will be a beautiful melding of the real and the theatrical all right all right I well this immersive thing you brought up Sharon I'm so curious what that was you Montez are you talking about it was that the city lost my the title a downtown that the big immersive downtown in the former sports club that everybody worked on yes yes yes yes yes yes I've lost my mind too oh yeah we'll come to that but it was a long time ago it was you know room to room sort of thing they've they've they moved on to do things at at the Carnegie Museum after hours that took you through the entire museum and also worked with realtime interventions if you any of you were in that that group recently to do the Saints tour through Prattic we get into all the communities around Pittsburgh if you follow the theaters strata strata strata internet thank you I'm so sorry there are there are just a lot of titles running around my head which speaks to all the theater that goes on this weekend alone I'm missing three performances around I really want to see but I'll see three so feel feel good about that and I'm hoping so much of people who have never been to Pittsburgh before again are getting to see some of that so strata was just an empty building downtown that a bunch of people got together and said you know let's do something different and have people walk through from room to room and at the end talk about their experiences and it was futuristic it was weird it was cool it was all those things and certainly took us out of our seats and made contact in ways that we can't do right now you know physical contact too oh there were things there were sensory deprivation and then totally used all your senses so those are the kind of things that that some of these immersives have done these or as Carl would say experimental you know the immersive doesn't quite touch on it because there's so much going on the terms are not always precise it just seems like that is a strain of Pittsburgh work from real time to Ricolage to Quantum again they're not all the same but there's this idea of the city being part of the theater in a way I was going to ask the question of all of you how Pittsburgh enters into the work I know the plays aren't always about Pittsburgh per se unless they're by August Pittsburgh is a theme and as a canvas for the work it seems again there are other immersive theaters everywhere and whatever you call it site specific is all over the country but it feels like it's uniquely Pittsburgh thing and I think maybe Carl has something to say about that Pittsburgh is rich to provide but I'm going to say something else I think what's cool about Pittsburgh I'm on my soapbox again Pittsburgh has supported mid-sized organizations right the growth and development of mid-sized organizations with which city certainly is I think in its soul although cities larger connects to that and it has spent a long time as a mid-sized organization if now it is large so I hand it to our town for recognizing innovation for supporting it for having a populace that will not just go to the Benidom Center or the Pittsburgh Public Theater and we're very grateful for those those institutions but for doing something a little different and that makes for a different community that has so much more going for it I think that mid-sized sweet spot and it's a very difficult place to occupy you know you do have a payroll you got to meet you have fixed expenses you are planning two years out and have to commit contractually two years out so you have to have support you know and you have to count on it and you don't have giant audiences from a commercial perspective so it's a difficult but incredibly valuable thing to any community no so it's not just the city it's the city support but also there are not a commercial audience but their audiences have really responded as well right okay um yeah I just saw the real time a breakout session they had Samford Mark Barnes who was in their Saints tour said there was something in the dirt in Braddock there must be something about that place that infused that work and I just feel like that's something a theme I'm hearing a lot about now I know the city theater is dark right right or no but the season doesn't start until September right well yeah you know you say we're dark and I'm like somebody's there right now okay sorry we had two shows last night but we are you know we're in our summer hiatus moment as far as producing on our stage but we have opened our doors you know as every company is looking for substantial and sustainable revenue streams and the fact that we have two theaters on our campus knowing that for a few months they'll sit empty always city theaters always open the doors in the summer to allow community organizations and theater companies to rent our space to use our facilities and resources to produce and to not necessarily take on the burden of that heavy lift of the the spirit of the entrepreneur you know lives is vibrant in this city but the resources aren't necessarily always there so to have a building that we own and to have rehearsal space we are privileged and grateful to open our doors to many other companies who deserve to be seen and deserve to have a space to have their voices heard in the community so while we finish the season and I will I'm so grateful that we were able to get through our entire season six full productions in addition to our ancillary productions but we only had to cancel one performance just one show due to COVID and that is due to the staff at city theater ensuring that our artists and that our community and that our audiences were safe to come through our doors and to produce on a level in which safety came first the people came first the human came first and if we got to the point where the show did not need to go on then it did not go on and that's what I'm very proud of so we may be taking sitting down for a little bit hardly but