PREVIEW: The Princess is Right!

Come on down to the New Hazlett Theater’s drag game show, The Princess is Right!

You Can’t Afford to Miss It

Princess Jafar. Photo by Renee Rosensteel, courtesy of New Hazlett Theater

The New Hazlett Theater is thrilled to premiere pop culture phenomenon Princess Jafar’s interactive game show, The Princess Is Right!, on February 17. Written and performed by Princess Jafar, Pittsburgh’s iconic Queer Arab cartoon princess villain, The Princess Is Right! Is a hilarious game show inspired by the classic TV series and features special guest stars such as musical artists Brittney Chantele, Livefromthecity, and kidmental, as well as a host of Pittsburgh’s favorite drag queens.

“Princess Jafar has been seen from East Liberty to the South Side producing hilarious late-night talk shows,” says Director of Programming Kristin Helfrich.“We wanted to see what would happen when we supported the Princess as she created a fully produced interactive game show complete with special guests and amazing prizes. This is just the kind of pick-me-up that the Pittsburgh Arts community needs in the middle of winter! Don’t miss it!”

Creator, hostess, and bona fide Pittsburgh royalty Princess Jafar incorporates themes from 90’s pop culture and queer influences to create genre-bending, hilarious original productions. She is also an LGBTQ+ advocate and active fundraiser, raising over $25,000 for Queer Pittsburgh artists of Color since 2017. The Princess is Right! not only gives audience members the opportunity to win real prizes but Princess Jafar will also award $500 to the charity of a winner’s choice.

“Even though we are still playing with TV show formats of old sitcoms and late-night specials like we have in past productions, this show differs from other Princess Jafar shows because it focuses on the game show element,”Princess Jafar told Pittsburgh City Paper in a recent article. “Our goal with The Princess Is Right is to give back to the audiences who have made it through a few very tough years.”

The Princess is Right! has three showings only: Thursday, February 17 at 8 p.m. and Friday, February 18 at 11 a.m. & 8 p.m. Tickets are available for purchase on the New Hazlett website. Tickets range from $15–$25 but Allegheny County library cardholders can reserve $5 tickets to the Friday matinee through RadPasss.org.

This production is part of the Theater’s 2021/22 Community Supported Art Performance Series (CSA), which provides emerging artists with the opportunity to develop new work for the New Hazlett stage. Each year the CSA supports five emerging Pittsburgh artists as they develop a new work for the New Hazlett stage. The artists featured in the 2021/22 season range from up-and-coming playwrights to inventive musicians to a sassy Queen with a heart of gold. Past CSA contributors include recording artist Brittany Chantele, choreographer Kaylin Horgan, and director/playwright Tlaloc Rivas. Through the CSA program, the New Hazlett Theater provides opportunities for diverse voices to shape the future of theater and connect audiences with fresh productions that challenge their expectations of what theater can do.

In order to ensure a safe experience for all audience members, masks, photo ID, and proof of vaccination are required. Read the most updated safety guidelines on the New Hazlett website.  Accessible seating and assistive listening devices are available for all productions.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

PREVIEW: The Princess is Right!

Win Cash, a Bus Pass, and a Washer and Dryer with Princess Jafar

It’s almost an attempt to rewrite history. I want n a few years for people to remember Princess Jafar as a 90s character. I want to create some confusion like Oh, were they actually around with Elvira and Pee Wee Herman and Hulk Hogan and all those big names? Yes. Yes, she was. Princess Jafar has been around for 500 years. She’s not going anywhere, anytime soon.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

PREVIEW: The Princess is Right!

The Princess is Right brings drag game show antics to New Hazlett Theater

Princess Jafar - PHOTO: RENEE ROSENSTEEL

Photo: Renee Rosensteel
Princess Jafar

Back in 2015, a new figure started to take shape on the Pittsburgh art scene. Calling herself Princess Jafar, the singer, drag artist, and performer played host to events, gathering others artists and creatives to perform alongside her. These events, titled Princess Jafar & Friends, gave stage time to various local up-and-coming artists.

