off the WALL productions at Carnegie Stage A Pittsburgh Theater

A Christmas Carol unlike you’ve ever experienced... “Storytelling at its absolute finest.” - Pittsburgh City Paper “... a truly transformative evening” The Pittsburgh Current "A Christmas Carol at Carnegie Stage Gets Dickens Right" PGH Lesbian Correspondents Written by: Brianne Mueller We’re approaching week three of our run of A CHRISTMAS CAROL and it’s been a wonderful whirlwind experience. The newest version of this classic Charles Dickens tale -- performed and adapted by Mark Coffin, and directed and co-adapted by Heidi Mueller Smith -- is unlike any theatrical journey to have ever graced a stage in Pittsburgh, let alone in Carnegie. Mark Coffin - A Christmas Carol Photo by Heather Mull The 1843 novella written by Charles Dickens has been adapted from page to stage countless times and has practically become synonymous with the American Christmas season. Unlike its many predecessors, Coffin manifests all 16 or so characters in his one-man version of the pl...

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...

March 2014         A Feminine Ending Written by Sarah Treem Directed by Matt Morrow With: Erika Cuenca*, Ingrid Sonnichsen*, Weston Blakesley*, Shaun Cameron Hall, Andrew Wind* Amanda wants to be a great composer, but she’s in a profession that only recognizes famous men. At the moment, she's living in New York City and writing advertising jingles to pay the rent while her almost-famous fiancé, Jack, pursues his singing career. Her parents are getting divorced, her first love reappears, and there's a lot of noise in her head, but none of it is music. Until the end. A gentle, bittersweet comedy about a young woman who knows what she wants but not quite how to get it. Reviews: "...the play is really a showcase for Erika Cuenca as Amanda, who, in a mammoth performance of intense focus and rock-ribbed conviction, keeps reminding us of the humanity deep inside Treem’s compelling script." - Ted Hoover - City Paper “... the electricity between them and the...

Season twelve of “alternative theater for grownups” includes great plays, bold choices, and talented artists.  off the WALL Productions is excited to announce its 2018-19 season, featuring one World premiere, one U.S. premiere, and one Pittsburgh premiere in the Acting Company’s three-play program. Purchase tickets online at www.insideoffthewall.com, or call our box office at (724) -873-3576, Ext. 1. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol  World Premiere                                                               Conceived, co-adapted and performed by Mark Coffin Co-adapted and directed by Heidi Mueller Smith In this adaptation of Dickens’ best-known work, with its themes of inequity and renewal just as relevant in our society today as they were in 1843, the arc of the story is experienced through the mind and heart...

off the WALL productions closes their 2017-18 season with the regional #theater premiere of Byhalia, Mississippi.  Previously staged by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Evan Linder’s #funny and moving salute to both down-home #decency and a troubled couple living in a see-through shack is a bittersweet story about love, class, race, family, and forgiveness. Brandon Meeks, -Erika Cuenca - Virginia Wall Gruenert All Photos by Heather Mull  - Jim and Laurel Parker are about to become new parents. They are broke. They are loud. They are "proud white trash." When Laurel gives birth to their long overdue child, she and Jim are faced with the biggest challenge of their lives.  Byhalia, Mississippi explores a couple in the midst of turmoil and a town with a racially-charged past that finds its way into the present.  Written by Evan Linder  Directed by Ingrid Sonnichsen  With: Erika Cuenca, Brandon Meeks,  Lamar K. Cheston, Hope Anth...

The International Centre for Women Playwrights celebrate theatres promoting women playwrights in 50% of their Season! NEW YORK, NEW YORK, USA, September 20, 2017 The 2017 International Centre for Women Playwrights (ICWP) 50/50 Applause Awards celebrates gender parity for women playwrights at 58 theatres throughout The United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, United Kingdom, Singapore, and Tasmania. These 58 recipients will receive the prestigious 2017 50/50 Applause Award, for producing 50% or more plays by women playwrights in their 2016/17 season. The major criteria for the awards in 2017 were that a theatre had to have three or more productions, both male and female playwrights in their season, and at least 50% of the full-length plays and performances must be the work of female playwrights. For the 2016-17 season, approximately 32% of the qualifying theatres are repeat recipients.. Awardees range from community and college theatres to internationally renowned public theatres...

ICWP - International Centre for Women Playwrights - Sep  15, 2016 Dear 2016 50/50 Applause Award Recipients, We are thrilled that you are a recipient for our 5th anniversary of the ICWP 50/50 Applause Awards! Congratulations! Your theatre is part of a list of 107 theatres in 10 countries and 5 continents, breaking records on all fronts for this award. You are in company with theatres from Australia, Canada, England, Italy, Kenya, Philippines, Scotland, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States, including its Puerto Rico territory. The full list and our press release may be viewed by clicking this link: http://www.womenplaywrights.org/award Elana Gartner Kris Bauske Deborah Magid Co-Chairs, ICWP 50/50 Applause Awards awards@womenplaywrights.org International Centre for Women Playwrights www.womenplaywrights.org

We often hear the saying “Life is short, so ____.”  How would you fill in the blank? Here are some common answers: Life is short, so have fun. Life is short, so live life to the fullest. Life is short, so be happy. And the list goes on. But how often to you hear someone say “Life is short, so look past your differences and your struggles and give the gift of acceptance”?  Not typically the first thought that comes to mind, but should it be? After all, what we’re really talking about here is reconciliation. Look at the common answers: have fun, live life to the fullest, be happy. Who is at the center of these responses? Ourselves. But when we start talking about reconciliation and acceptance, it’s no longer only about ourselves. It’s now about our relationship with another. Reconciliations need not be limited to someone with whom you’ve lost touch with or had a huge fight with. No, reconciliations can be life changing even over smaller actions. Any of those ‘little things’ ...