we're ready to start revving that train up again in the fall I'm curious because Pittsburgh has so many incredible arts education programs specifically the universities this is the place to study or one of the places to study I'm curious how do your theaters work with students or with those schools is there any kind of collaboration there well like Montez in Baltimore we start them young here certainly from musical theater you can be born into C.L.O. Academy almost there's so many places like that we have great artists who have coaching studios whose young artists go on from here and those programs are just amazing and every theater major theater here has some sort of education program I'll say that even the small I mentioned front porch before against just two two musicals in the summer but as part of their mission and their financial mission is internships paid internships for young people coming out of these colleges like Point Park and Carnegie Mellon they're all it's hyper local and I'll mention the first time I ever saw Nathan Solstone who is currently doing Knox Knoxville I think that's the Flaherty Aaron's musical and his first Broadway show was Harry Potter and the Curse Child he was right at a Carnegie Mellon on to their stage you see that a lot here so yeah we nurture them quickly and that's totally a benefit of having theaters that with caring and robust education programs I don't think I know that Quantum could not make its work without Carnegie Mellon University Point Park University and Pitt and Robert Morris and you know all kinds of amazing people come from the smaller universities as well but those major institutions especially CMU and Point Park have just provided an amazing elevation at every level designers, directors, performers and I keep my audition files from the dark ages and they have the most amazing faces in them Denebent and you know Joe Manganiello you name it they're in there from those days and also I think we're all committed to educating in our ways young people in our town so we also have great education programs at the companies I know City Theater does so does Quantum I've modeled mine after City Theater yeah that's what I wanted to hit on is the fact that you know educational theater and looking inside of the theater companies and seeing all of the great educational work going to the students not just offering a matinee and allowing the students to come back but being inside of their communities in their classrooms I was the education director at Quantum for about five years and so and that was such an enriching experience for me because it allowed us to let the students tell their stories so at Quantum you go in and you take the prompt you know you tell them what the plays about look at the themes and then the students in turn go in and say this is how I interpret that and I'm going to write this story out that's so rich full of innovation full of their experiences in which you know you'll see the cherry orchard in a way you never expected to see so I think that not only on the university level but also looking inside of elementary and junior high or middle schools we are inside of those institutions and you'll find that those students lock to the theater they sit inside of the theater they're engaged and they are inspired because a lot of times they're seeing their instructors on the stages as well which is so important to know that you're being taught by viable people and being taught by people who are walking the walk and not just talking the talk. That's great I want to open it for questions in a second if you want to think of one I have one last question for you all I have an overview introduction to Pittsburgh theater it sounds like as you said Sharon there's a lot of different almost every taste here but I want to challenge you to ask you what is missing what would you like to see next what would you like to see more of in this town what kind of theater or what kind of commitment could be positive but just want to ask that one of the things that may be I worry about sustainability because there is so much theater going on and we talk about you know even the spirit of collaboration the fight for audience there's that there's and despite all of the education programs you know I look around we're looking for a younger to build new audiences that's so difficult and I think that's a good thing because so many kids are coming out of college if they're not going to make it somewhere else right away let's start a theater because oh foundation these foundations have been here for so long they'll support us I think that a gathering to figure out a sustainability model that works for established theaters and how to bring along new people is gotta come there's just so much foundations can do there's just so much corporations will do and the patronage is just not there all the time I'd like to see perhaps you know I don't know how sustainable it is to see a theater in the cultural district to five performances a week instead of a certain number because half of those performances have less than half filled theaters and what can you do with the theater when that's the case can you bring in and I know so many of them do bring in full classes or whatever just to me the thing I worry about is the foundation to support and the money to support all of the theater we have here and sustainable models which is a really hard thing I think these days well I have a list and that's not necessarily you know a bad list it's a list because I believe in Pittsburgh and that we can achieve it and if I didn't think so then I wouldn't bother to make the list but diversity in the wings diversity and not just physically in the wings but looking at our design teams and the education that comes along with understanding that for many marginalized groups going through formal education training it's not an option and so therefore how do we as companies