Princess Jafar will take the stage again for her new show, The Princess is Right: An Interactive Game Show. Taking place at the New Hazlett Theater on Thu., Feb. 17 and Fri., Feb. 18, with showings at 11 a.m. or 8 p.m., the show will give participants a chance to win fabulous trips, cold hard cash, and other prizes.

“Even though we are still playing with TV show formats of old sitcoms and late-night specials like we have in past productions, this show differs from other Princess Jafar shows because it focuses on the game show element,” Princess Jafar told Pittsburgh City Paper over an email. “Our goal with The Princess Is Right is to give back to the audiences who have made it through a few very tough years.”

In another statement, Princess Jafar expands on this, saying the show is “actually filling in for what the local government cannot do” by giving away free bus passes, lead filters for tap water, cash, and washers and dryers.

She adds that the whole cast consists of LGBTQIA people of color.

Jafar also credits working with the New Hazlett’s CSA program, and with Kristin Helfrich, René Conrad, Dylan Baker, and Phoebe Coztanza Orr, for helping to elevate the production “to a level I know the entire team is going to be extremely proud of.”

“Princess Jafar has been seen from East Liberty to the South Side producing hilarious late-night talk shows,” says New Hazlett director of programming Kristin Helfrich in a press release. “We wanted to see what would happen when we supported the Princess as she created a fully produced interactive game show complete with special guests and amazing prizes.”

Princess Jafar moved to Pittsburgh around 2012 and started cutting her teeth in bars and venues across the city as a drag performer, her original shows being described as “genre-bending, hilarious productions” incorporating themes like ’90s pop culture and queer influences.

Princess Jafar is originally from Ohio, a state that is often pitted against Pittsburgh, but Jafar says Pittsburgh is where she found home.

“Pittsburgh is the place where all my dreams have come true,” says Princess Jafar. “I grew up feeling like such an outcast as a queer Arab kid in the middle of Ohio, and it wasn’t until around 2012 or 2013 and moving to Pittsburgh that I felt the encouragement to confidently embrace myself. I’m forever grateful to the city and my friends and collaborators I’ve made here.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

REVIEW: Lavender Terrace

Riffing on Marita Bonner’s play “The Purple Flower,” NaTasha Thompson’s “Lavender Terrace” carves out its own space

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE

PREVIEW: Lavender Terrace

Interview: NaTasha Thompson discusses “Lavender Terrace,” a new multimedia interpretation of Marita Bonner’s “The Purple Flower”

By David Bernabo

 is a multi-media performance that explores Marita Boner’s , published in 1928. This new play tells the story of marginalized and oppressed people fighting for the right to have life at its fullest over the last eighty years in America.  progresses through time, beginning in the late twenties and landing in an obscured but familiar representation of the present day.

NaTasha Thompson is a director, playwright, and North Carolina native. Much of her inspiration comes from her southern roots. She creates work that offers opportunity for productive discourse. As a result, underrepresented voices are amplified and education/awareness is increased. NaTasha holds an M.F.A in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University.

Check out our interview with NaTasha Thompson below!

 premieres at the New Hazlett Theater on December 2, 8PM and December 3, 11AM and 8PM. Click here for tickets and additional information and read up on the New Hazlett Theater’s COVID policies before you attend.

David Bernabo: Hi NaTasha! To start, can you introduce yourself and the piece?

NaTasha Thompson: So my name is NaTasha Thompson. I am the director and playwright for  is inspired by a play written by Marita Bonner in 1928 called . The goal for  is to push her original allegory forward.

DB: Can you tell me a little bit about and what inspired you to draw from the text?

NT, to me, is about Black life in America in the early 20s. Marita was commenting on the changes that were happening in America at the time. You’ve got the migration of Black people coming into the North to acquire better jobs, and at the same time, a lot of rioting happening, a lot of protesting happening. So when the opportunity came to create , it felt like the right material to be working on, especially with the protests that were happening last summer and that have been happening for years. It felt like good material to engage with.

