Stage Right! is a professional theatre company and performing arts school located in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Established in 1998 as an organization for young people to take classes in musical theatre by Chris Rizk, Stage Right! also became a professional theatre company in 1999, established by artistic director Anthony Marino, Rizk's brother. [1] The company produces a full season of musicals, utilizing professional actors from the Pittsburgh theatre scene as well as students from their classes. [2] [3]
In spring 2013, Stage Right moved its studio a few blocks to a larger space at 105 W Fourth Street, Greensburg. [4]
The season is supplemented with many other opportunities to utilize the talents of the students, including an "all-county musical" featuring students from local high school theatre programs, [5] children's plays, [6] summer camp productions, [7] and Books Come Alive!, a series of adaptations of children's books performed at libraries throughout the area. [8] The company is also notable for its annual production of The Rocky Horror Show every Halloween. [9] Many of Stage Right!'s students have had success in Pittsburgh Public Theater's Shakespeare Monologue and Scene Contest, [10] as well as going on to well-respected college theatre programs such as Carnegie Mellon University, Point Park University, New York University, Seton Hill University, Syracuse University, and Shenandoah University. [11] Stage Right! alums have also had success in professional theatre, working in such venues as York Theatre, Off the Wall Productions, Bricolage Production Company, Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre, Prime Stage Theatre, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, Pittsburgh Musical Theater, St. Vincent Summer Theatre, City Theatre, Terra Nova Theatre Group, MCC Theater, [12] and 12 Peers Theater, [13] as well as having had their work featured in the Pittsburgh New Works Festival. [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]
Stage Right! earned the Guinness word record for fastest theatrical production on March 9, 2019 by staging a production of "Children of Eden" from start to finish in 14 hours and 30 minutes. [27] [28] The production beat the previous world record held by the Sharpe Academy of Theatre Arts for its 15-hour production of Annie. [29]
In 2021 a group called Stage Right Survivors had collected alleged firsthand accounts of "bullying, misconduct, manipulation, and retaliation", perpetrated by one founding employee whose behavior (according to the aforementioned critics) was not checked by the school's leadership. [30] The school's Board of Directors was quoted as saying, "We take these allegations seriously and are conducting an investigation to ensure that we can safely provide this creative outlet for more than 300 children in our community." [30] Several months later, that founding employee was no longer working for the company. [31]
Stephen Joshua Sondheim was an American composer and lyricist. Regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, he is credited with reinventing the American musical. With his frequent collaborators Harold Prince and James Lapine, Sondheim's Broadway musicals tackled unexpected themes that ranged beyond the genre's traditional subjects, while addressing darker elements of the human experience. His music and lyrics are tinged with complexity, sophistication, and ambivalence about various aspects of life.
Greensburg is a city in and the county seat of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 14,976 at the 2020 census. Located 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Pittsburgh, Greensburg is a part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. The city lies within the Laurel Highlands and the ecoregion of the Western Allegheny Plateau. The city is named after Nathanael Greene, a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War.
Michael Frank Park is an American actor, best known for his roles as Jack Snyder on As the World Turns, Larry Murphy in the original Broadway cast of Dear Evan Hansen (2016), and reporter Tom Holloway in the third season of the Netflix series Stranger Things (2019).
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, also known as "the Trib", is the second-largest daily newspaper serving the Greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area of Western Pennsylvania. It transitioned to an all-digital format on December 1, 2016, but remains the second-largest daily in Pennsylvania, with nearly one million unique page views monthly. Founded on August 22, 1811, as the Greensburg Gazette and consolidated with several papers into the Greensburg Tribune-Review in 1889, the paper circulated only in the eastern suburban counties of Westmoreland and parts of Indiana and Fayette until May 1992, when it began serving all of the Greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area after a strike at the two Pittsburgh dailies, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Pittsburgh Press, deprived the city of a newspaper for several months.
The culture of Pittsburgh stems from the city's long history as a center for cultural philanthropy, as well as its rich ethnic traditions. In the 19th and 20th centuries, wealthy businessmen such as Andrew Carnegie, Henry J. Heinz, Henry Clay Frick, and nonprofit organizations such as the Carnegie Foundation donated millions of dollars to create educational and cultural institutions.
Rob Ashford is an American stage director and choreographer. He is a Tony Award, Olivier Award, Emmy Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award winner.
Maryann Plunkett is an American actress and singer.
Donald Ragan Stephenson IV, known as Don Stephenson, is an American actor and stage director. He has numerous credits on both television and in the theatre.
Bricolage Production Company is a professional theatre company based in downtown Pittsburgh. Established in 2001 by Jeffrey Carpenter, it is located at Community Forge, an inclusive community center in Wilkinsburg, PA. The company's mission is to use Pittsburgh's "distinctive resources" to create theatre that "stimulate[s] a heightened sense of involvement for the audience." Bricolage has held readings and staged productions of numerous new works by playwrights on the Pittsburgh, national, and international theatre scene. Their immersive theatre piece STRATA was named a number one production of the year by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and was featured on the cover of American Theatre Magazine.