provide that training for those groups so I would love to see those design teams be as diverse as possible not just by race but in so many different ways in which we are all different black women I would like to see shows written for black women designed by black women directed by black women and starring black women of different ages we have a deficit of that population in the arts in Pittsburgh and we need to start catering to them and that is another sort of goal of mine as well especially at city theater is how do we meet that community figure out what are the roadblocks and the obstacles because there are so many talented people here but are we making sure that they have the proper childcare so that they can do eight shows a week so that they are bringing in comparable paychecks into their homes for sustainability another thing I want to see is for this conference to happen locally for us to get together and not just at opening night party and throwing back some wine and pizza but to like really get together and to look at the issues to look at the good to look at the success and to look at where we can grow because we shouldn't necessarily have to do it in front of a national audience we should be doing it in front of the audiences that really support us give us the hard-earned money and give us their time and support so we owe it to those audiences to galvanize come together to learn to understand and to grow as one theater community beautifully said by my two colleagues that's pretty much it right that's a room okay we want to open up to questions if anyone's got them I think run around with the mic I'm just saying thanks thank you Sharon the journalist has a question yeah actually for those of you who aren't from Pittsburgh is there robust performing arts coverage in your towns and what's your relationship with the media in your towns is there anybody here who can speak to that or yeah definitely one that's a topic that's a topic for its own panel in fact we were going to do a panel about that but the state of arts coverage Hi my name is Kelly I'm from second generation theater in Buffalo New York we're a small 10 year old company run by two people our arts coverage is seeing a really similar issue it went from being relatively robust from the Buffalo news three to four reviewers on staff they'd get to opening night of everything and promptly turn around a review and there are those patrons who are you know our fair weather patrons who just look for four stars and if they don't they're not so during the pandemic it has cut down significantly we're down to I think two major reviewers at that main paper you may or may not get reviewed you know there's no guarantee it may be the second weekend and your show only runs three weekends so that's not really doing you a service but we do have some online publications sort of like it seems what you've created 716 and Buffalo Theatre Guide where typically those reviews are coming out as well but I don't know if this is true in Pittsburgh we're finding that a lot of our younger patrons are millennials and I don't even know what they're called everybody who's not a boomer so is sometimes more interested in what their peers have to say rather than what the experts have to say right so we are seeing that a lot of those tried and true patrons are not coming in as often because it's not like a review of reviews it's not just Pittsburgh but we're trying to sort of pivot it to peer reviews like what did you think why are your peers going to want to come back so we're doing our best to combat the problem that way thank you my name is Jonathan Norton I'm from Dallas, Texas I'm the playwright in residence at the Dallas Theatre Center and prior to COVID we most in Dallas two major avenues for arts coverage in our city which was the Dallas Morning News and this online publication which was actually Theodore Jones which offered really amazing robust coverage of the entire DFW theater, dance, music and film scene and so those are our primary outlets and given the size of the arts community in Dallas I think it was largely between the two of those they served the community fairly well however post-pandemic we've lost Theodore Jones which is absolutely devastating to the community in so many different kinds of ways especially for like small and midsize organizations especially because the coverage in Theodore Jones is the coverage that they could most reliably count on more so perhaps than maybe the Dallas Morning News and it was also through that coverage and also coverage from the Morning News where arts groups were able to generate enough publicity or knowledge about their company not just so much for audience development but also just in terms of being able to kind of develop the promotional and critical collateral that was useful in grants and funding so with the loss of Theodore Jones and with the Morning News we lost they let our Chief Theater Critic go and so they replaced her with a critic who I think his primary focus was film I believe he's a great guy, he's a wonderful guy and he's really supportive of the theater community but even even with that his coverage and the amount of coverage that the Morning News allows for the arts is so so incredibly limited compared to what it was previous and on top of that it's often times not reviews not that reviews are the end-all be-all of everything obviously but again they are useful for funding I just want to say quickly so Mark Lowry was my hero he's the founder of Theater Jones and established over 11 year period not only a foundation and corporate supported website for the performing arts for all of North Texas but he paid professionals to write which really I think that's another really good point because we have other kind of outlets in the community that do that review shows but in terms of kind of the critical dexterity or rigor of that is often but also really quickly the