DB:  is rather placeless and timeless, right? Are you setting the piece in a place and time?

NT: I’m going off of the period the play was published and produced in. So I’m looking at the late 20s, mid to late 20s to present day. Our goal is to walk through almost 100 years of time. It’s not a chronological 60s, 70s, 80s sort of walk, but just to capture the essence of what Black life has been from the mid to late 20s to present day.

DB: , where’s the title come from?

NT: So the original piece is and the lavender portion is the play off of that. Lavender is the less saturated color. So we may not be as vibrant and as decadent as the original, but we’re still gonna have that essence of . For , there was public housing — it wasn’t a project — in North Carolina called Washington Terrace that was renovated and has its own history. And there’s something about landing on that platform of the terrace that I’m playing with the title.

DB: Can you about how the multimedia aspects of the productions play into progressing that timeline?

NT: A lot of  is about experimenting and using the material as sort of a foundation but also experimenting with different mediums. Projection is going to be used in the piece. We’re using music, we’re using poetry, we’re just using everything we have to tell this story.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

REVIEW: Meanwhile

Review: With “Meanwhile,” Mandolinist Bryce Rabideau Welcomes Us Back into the Theater

Nov 10·7 min read

Photographs by Renee Rosensteel.

Continuing Recital’s sponsored partnership with the New Hazlett Theater, we are presenting a series of editorially-independent previews and reviews of the 2021–22 Community Supported Art (CSA) Performance Series. Below is our review of Meanwhile by Bryce Rabideau, a collaborative response from Recital editor David Bernabo and guest panelist Jason Baldinger. Read their bios at the end of the review.

By David Bernabo

Surrounded by milky, planetary spheres, some floating in the air, others grounded, mandolinist Bryce Rabideau speaks of the perfect song. Could a song change one’s world? Could a song change the world? It’s opening night for the ninth season of the New Hazlett Theater’s Community Supported Arts (CSA) series. Rabideau, joined by bassist Jason Rafalak and guitarist John Bagnato, present Meanwhile, an evening of acoustic, mandolin-forward music, music that is harmonically-complex, fusing elements of jazz, folk, and bluegrass into tidy compositions that never linger in one place for too long.

Over the years, the CSA series has shied away from presenting a band playing songs on a stage. As reviewers, we’ve also discouraged it. The argument being that there are plenty of places to present music in town yet few options to experiment with interdisciplinary collaborations or to attempt a bold advance into the avant-garde, especially at the scale of the New Hazlett Theater. [You can see where our reviewing biases often reside.] You can chart a progression from Mathew Tembo’s set in 2015 — it was gorgeous but basically an evening of songs — to Afro Yaqui Music Collective’s full-blown 2018 opera, Mirror Butterfly, which while rooted in song brought in an arcing storyline, dance, and martial arts. For a band, the CSA is a hell of a gig. $3,500 for two shows! Sign me up.

But this mentality also limits the potential of music. Yes, music as a very generalized artform is more mainstream than dance or theater or the spaces in-between. Music is more ubiquitous, infiltrating radio airwaves, movie soundtracks, TikTok videos, and basically every single commercial in a world that is evolving into one giant ad. But music is often cheapened by this exposure. Music and the labor needed to create it can be taken for granted. We all know that Spotify and streaming have devalued music to a point where past careers are not possible today. The music school as a market has churned out more fantastic players than the music industry cares to promote. So, why not invest in musicians? Given rehearsal space, production support, and ample time to prepare, surely a musician could extend their craft beyond what could have been achieved with a handful of after work rehearsals and a 30-minute slot sandwiched in the middle of a five-band bill.

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE

New Hazlett Theater announces latest Community Supported Artist season

New Hazlett Theater’s 9th Season of Community Supported Art incorporates a wide range of theatrical experiences including music, theater, comedy, and multimedia.

