off the WALL productions at Carnegie Stage A Pittsburgh Theater

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...

What do we want to be when we grow up?  For us this has become an existential question in more ways than one.   Let''s have a look back at the past five years and then... May 2014    Inky Written by: Rinne Groff Directed by Ingrid Sonnichsen With:  Tony Bingham*  (Greg), Abby Quatro* (Inky), Adrienne Wehr* (Barbara), and on alternating nights Evangelina Paul & Layla Wyoming (Allison) A love-starved Manhattanite husband and wife struggle to satisfy their child-like desire to "have it all" during the high-rolling, morally skewed 1980s. When they take in Inky, a young Slavic nanny who's obsessed with Muhammad Ali, to care for their nine-year-old daughter and infant son, they are forced to face both their limitations and their potential for change. Inky is a darkly comic story about the importance of fighting back. Reviews: "One of the most interesting productions I’ve seen for a while simply because just when you thought you had each o...

What do we want to be when we grow up?  For us this has become an existential question in more ways than one. off the WALL productions (OTW) was founded July 1, 2007 in Washington County and relocated to Allegheny County in July 2012. Since 2012, OTW has produced and staged 25 productions of either new plays or regional premieres.  We have employed and paid (as per Union contracts) 25 directors and 101 professional actors. In addition, each show employed set, sound/music, lighting and costume designers, plus stagehands and front-of house-personnel, adding another 125 part-time jobs with the employees being paid a living wage of a minimum of $15.00 per hour. This we cannot sustain without your support. Our focus on diversity in theater, especially by supporting female artists, has put us on a very special list; The International Center for Women Playwrights has honored us for five continuous years with the 50/50 Applause Award. More details here But, we are also on anoth...

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...

Lungs   by Duncan Macmillan Performances:  Performances:  Dec. 2–3, 8–10, 15–17  @ 8:00 pm,  Matinee Dec. 4 & 11, 2016  @ 3:00 pm Dec. 2–3, 8–10, 15–17   p m A play by British playwright Duncan MacMillan. Directed by Spencer Whale With: Sarah Silk & Alec Silberblatt A bare stage, no scenery, no furniture, no props, no costume changes but infinite possibilities. LUNGS is a smart and funny drama that follows a couple through the surprising lifecycle of their relationship, as they grapple with questions of family and change, hope, betrayal, happenstance, and the terrible pain that you can only cause the people you love. "Duncan Macmillan's distinctive, off-kilter love story is brutally honest, funny, edgy and current. It gives voice to a generation for whom uncertainty is a way of life through two flawed, but deeply human, people who you don't always like but start to feel you might love." ...

Guest Blogger: Liz Beck - Senior RMU This is why we can’t have nice things!             It’s a phrase I’ve used many times. Usually, I say it when I’ve embarrassed myself. Other times, I’ve said it in a fit of desperation, after I’ve just seen someone of my own generation doing or saying something incredibly stupid on the Internet. We can’t have nice things because this guy is an asshole. We can’t have nice things because, once again, the Millenials have taken man buns to an unprecedented extreme. We can’t have nice things because one guy thought it was okay to run for president and, well, here we are.             Like I said, I’m a big fan of this phrase. So when I heard that this was the title of the latest venture at Off the Wall Theatre singularly starring Heidi Nagle, I was both extremely curious and excited. Finally, someone was going to dive into the same phenomeno...

After staging the  in-repertory production of the World Premiere of Mother Lode by Artistic Director Virginia Wall Gruenert (Shaken & Stirred, Without Ruth) in January of 2016, off the WALL productions now is presenting the third and final run. The often contentious relationships between mothers and daughters will no doubt keep therapists in business for years to come, but there is no denying the deep bond that exists between them.  Mother Lode tells the story of Pittsburgh actor Linda Haston’s mother, Ruth, a force of nature who leaves Jim Crow Alabama as a teen to work and raise her family in Pittsburgh’s Hill District.  This one-woman show deals with the end-of-life decisions that must be made by dutiful daughters, as well as the discord, conciliation, warfare, and ultimate acceptance between strong, independent women bound by love and family. Written by Virginia Wall Gruenert Directed by Virginia Wall Gruenert and Spencer Whale Starring Linda ...

