Pittsburgh Magazine April 2011

EXPLORE NEW THEATRICAL FRONTIERS AT OFF THE WALL PRODUCTIONS:
If you sort of like theater, you visit the Cultural District now and then. If you really like theater, your frontiers expand to Oakland and South Side. But if you truly know your stuff, you may have discovered a hidden gem in Washington, Pa.: Off the Wall Productions. The company has been producing challenging, highly relevant dramas and comedies in an intimate 66-seat theater since 2007. Make an evening trip out of it for the company’s season-four finale, Shining City, in May. The play is an acclaimed story about faith and sin set in Dublin, but seeing the theater is worth the trip alone.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Women Count at at off the WALL

WOMEN COUNT In case you missed the theatre industry’s gender parity movement, here’s a recap: women have been writing plays for millennia and landing productions for centuries.   Over time, they’ve also come to play key roles onstage and backstage.   But female theatre artists of all kinds still find themselves bonking their heads on a glass ceiling known as the “glass curtain.”   Even today, female playwrights, directors, and designers are atypical.   Shakespearian gender-swapping has been mooted as a partial solution; however, such theatrical “novelty” only serves to distract from the main issue – the absence of contemporary dramas reflecting the complexity of women’s lives.   Cross-gender casting fails to question the over-representation of dead and living male playwrights.   It does not address the fact that half our contemporary creative world is missing. In an essay in howlround.com, Jenny Lyn Bader writes: “We live in a world dominated by...
Read more

GHOSTS: A SET IN THE MAKING (PART 1)

Image
In this two-part blog, I’m going to focus not on the play itself, but on the set. Why? Because quite simply the set is astonishing! If you’ve been keeping up with our blogs, you already know that our current production Ghosts is set in the early 1880’s, that it was written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Isben and that though it is a revered classic today, it was considered absolutely scandalous in its time. The exposed secrets and immoralities conflicted with society’s moral taboos. If you’d like to learn more about the history of the play, the storyline, the characters or director, please peruse our recent posts. Scenic Design: Rich Preffer In the meantime, let’s take a look at the set. The set design, by Rich Preffer, captures the essence of the play. The mood. The character. The unsaid meanings and implications. The set itself includes a cage like structure, including a canopy structure, which encompasses the entire set. Looking at the set, you at once feel both the sense of h...
Read more

Celebrating family and friends in 2019

Image
Thank you for making 2018 so special As 2019 starts to gear up, we’re left remembering the many moments we’ve shared with you in 2018. It was a great year and we hope to make 2019 even better! We sincerely offer our most heartful ‘thank you’ to our creative partners, patrons, employees, and collaborators – Carnegie Stage and off the WALL surely wouldn’t be the same without every single one of you who make up our humble little community. From the bottom of our hearts, we’re happy to have you as part of our family. Erika Cuenca - Virginia Wall Gruenert Byhalia, Mississippi, May 2018 If you’d like to join the Carnegie Stage/off the WALL family, consider donating – no amount it too big or too small… and every little bit helps! With your help we are able to pay EVERY single person who works for us – there are no volunteers; only paid employees. We believe all working artists deserve to make a living doing what they love. To help support our cause, consider donating monthly or a...
Read more