reason I left and I'm working towards something else is there's nobody behind me there are no new voices there are no BIPOC or LBGTQ people who have voices who are getting opportunities and this is something we're working on we're working on creating a mentorship program to talk to the foundation community here but your voices really matter when people come forward and say we have this thought we want to have partnerships so I'll be talking to some of you soon but I just was really interested to see and how sad it is because not only do we help specific productions I think nothing chronicles the history of theater like the people covering it no one says when thoroughly modern is coming in the problem with the yellow face and how they've tried to fix that those sort of things are not happening or what August Wilson meant when he said I am the blues and he's from Pittsburgh and we say hey August Wilson but maybe you know there are reasons that he felt that way so these are really important things in my life so thank you for sharing I appreciate that especially in ephemeral art form like theater it couldn't be more crucial to coverage any kind of coverage I feel like American theater can do our part we can't be in every city it can barely be in New York at this point but now we're around and I want to just make this plug again for you know thanks for being at this and this is also going out to our podcast listeners to please join TCG because that's how we do this work of arts journalism I wonder specifically to bring it back to Pittsburgh whether that has affected your work Montez and Carla the declining coverage or the kind of coverage that you get well I guess it hasn't affected the work because sometimes it is good to just do your work you know and to not necessarily have to worry about oh gosh on Thursday because I'm yes I did oh yes but you know the idea of sometimes putting the words and the work and the company into the world and speaking for yourself and so Sharon brought up the point that City Theater we started a podcast called City Speaks in which we are internally communicating what's happening inside of our organization to the world and also sort of bringing on people to give their opinions about what we're doing and our initiatives that we have in place as well so in some cases you know some companies have taken the sort of the advertising of their theater and put it into their own hands in a different way in a different marketing strategy and there were times even at one point where we said well maybe we actually don't allow certain people to review our work and that's a radical stance in industry that is reliant on word of mouth and what do you mean when you put your values where you live and say we don't agree with the politics of your organization so therefore you cannot come and review us you do not have the appropriate clientele to review this show which is based on people of color's lives and experiences how do you draw those lines and it's easy to do you just have to stay the hard part of standing behind it and doing the work to go into those communities to make sure that those stories are being seen by who they represent so I've always been grateful to the Pittsburgh media they've been instrumental in my career because no matter if they mispronounce my name or not at least put it in print and not just me but colleagues and so many other folks who wouldn't have the opportunities if folks didn't see their names seeing and saying someone's name is extremely important but it doesn't mean that it doesn't come with its caveats, it doesn't come with its issues it's biases when I first got to Pittsburgh it was this big thing where reviews were almost like we used to do dramatic readings of them in the dressing room because sometimes they'd be a little tough, they'd be a little scathing so you have to find the fun in it a little bit and so they've grown and I think Sharon your touch as a critic and as a writer has always been about the heart and you're a great judge of whether or not that heart is pure or that heart is sort of you know contaminated a little bit but you're not there to talk about the lights didn't work and we've read those reviews the lights didn't work, well have you looked inside the organization to see if they are getting the resources that they need to make sure that the lights work and that they're up to date no and therefore this production is going to get a negative review because you couldn't see a certain side of the stage that you didn't probably need to see anyway you know and so talking about the real issues the themes and why it's important to the community I think it's the new role of theater critics and not to necessarily bring down the work but to lift up the experience I just want to add that I think I'm an idealist so listen to Montez but I I mean we're a sports town the engagement on what happened last night in sports Sharon is a sports person is so vibrant and the arts deserve that kind of engagement and also criticism can give context you know like I as a young person felt that my context was the greatest theater makers out there that I had access to there were plenty that I didn't have access to but I saw them and I found myself in context with them for good or ill and I felt I was in a dialogue with them about what theater might be and criticism was the place where that came out of little me and my feelings and into my community and I wish that for all theater and you know even the thing about the lights not being on if that were in a public dialogue space where this company's great work deserves more resources so that their lights are on them you know the vacuum is not the answer great last word Carla the vacuum is not the answer Sharon Montez Carla thank you so much for joining us thank you to the host committee in Pittsburgh and to all you for joining us for this special edition of Offscript thanks so much