Pittsburgh has a thriving community of artists and creatives, and New Hazlett Theater will highlight five of these artists in its ninth season of Community Supported Art.

The five shows represent a variety of media, from improvised music to an interactive game show, created by emerging artists who call Pittsburgh home. The season opens with mandolinist Bryce Rabideau’s Meanwhile from Oct. 28-29 and closes with actress and theatre-maker Bailey Lee’s Papa from April 7-8.

“We’re proud to know that the work produced at the New Hazlett contributes to the rich cultural fabric of our city,” says New Hazlett Theater executive director René Conrad.

Director and playwright NaTasha Thompson will present her multimedia performance Lavender Terrace from Dec. 2-3. The reimagining and exploration of Marita Boner’s 1928 one-act play The Purple Flower begins in the late ’20s and carries it into the present day to tell the story of marginalized and oppressed people fighting for the right to live full and fulfilling lives.

Audience members can become contestants in singer and drag queen Princess Jafar’s The Princess is Right!, taking place February 17-18. The interactive game show will give audience members and participants the chance to win trips, cash, and other prizes.

Feralcat - CP PHOTO: KAYCEE ORWIG

CP Photo: Kaycee Orwig
Feralcat
For those interested in more multimedia work, Feralcat’s concert Disassembly — featuring cutscenes from his original pixel art-based sci-fi/fantasy video game — will show March 17-18. The artist, saxophonist, composer, and producer explores racial identity, oppression, nostalgia, and love through a story set in the near future where an authoritarian regime’s censorship threatens communication.

Lee’s Papa will close out the series with an original play rooted in her grandfather’s experiences traveling from rural China to McKeesport. The play will explore three generations of Asian Americans’ complicated relationships in Lee’s familial hometown.

CSA subscriptions are $100, which covers the cost of tickets for all five performances. Individual tickets are also available for $25 each for general admission and $15 for students and artists. Each performance has shows at 8 p.m. on both nights as well as a Friday matinee at 11 a.m.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Kalopsia uses laughter and music to address mental health stigma in Black community

Malcolm McGraw as Bernard “Byrd” Fuller in New Hazlett Theater's Kalopsia The Musical - PHOTO: RENEE ROSENSTEEL

Malcolm McGraw as Bernard “Byrd” Fuller in New Hazlett Theater’s Kalopsia The Musical
Photo: Renee Rosensteel

Wearing rose-colored glasses? It’s a phrase at the heart of Kalopsia The Musical, a new production at New Hazlett Theater focused on mental health and the culture surrounding it in the Black community. Kalopsia, the delusion of things being more beautiful than they really are, brings an important issue intertwined with comedy and song, creating a multi-layered story that keeps audiences guessing — and laughing — throughout the performance.

Written by Monteze Freeland and directed by Tomé Cousin, Kalopsia, running Oct. 7-17, originally debuted as a workshop with New Hazlett in 2017, and has now blossomed into a beautiful musical, the theater’s first performance since the pandemic closed its doors in 2020.

The musical tells the story of Bernard “Byrd” Fuller, played to perfection by Pittsburgh native Malcolm McGraw, whose coping mechanisms of escapism and fantasies, complete with dance numbers and “creative collaborators,” catch up with him as an adult. The story begins with a meeting with Byrd’s parents at his elementary school, where the subject of therapy is first discussed, leading to contention between his parents, and a disagreement on his mental health treatment. His behavior continues to escalate over the years.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

PREVIEW: Meanwhile

Interview: Mandolinist Bryce Rabideau on the premiere of ‘Meanwhile’

By David Bernabo

If you were a regular show goer before the pandemic, you may have seen Bryce Rabideau play mandolin with Pittsburgh band Buffalo Rose. Or maybe you saw him play with the likes of Joy Ike, The Skyliners, or Bindley Hardware Company. Well, now, you have a chance to see Rabideau lead a new string trio when he opens the ninth season of the New Hazlett Theater’s CSA series with a new stage performance.