Prime Stage Theatre is a professional theatre company located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Founded in 1996 by artistic director Wayne Brinda, the company has produced over 65 productions including 9 world and regional premieres and three scripts that are published and produced around the country. The theatre's first production was "A Woman Called Truth" staged at the Station Square Playhouse. The theatre then moved to La Roche College, where it produced two full seasons. In 1998, the theatre moved to Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera Academy for one season, followed by its production of Clemente: The Measure of a Man at Point Park University's George White Theatre in 1999. In 2000, Prime Stage produced works at the New Hazlett Theatre, until it inaugurated a new theatre facility at 937 Liberty Avenue in 2003, a space now inhabited by Bricolage Production Company and Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company. In 2006, Prime Stage returned to the New Hazlett, where it has continued to produce theatrical adaptations of literary classics and classic plays. Prime Stage has also staged productions as part of the Pittsburgh New Works Festival.
Quantum Theatre is an experimental theatre company that uses non-traditional stages in Pittsburgh, PA. Founded in 1990 by Karla Boos, it is the longest running producer of site specific plays.
Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company is a professional theatre company located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 2003 by artistic director Mark Clayton Southers, the company originally held productions at the Penn Theater in Garfield and moved to a new space on Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh's Cultural District. Between 2011 and 2018, it held productions in a space on Liberty Avenue in the same building used by Bricolage Production Company, as well as the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, where Southers was artistic director of theatre initiatives, and at other locations. In 2022, it moved into the former Madison Elementary School in Pittsburgh's historic Hill District.
Barebones productions is a professional theatre company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania which produces contemporary plays. Its mission is to "facilitate the growth of local theater artists through the production of challenging, entertaining, thought-provoking plays and attracts new young theater audiences by employing minimal production elements for maximum impact."
Unseam'd Shakespeare Company is a professional theatre company located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1993, the theatre's mission is to "rediscover and reinvent classic and classically inspired plays for modern audiences and present these plays in artistically ambitious and innovative productions." A member of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America, the company has produced classic works by Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Brecht, as well as contemporary plays inspired by classic works such as Paula Vogel's Desdemona, A Play about a Handkerchief. Some of these contemporary plays have included premiere productions by Pittsburgh playwrights, such as Amy Hartman's Mad Honey, Anya Martin's Teatro Latino de Pittsburgh, and Wali Jamal's Braddock '76. The company has received praise from local publications such as Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, City Paper, and Pittsburgh Magazine and has received recognition for their own productions as well as productions in conjunction with the Pittsburgh New Works Festival. The company has also received national and international attention, having been featured in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the National Performing Arts Conference.
Pittsburgh Musical Theater (PMT) is a professional theatre company located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1990, the company has since expanded with the educational programs offered by the Richard E. Rauh Conservatory of Musical Theater. The Conservatory offers musical theatre classes to young people which are taught by local professionals. PMT also does matinee performances for local high schools.
No Name Players is a professional theatre company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded in 2000 by Don DiGiulio at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, the theatre company began as a creative outlet for DiGiulio and his classmates to hone their craft outside of college-related performance opportunities. It has since evolved to become an important part of Pittsburgh's theatre scene, establishing its presence in 2004 with a production of Charles Mee's Big Love, which was recognized as one of the Top Ten Plays of 2004 by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The company's mission is to "present unique and challenging theatrical productions by both new and established playwrights with an emphasis on the collaborative nature of theatre through ensemble." It is notable for its "SWAN Day" celebration, which is an annual theatrical event that features short plays and other performance pieces that are created primarily by women, in connection with the international holiday SWAN Day which occurs on the last Saturday of Women's History Month. The company has no performance space of its own but has used performance spaces around Pittsburgh, including Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, Bricolage Production Company, and the Grey Box Theatre. It has received attention from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Out Online, and Pittsburgh City Paper.
Pittsburgh New Works Festival is an annual festival where participating Pittsburgh-area theatre companies each produce an original one-act play. Established in 1990 by Donna Rae, the Festival features four weeks of productions of new plays as well as two weeks of LabWorks. The Festival has taken place in numerous locations, originally having performances at City Theatre's Lester Hamburg Studio, Open Stage, the Father Ryan Arts Center in McKees Rocks, and currently Carnegie Stage in Carnegie.
Theater in Pittsburgh has existed professionally since the early 1800s and has continued to expand, having emerged as an important cultural force in the city over the past several decades.
Gab Cody is an American filmmaker and theatre artist. She wrote, produced and directed the feature film Progression, and her plays Fat Beckett, Crush the Infamous Thing, The Alchemists' Lab, Prussia:1866 and Inside Passage have premiered at theaters. She served as Lead Writer on the immersive theatre pieces STRATA, OjO and DODO, produced by the Bricolage Production Company.
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