POPCity Feature: Pittsburgh Theater Troupes
By Robert Isenberg
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 POPCity
Pittsburgh is packed with theaters—large and small, amateur and Equity, and each is a little bit different from all the others. Some fans try to see everything, and they bounce from Public to City to Quantum with aplomb, signing up for every season subscription they can find. Others gravitate to their neighborhood stage, like South Park and Little Lake, happy to support their friends and neighbors.
But some companies really stand out, not just because they produce excellent shows, but because they’re full of surprises. They don’t fit the usual categories; you can’t quite pin them down, and they seem to like it that way. Through shrewd leadership and visionary staging (often with limited resources) these artistic directors have won over critics and audiences.
If you’ve never seen a production (or heard of them, period) this critic fervently recommends the following five companies. If Penn Avenue is Pittsburgh’s Times Square, then consider this the Off-Broadway crowd—eccentric, cutting-edge, and guaranteed to show you something you’ve never seen before…