Purchase one of our season packages  and enjoy  four plays for the price of three. In addition, receive discount on other Carnegie Stage events. off the WALL productions has once again put together a diverse lineup for the 2016-17 Pittsburgh Theater Season. For our 10th season, you can expect a variety like never before. Our acting company continues to address challenging topics, using various theater techniques. Not only will this year’s selections bring about a wide range of emotions, sometimes resulting in laughter, other times tears; they’ll also bring about a better awareness and understanding of what others experience and perhaps add a new perspective to all our lives. Click here for our Season brochure Packages/Discounts – click here Ticketing Links: Opening Night Regular Run    Super Saver

Linda Haston -  Photo by Heather Mull When Linda Haston, star of Mother Lode , a new play written by Virginia Wall Gruenert, first acted in the show in 2013, her feelings about her mother were very close to the surface. Her mother had passed away in 2011, and she describes still being very raw. “The first time we did this show it was more of a catharsis,” she said. “I was still fresh from her death, reeling from everything that we went through.” Haston describes that she felt unable to give the play the space that it needed, and that she was having trouble separating her performance from the complicated issues she was still dealing with regarding her complicated relationship with her mother. “I suggested that we do it again, rewritten, and I was much more able to get into it.” For Haston, the passage of the three years between the productions had allowed her to come to terms with some of the issues that had been holding her back before. The portrayal of her mother ...

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...

Perhaps calling our cast outrageously good would be a bit conceited, a little over the edge, perhaps even a little boastful, if we were to say it ourselves. But as fate would have it, we don’t have to, because that is exactly what Ted Hoover of the Pittsburgh City Paper had to say in his review ‘Scared of Sarah at Off the Wall.’ “IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PERFORMANCES….. THE TAKEAWAY IS THE WORK OF THISOUTRAGEOUSLY GOOD CAST.” Ted Hoover of the Pittsburgh City Paper So who makes up this cast and what is this play about? The play is about the life three individuals. A young married couple finds out they are pregnant. They had not planned for a baby at this time. With inundating student loans, Sam (played by Shaun Cameron Hall) is overwhelmed not only by the worry of managing post-graduate schooling and college loans, but also by the reality of day-to-day expenses of raising a child. Really, how many diapers would they need? Lily (played by Erika Cuenca) quickly works to calm Sam,...

Add caption PITTSBURGH THEATER – OPENING NIGHT: SCARED OF SARAH This holiday season, you’ll likely see all types of families while you’re out and about. Some families may seem filled with holiday cheer, while others may appear stressed. Some may look happy, while others may look sad. When you take the time to compare families, it’s easy to see that every family is unique. What’s not apparent, is that every family unit – and every individual for that matter, whether it’s obvious or not, is at some point struggling with their own issues and challenges. Shaun Cameron Hall and Erika Cuenca – photo by Heather Mull We all have our unique differences and we all have our fears. This is the case with Lily and Sam, an upwardly mobile young couple having the time of their life before having a family. So when Lily finds out she’s pregnant, crisis mode sets in. Sam wonders how they’ll support a baby. They’re not ready yet and they owe more than one hundred thousand dollars in loans. Li...

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

Lisa Ann Goldsmith, Elizabeth Ruelas Photo by Heather Mull Do you ever feel that you are not completely happy, that you are not able to feel joy in all areas of your life? Do you ever limit yourself to certain activities because you fear the break in your mundane routine? Do you limit your way of thinking for fear of feeling uncomfortable? Unless one is fully living the self-actualized life, we all have fears that we are running from in life. Some may be so small, but still affect how we think, feel, and react.  We may not even notice that these fears are affecting the quality of our lives.  Other fears are so significant, that we can’t ignore the symptoms. We feel the unhappiness, we feel the sense of inadequacy, we may even be questioning our course in life.  We may, in fact, even feel fearful. Fearful of what life is bringing our way, fearful of what might happen, fearful of what others might think, fearful of what will be if we succumb to this thing which we our...

What do you get when you bring together a playwright and director from New York City and two experienced actors from Pittsburgh?  You get the perfect storm for the makings of a brilliant production. Join us as we welcome newcomers Lisa Ann Goldsmith and Elizabeth Ruelas for their first appearance with off the WALL productions at Carnegie Stage, as they star in the premiere production of Tunnel Vision, by Andrea Lepcio and directed by Melissa Maxwell. Lisa Ann Goldsmith, Elizabeth Ruelas,  Photo by Heather Mull Tunnel Vision is a very unique play in many ways. The set is simplistic, the props are unexpected, and the setting is non-realistic.  But it is a story that reflects the reality of many. It is the story about the challenges faced by women in today’s society.  Challenges ranging from how women perceive themselves and other women to how women go about deciding their career path, especially if it is not a traditional career for women.  The play also add...