Pittsburgh theater companies keep busy through summer

Some of Pittsburgh’s cultural institutions may be taking a break for the summer, but theater is still all around in the city. Many local companies know that “the show must go on” — and have planned a variety of exciting productions for the next couple of months. Here are a few places to check out must-see theater throughout the season.

Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company

Pittsburgh Playwrights was founded in 2003 by Mark Clayton Southers. Focusing on local playwrights and stories about the Black experience, they have produced shows in a number of settings over the years and have gained a robust following in the area. They’re now in their 21st season.

“We produce August Wilson’s complete cycle. After we do ‘Two Trains Running’ in a year or two, we’ll have completed it for a second time around,” Mark Clayton Southers said.

They also produce a lot of world premieres of plays by local playwrights. Their current production is one such world premiere. “Fishy Woo Woo” was written by Monteze Freeland, co-artistic director at City Theatre Company and an actor, director and playwright.

“It’s been getting great reviews, audiences have been falling out of their chairs — it’s a fun time,” Southers said.

The comedic play explores themes of friendship, heartbreak and secrets. Audiences can catch it until it closes this Saturday.

Pittsburgh Playwrights will also be staging August Wilson’s final work, “Radio Golf,” from Aug. 10 to Sept. 14. “’Radio Golf’ will be performed for the first time behind August’s childhood home on our outdoor stage, so we’re looking forward to it. We always get a really great turnout for our August Wilson plays,” Southers said.

“It’s a smaller cast. We actually made the ticket prices a little lower this time around because, you know, we’re in the community, we want to make it accessible,” he said.

Get more information and tickets at pghplaywrights.org.

Barebones Productions

Also founded in 2003, Barebones Productions currently produces three plays each year. “It started out, we actually were only going to do one or two plays, just because we wanted to show people that these kind of plays that we like with a little bit more of an edge to them were commercially viable. Each time we did one, they were successfully in their own right and people still weren’t doing them, so we just did another one and another one,” said Patrick Jordan, founder and artistic director at Barenbones Productions.

Their current show — “The Animal Kingdom” — opens this Friday and runs through June 30. Jordan praised the writer, Ruby Thomas. “It just grabbed me the second I read it. The playwright really has captured kind of a new voice in the theater. The script itself doesn’t have an ounce of fat on it,” he said.

The play takes place over six sessions of family therapy.

The company houses their plays at the Barebones Black Box Theater in Braddock, their home for almost a decade. “It’s kind of known as one of the more intimate spaces in town,” Jordan said.

“The Animal Kingdom” has a cast of five actors, and Jordan, who is directing, couldn’t be more thrilled with them. “The performers that we have put together are just incredible, like blowing me away. Just the level of talent and professionalism that they have, it’s wonderful. Every now and again you catch a dream cast and I think that’s what this one is,” he said.

Learn more and reserve a seat at barebonesproductions.com.

Kinetic Theatre

Andrew Paul founded Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre in 1996 and left for a cross-country move in 2013, but spun off Kinetic Theatre Company so he could keep working in Pittsburgh theater. “It’s been over 10 years already, it’s hard to believe,” Paul said.

Kinetic Theatre concentrates on a lot of British and European works, with an eye on more contemporary plays.

Up until the pandemic, the company did three plays a year, but they’ve typically did one or two annually since covid-19. This summer, Kinetic Theatre is putting on two plays in a celebration of playwright David Mamet. “A Life in the Theatre” will run from June 13-30, and “Oleanna” will run from July 11-28.

Why a celebration of this particular theater giant? “I’ve always been a big fan of the work, because he kind of is a natural successor to a lot of playwrights I really admire, from Pinter to Beckett to Chekhov,” Paul said. He’s fascinated by how Mamet was so popular and lauded in the early decades of his working life, but the entire trajectory of his career changed around the turn of the century.

“He somehow became disconnected from something he’d been connected to before, which made me want to go back to the earlier plays,” Paul said.

“I have a very actor-driven company,” he added. “These particular two plays are great vehicles.” Both works have a cast of only two people, hence the summer season’s title, “A Pair of Deuces.”

“A Life in the Theatre” and “Oleanna” will both be performed at the Richard E. Rauh Studio Theatre at the University of Pittsburgh.

For tickets, visit kinetictheatre.org.

South Park Theatre

Founded in 1995, the current iteration of South Park Theatre has a packed schedule year-round. They have both indoor and outdoor stages and productions for children and adults.

They started their Children’s Theatre season this Monday with “Rapunzel.” “All of our summer Children’s Theatre shows are all classic fairy tales that are brought to life on the stage, performed by kids,” said Lorraine Mszanski, executive director of South Park Theatre.

Actors in the Children’s Theatre productions range from ages 6 to 17. The shows are held Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays on the company’s outdoor stage. After “Rapunzel” closes on June 19, there’s still a busy summer season of shows for kids, including “The Magical Land of Oz,” from June 24-July 3; “Snow White and the Seven Fairy Godmothers” from July 8-17; “The Story of Hansel and Gretel: The Musical” from July 22-31; and “Princess Who?” from Aug. 5-14.

On the mainstage, this week wraps up historical drama “The Revolutionists,” and the company’s “big summer musical” is coming up soon. “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” based on the 1988 comedy film starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine, will be performed from June 27-July 13. After that, “A Rock Sails By” — a play about an astrophysicist grappling with science and faith — will land on the mainstage from July 25-Aug. 10.

“We get a lot of wonderful local talents … on the indoor stage, we have actors that come from the South Hills, but some actors come from all over Pittsburgh,” Mszanski said. The company also hires students, as well as new and more experienced professionals, to fill out their technical roles and production teams.

South Park Theatre is located at the corner of Corrigan Drive and Brownsville Road in South Park. To get tickets, visit southparktheatre.com.