Carnegie Mellon Dramaturgy

“Come From Away” at Front Porch Theatricals

As I am sure is the case for most of you, I have vivid and detailed memories of the morning of 9/11/2001 and of my disbelief as the day’s events unfolded on live TV. And in the ensuing days, along with the rest of the world, I stayed glued to the news as as the scope and scale of the tragedy became clear and rescue teams worked desperately to find survivors among the rubble of the collapsed towers....

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“The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” at Kinetic Theatre Company (Carnegie Stage)

“Everyone is concealing something,” the great detective Hercule Poirot (Sam Tsoutsouvas) observes in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd as he begins his investigation into the locked-room murder of his neighbor Roger Ackroyd (Darren Eliker). And because this is an Agatha Christie mystery – adapted for the stage with charm and wit by Mark Shanahan – there are a lot of “everyone’s” in the story with things to conceal....

“The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” at Kinetic Theatre Company (Carnegie Stage) “Everyone is concealing something,” the great detective Hercule Poirot (Sam Tsoutsouvas) observes in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd as he begins his investigation into the locked-room murder of his ne…

“The Tempest” at Quantum Theatre

What does it take to let go of a tightly held aspect of your identity? That’s in many ways the question at the heart of Shakespeare’s (possibly final play) The Tempest, in a production that wraps director Karla Boos’s thirty-six year tenure as the founder and artistic director of Quantum Theatre. And while I don’t have any reason to believe that Boos has the kind of defining grievance that motivates Prospero (Jeffrey Carpenter) in the play’s beginning, I imagine his journey must resonate deeply with her as she, like Prospero, finds herself at her own moment of “letting go.” …...

“The Tempest” at Quantum Theatre What does it take to let go of a tightly held aspect of your identity? That’s in many ways the question at the heart of Shakespeare’s (possibly final play) The Tempest, in a production that wr…

“Danny and the Deep Blue Sea”: Independent Production at the Rauh Studio Theatre (Cathedral of Learning)

John Patrick Stanley’s 1983 play Danny and the Deep Blue Sea is not so much a story as it is a character study, a vehicle for actors to dig deep into the psyches of a couple of damaged, wounded souls. And under Kelly Trumbull’s direction, actors Shannon Donovan and Michael Patrick Trimm dig very deep indeed, embodying their characters’ crippling fear of openness and vulnerability with exquisite sensitivity and authenticity....

“Danny and the Deep Blue Sea”: Independent Production at the Rauh Studio Theatre (Cathedral of Learning) John Patrick Stanley’s 1983 play Danny and the Deep Blue Sea is not so much a story as it is a character study, a vehicle for actors to dig deep into the psyches of a couple of damaged, wounded sou…

“10 out of 12” at Quantum Theatre

The director Anne Bogart, who was a mentor of mine in grad school, used to describe creating theater as a process in which you discover all sorts of wonderful, inspired, beautiful moments in the rehearsal room “and then you have to kill them” (this, accompanied by a violent gesture of one hand stabbing the other) “so that you can bring them back to life.” ...

“10 out of 12” at Quantum Theatre The director Anne Bogart, who was a mentor of mine in grad school, used to describe creating theater as a process in which you discover all sorts of wonderful, inspired, beautiful moments in the re…

“Primary Trust” at Pittsburgh Public Theater

Eboni Booth’s intimate portrait of an awkward loner at a crossroads in his life in her play Primary Trust offers a really juicy opportunity for an actor of Monteze Freeland’s sensibilities and talents. And he takes full advantage of it, offering a portrait of Kenneth, the play’s protagonist, that is in equal parts – and at the right moments – guarded and vulnerable....

“Primary Trust” at Pittsburgh Public Theater Eboni Booth’s intimate portrait of an awkward loner at a crossroads in his life in her play Primary Trust offers a really juicy opportunity for an actor of Monteze Freeland’s sensibilitie…

“Eureka Day” at City Theatre

If you’ve ever wondered what happens when good intentions, bad information, and (not entirely good-faith) progressive ideals collide, Jonathan Spector’s play Eureka Day is here to paint the picture. It’s not pretty, but it’s often quite hilarious. The action of the play takes place during the 2018-19 school year in the brightly colored, well-stocked library of Eureka Day School (spot-on scenic design of this space by Sasha Jin Schwartz): a lefty, social-justice-oriented private elementary school in Berkeley, California....

“Eureka Day” at City Theatre If you’ve ever wondered what happens when good intentions, bad information, and (not entirely good-faith) progressive ideals collide, Jonathan Spector’s play Eureka Day is here to paint t…

“Infinite Life” at barebones productions

Count on playwright Annie Baker to quietly poke and prod at some of the most tender areas of your psyche. Her hypernaturalistic style puts mundane conversation and everyday being under a microscope, subjects them to rigorous examination and dissection, and then renders them in such exquisite detail that they become strange and mysterious in their familiarity. In Infinite Life the subject under investigation is pain and illness, along with the faith and desire that buoy people living with and in chronic dis-ease....

“Infinite Life” at barebones productions Count on playwright Annie Baker to quietly poke and prod at some of the most tender areas of your psyche. Her hypernaturalistic style puts mundane conversation and everyday being under a microscope…

“An Enemy of the People” at Pittsburgh Public Theater

Who woulda thunk that the freshest and most relevant theater production of our times would be a play written nearly 150 years ago? Well, me, actually…mainly because Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People is one of my all-time favorite plays (yes, guilty as charged, I’m a nerd). Once dubbed “the granddaddy of all ecodramas” by theater historian Una Chaudhuri, the play revolves around the discovery by Dr....

“An Enemy of the People” at Pittsburgh Public Theater Who woulda thunk that the freshest and most relevant theater production of our times would be a play written nearly 150 years ago? Well, me, actually…mainly because Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of …

“Malcolm X and Redd Foxx Washing Dishes at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack in Harlem” at City Theatre

The descriptive title of Jonathan Norton’s new play – Malcolm X and Redd Foxx Washing Dishes at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack in Harlem – tells you pretty much what you need to know about its premise: the action, which takes place in 1943, revolves around the historical fact – mentioned in Malcolm X’s autobiography – that as young adults the two men became close friends while working together as dishwashers at the famous Harlem eatery and jazz venue....

“Malcolm X and Redd Foxx Washing Dishes at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack in Harlem” at City Theatre The descriptive title of Jonathan Norton’s new play – Malcolm X and Redd Foxx Washing Dishes at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack in Harlem – tells you pretty much what you need to know about its premise: the…