Meanwhile is an exploration of American improvised music. Accompanied by Jason Rafalak (upright bass) and John Bagnato (acoustic guitar), Rabideau employs a suite of original songs to push the limits of the acoustic string trio and create a sound that promises to be “rich, spontaneous, and undeniably fun.” Being privy to a bit of Rabideau’s solo mandolin playing while conducting the below interview, that last statement is not out of the question. The songs and the playing are quite impressive.

Check out the interview below!

Meanwhile premieres at the New Hazlett Theater on October 28, 8PM and October 29, 11AM and 8PM. Click here for tickets and additional information and read up on the New Hazlett Theater’s COVID policies before you attend.

David Bernabo: Hi Bryce, can you tell me about your show?

Bryce Rabideau: Sure. My show is called Meanwhile. Meanwhile is an exploration of American improvised music of all sorts, using the palette of the mandolin, the upright bass, and the acoustic guitar. The show itself consists of 10 original compositions that were written specifically to defy expectations of the audience and even of the other musicians on stage. So my goal is to sort of showcase some of my musical inspirations in a way that’s exciting and thrilling and true to the genres that inspired them.

DB: I’m curious — what draws you to the string trio?

BR: I have been playing mandolin for a number of years now, and I think it’s got a lot of qualities that are just so special. It can be a percussion instrument or a stringed instrument at any given time. And timbre of the mandolin meshes beautifully with the acoustic guitar and the upright bass. They don’t get in each other’s way, harmonically, and that presents so many interesting possibilities for different sounds and different palettes to explore. So I really wanted to take just those three instruments and push them to their logical extremes; try to emulate jazz fusion, try to emulate pop music, try to take aspects of other genres that really excite me and put them in this new setting and see what happens.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Pittsburgh artists explore ‘the delusion of beauty’ in a new musical comedy

It began, said Monteze Freeland, with a single word: “kalopsia.”

The neologism means seeing things as more beautiful than they are.

The Pittsburgh-based writer and performer thought the term encapsulated “optimism” — something he was lacking at the time, about five years ago.

“Optimism wasn’t really around me,” said Freeland. “But I remember being so optimistic as a young person. And so turning everything ugly into something beautiful. It felt like the right title for a musical.”

“Kalopsia: The Musical,” a musical comedy about a young Black man who copes with trauma by escaping into a glitzy fantasy world, premieres this week, live onstage at the New Hazlett Theater.

The show — the first in-person production at the theater since the coronavirus pandemic began — is the result of a New Hazlett artist residency by Freeland and his co-writer, composer Michael Meketa III. It’s directed by Pittsburgh-based Broadway veteran Tomé Cousin.

The cast of 11 includes Seton Hill University graduate Malcolm McGraw as Byrd, whose rich imaginary life, inspired by everything from TV variety shows to Beyoncé, features spotlights, a treated mic, and even his own backing singers, The Blue Birds.

“This play is about him falling apart and then being put back together by his community, as they also learn that they do the same thing in many different ways,” said Freeland.

Freeland, 34, is a fixture on the Pittsburgh theater scene and was recently named co-artistic director at City Theatre. He borrowed from his own life for “Kalopsia”: It’s set in Baltimore, where he grew up, and where his own nickname was “Bird” (because he picked at his food).

Meketa, 27, grew up in Johnstown and recently moved to Pittsburgh. He said the music for “Kalopsia” is a mix of traditional musical-theater styles with R&B and soul influences. The opening song, “Keep Home At Home,” expresses how Byrd’s family discourages its members from facing trauma outside of such traditional institutions as domestic life or the church.

But as Freeland says, “You can’t keep home at home. Your life spills out into the world. And it’s how you deal with that. It’s how you take it into your own grasp, and how you tell your own story.”

Much of the message is directed specifically at the Black community, he said.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

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