The Mother-Daughter Relationship. Though words cannot really express the depth of the bond, there are countless references to this special relationship. Perform a quick Google search for ‘mother daughter relationship’ and you’ll receive not hundreds or thousands or even hundreds of thousands results. You’ll receive over 350 million results. And that doesn’t begin to account for all the books, movies and even songs on the topic. Take a look on social media, and you’ll find a plethora of posts using #MotherDaughter, innumerable quotes, pins on Pinterest and the list goes on. But as special as mother-daughter relationships are, they are often simultaneously fraught with contention. Even WebMD discusses the topic. There are as many variances within relationships as there are mothers-daughters. But even so, there are also many commonalities, as well as cultural pressures that impact every relationship. In our upcoming production Mother Lode, two independent women deal with end-of-life d...

Mother Lode is off the WALL productions upcoming play. There are so many great reasons to see this play that we’ve select the top seven reasons that make this play stand out. This is a world premiere performance and opens on January 28, 2016 at Carnegie Stage, a Pittsburgh Theater. TOP 7 REASONS TO SEE MOTHER LODE Linda Haston - Photo: Heather Mull The Music: Soulful, old style jazz from the 1930’s – you can’t find that at every street corner in Pittsburgh, but you can find it at C arnegie Stage during the performances of Mother Lode. The Life Story of Two Pittsburgh Women: Mother Lode is based on the lives Pittsburgh actor Linda Haston and her mother Ruth and on growing up in the Hill District. It is also about the stages of their mother-daughter relationship, from contention and discord to acceptance. Style: A one woman show, Linda Haston plays the characters of herself and her mother. Enjoy a Great Story:  Ruth is such a great story teller that you’ll be cap...

Linda Haston - photo: Heather Mull Do you enjoy a great story?  Then our next play Mother Lode is just what you’re looking for.  Although it’s a one woman show, there are two characters: Ruth (the mother) and Linda (her daughter).  And boy can Ruth tell a story!  In fact, she’ll want to tell you her whole life story. How can we describe Ruth?  She’s animated, absolutely a storyteller at heart, joyful, uplifting, and quite simply – a hoot! Linda, on the other hand, doesn’t have time for stories. She’s too busy trying to keep everything together AND take care of her mother.  Her mother is in the final stages of her life and true to her big personality, she also has some big demands of her daughter. Linda would do anything for her mother, she wants to be there for her mother; but she has a career, she has her own bills to pay, and she has her own health to tend to.  So how does a mother-daughter navigate through such troubled waters?  We can’t...

One of our "many" goals is to introduce new voices to the performing arts. Here is an article by Elizabeth (Liz) Beck a senior at Robert Morris. She attended a recent tech rehearsal. “Sometimes it’s the dementia and sometimes it’s her.” This statement, spoken about halfway through Off the Wall’s newest venture, Mother Lode, walks a fragile line that denotes the major struggles we go through as our friends and family age. It transcends generations. It explains the crucial separation caregivers discover in the trenches of the “bad days.” There is a demarcation between the human and the disease—here in this chasm is where we find two women in Mother Lode. In the play, we meet Linda, a devoted but disgruntled caregiver to her mother Ruth, who has advanced dementia and proves to be belligerent to any type of help that does not come from her daughter. Among other things, Linda harbors resentment towards her brother who never pitches in and her absentee father who will not commi...

Autism. Even with an astounding number of studies, programs and nonprofit organizations dedicated to the topic of autism, autism still remains a sensitive subject. Perhaps that’s the reason autism is rarely reflected on stage. It’s also the reason we selected our next play, Scared of Sarah by Laura Brienza. The Autism Disorder Spectrum covers a wide range of characteristics. In Scared of Sarah, Sarah is a high-functioning autistic adult. Chances are, if you briefly met Sarah, you would not notice any autistic characteristics. But if you’re a close relation, you would notice the different perception of the world and the difference in relating to others. That’s why Lily, Sarah’s younger sister, upon finding out she is pregnant, wonders if she might have a child like Sarah. If Lily does have a child with autism, how would she handle it. These are the questions that Lily obsesses over as she works through her own fears. Pittsburgh Theater, Scared of SarahMs. Brienza approaches the st...

What if? Do you ever worry about what might happen in any given situation? It’s ok… we’re not asking you to share your thoughts out loud, but if we’re honest with ourselves, every single one of us has probably fretted over ‘what if’ at least once in our lives. And with all the decisions in life, ranging from dating and finding a partner, deciding where to live, work and to what level of education to attain, not to mention readying ourselves for different stages of life – including raising a family, wondering about job security, aging parents and even vacation homes, in our fast paced lives where choices are as abundant as outcomes, some of us may even be in a perpetual state of ‘what if.’ With over 7 billion people on our earth, ‘what if’ just might be one of the most common questions asked across the globe. So you can imagine why Lily and Sam, an upwardly mobile couple making their way in New York City, have a lot of ‘what if’ questions when they unexpectantly find out they’re… wel...

A new One-Woman-Play by Virginia Wall Gruenert Starring Linda Haston While it’s true that mothers and daughters often have contentious relationships that will keep therapists in business for decades to come, there is no denying the deep bond that exists between them. Mother Lode deals with the end-of-life decisions that must be made by dutiful daughters, as well as the discord, conciliation, warfare, and ultimate acceptance (whether they like it or not) between strong, independent women bound by love and family. January 28 – Jan 30 @ 8:00 pm  Matinee January 31, 2016 @ 3:00 pm June 02 – June 04 @ 8:00 pm  Matinee June 05, 2016 @ 3:00 pm August 11 – Agust 13 @ 8:00 pm Matinee Agust 14, 2016 @ 3:00 pm

"There’s a story inside all of us.” That’s the motto of the Pittsburgh New Works Festival and we couldn’t agree more. Our team here at off the WALL productions is committed to “enrich enliven, educate, amaze and entertain our audiences.” When selecting plays to produce, we look at many factors. One of the most important factors is that the play tells a story, a story that reflects the challenges and nuances of real life. A story that reflects the trials and tribulations that real people deal with. A story that needs to be heard. A story that can change perspectives. The Pittsburgh New Works Festival “is dedicated to fostering the development of original one-act plays.” Each September, 18 plays are selected from hundreds of submissions. Six of the plays are read on stage in special reading performances in August. The remaining twelve plays are performed on stage. This year, all Pittsburgh New Works Festival performances will be held on CARNEGIE STAGE. We believe it is impor...

It’s no secret off the WALL Productions is a huge advocate for women playwrights. It’s a busy world we live in, and sometimes we fail to question the obvious as we go about our day-to-day lives. We accept ‘things’ for what they are. ‘Things’ become so ingrained within a culture that few bother to think about them, let alone ponder or question the reasoning behind the current status or possible solutions for change. And we get that. If you’ve been to our theater, you know we like to select productions that tell a meaningful story, productions they may in their own small way allow you to see life through the eyes of another. Another perspective per say. So when it comes to hearing the voices of women, we 100% support parity in theater. Parity as applied to playwrights would mean that 50% of the time, the audience is hearing the voice of a female playwright, and 50% of the time that of a male playwright. As it is, just one in five plays currently produced around the country are written ...

So you want to go to the theater? What is the first place that comes to mind when you think of this question? We’d like to think that it’s off the WALL Productions at Carnegie Stage; but if you have yet to attend a play at our stage, formerly off the WALL Theater, we understand if our theater was not your first answer. If your first answer was the Pittsburgh Cultural District, while it can be a wonderful experience to attend an event downtown Pittsburgh, you might be surprised to know that Carnegie boasts a professional theater.  Here are a few other tidbits of interest: The vast majority of our actors are professional actors, members of Actors Equity. It’s what they do for a living and they are passionate about delivering a memorable experience. We were one of only sixty-seven theaters in the world to receive the ICWP 2014 50/50 Applause Award, which recognizes theaters that produce 50% or more of women playwrights in their season. It is common for performances on our stage ...

When you read the headlines in today’s newspapers, you hear quite often “A suspect has been charged in robbery, murder or kidnapping.” What is your first thought? Guilty, Guilty, Guilty! Sounds a bit prejudice or narrow minded without sorting thru all the facts and making an unbiased decision, doesn’t it? Think about the person charged. Can you imagine the mind games and pressure that individual would be subject to in order for an admission of guilt? One would need to stay focused and keep from admitting anything that could be used against them? What if you were guilty of the crime charged against you… would you use the same determination and conviction in order to persuade your peers to believe you enough to drop those charges?  What if you were innocent… would the story look much different to the observer? Poster Monday 750If you stop, think and consider the facts and possibilities, I guess it’s not as easy as just hearing the headlines and making a decision… is it? In our up...

Anne Stockton You could say that actor/playwright Anne Stockon has just the right background and experience to brainstorm our upcoming production, ‘I won’t be in on Monday.’ Why? Besides being an actor and playwright, Anne is also a practicing psychiatrist and an Actor Trainer. As an Actor Trainer, she helps the officers in the New York City Police Department’s Hostage Negotiation team train for their job. She does this by acting the part of mentally ill individuals in real life scenarios. Her skills as an actor, along with her background as a psychiatrist, is the perfect combination to provide these officers with the situational effects necessary to help them handle the situations they will encounter on the job. So you can imagine the foresight Anne brings to her new play ‘I won’t be in on Monday.’ Starring in the play, Anne uses her finesse and experience to act the part of Nikki, a love-struck young woman thrown into the throngs of a police investigation regarding the theft ...