PHOTO COURTESY WILLIAM POWERS

William Powers is getting back to his operatic roots.

The executive director of Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra since 2021, Powers recently was named general director of Pittsburgh Opera, effective July 1.

Prior to joining the symphony, Powers — a veteran artistic administrator with more than 30 years of experience — spent 14 years working at Pittsburgh Opera; he began as the director of artistic administration and was promoted to director of administration and artistic operations before becoming the managing director.

“Opera has been at the core of my artistic identity for a long time, really my whole professional career for that matter,” Powers says, “And so, the journey has brought me back.”

Powers succeeds Christopher Hahn, who is retiring at the conclusion of the opera’s 2025–26 season. Prior to becoming the second-longest tenured general director in company history, Hahn served as the opera’s artistic director from 2000 to 2008.

While a national search was conducted for Hahn’s replacement, the opera’s board of directors found the best candidate for the position was right under their noses and — thanks to his history with the company — uniquely qualified to lead the opera into the future.

“[Powers] is intimately familiar with our company, our city, and our patrons, and has demonstrated the ability to successfully helm performing arts organizations,” said Pittsburgh Opera board president Gene Welsh in a statement.

Board chair Michele Fabrizi adds, “In many ways, Bill has been preparing for this role for decades. He arrives with instant credibility and goodwill both internally and externally.”

For his part, Hahn says there is no one he would rather turn the reins of the organization over to than Powers.

“Having worked with him for well over a decade, I have witnessed and benefited from his expertise, judgment, and counsel,” Hahn said in a statement. “His work ethic and integrity are second to none.”

While Powers says he plans to continue the legacy of artistic excellence the opera has built over 87 seasons, among his ideas for the future are engaging more with the community, particularly the younger generation, while expanding the opera’s variety of offerings, which could include newer chamber works and new commissions.

“We are seeing more cultural omnivores in terms of the way patrons are experiencing the arts, and so to have that variety will be very important,” Powers says.

He also hopes to partner with other local entities on projects, something he prioritized during his time at PYSO.

“There’s wonderful opportunities in this community now for collaborations, working with other organizations and utilizing the synergies between them both to pull our forces together and say ‘Let’s create this interesting project,’ or ‘Let’s engage our community in this way,’” Powers says.

In particular, he is interested in appealing to Pittsburgh’s younger demographics through technology, such as curated content and storytelling on social media platforms.

“Having worked with the youth of Pittsburgh for the last four or five years, it’s been inspirational seeing their passion and joy,” he says. “Knowing that there’s more we can do to engage directly with the youth of this community will be a major initiative of what I bring to the next chapter of Pittsburgh Opera.”

Powers certainly has support for his new role as home. He is married to Sari Gruber, an acclaimed opera singer and voice professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Like Powers, Gruber is a Juilliard grad; the couple met at the school in the 1990s.

Over the years, Powers says he has sought his wife’s perspective on musical matters, particularly when it comes to how to engage with artists.

“I think one of the nice things the two of us in life have been able to do is, we’ve seen this industry from both sides,” Powers says. “She’s been a performing artist out there working with colleagues, living that life from the stage. And, of course, I’ve been on the producing side, engaging the community, raising the money and providing the opportunities for those artists to get up on stage and flourish.”

DR. HOLLY FROM DANCE MOMS. PHOTO BY AVIANA ADAMS

Opening Dec. 5 at the Benedum Center, “The Nutcracker” is a classic way to celebrate the holidays — and to catch a glimpse of some Pittsburgh celebrities.

Presented by Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, the performances will feature an unprecedented number of local celebrities in walk-on roles during the “Party Scene.” Adam W. McKinney, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s artistic director, says this year’s 20 guest stars come from local politics, sports, television news and the cast of “Dance Moms.”

FRZY. PHOTO BY AVIANA ADAMS

“We absolutely love having local celebrities guest star in our Pittsburgh version of ‘The Nutcracker,’” he says. “We select a variety of guest stars from different fields such that there is interest for all audience members.”

Here’s a closer look at the Pittsburgh celebrities you can expect to see in the Land of Enchantment this holiday season.

• Charlie Batch (7 p.m. on Dec. 5) Pittsburgh Steelers and Founder of Best of the Batch Foundation
• Latasha Wilson-Batch (7 p.m. on Dec. 5) Executive Director of Best of the Batch Foundation
• Megan Shinn (2 p.m. on Dec. 6), KDKA-TV Anchor and Reporter
• Corey O’Connor (7 p.m. on Dec. 6) Allegheny County Controller & Pittsburgh Mayor-Elect
• Bonny Diver (7 p.m. on Dec. 6) iHeart Radio Host, & Founder of Hair Peace Charities
• Jeremy Reynolds (noon on Dec. 7) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Critic and Journalist
• Chandi Chapman (7 p.m. on Dec. 12) WTAE-TV Anchor and Reporter
• Victoria Vespico (2 p.m. on Dec. 13) Miss Pennsylvania 2025
• Brooke Hyland (7 p.m. on Dec. 13) Dance Moms
• Amanda Neatrour (4:30 p.m. on Dec. 14) Mrs. Pennsylvania 2024
• Arjun Manjunath (7 p.m. on Dec. 19) Social Media Content Creator
• Daisy Jade (7 p.m. on Dec. 20) KDKA-TV “Pittsburgh Today Live” Reporter
• Perry Ninness (7 p.m. on Dec. 20) Administrative Officer at UBS
• Sara Innamaroto (noon on Dec. 21) Allegheny County Executive
• Frzy (4:30 p.m. on Dec. 21) Musician
• Chloe Lukasiak (7 p.m. on Dec. 23) Dance Moms
• Kendall Vertes (7 p.m. on Dec. 26) Dance Moms
• Mary Ours (2 p.m. on Dec. 27) KDKA-TV Meteorologist
• Lindsay Ward (7 p.m. on Dec. 27) Pittsburgh Reporter and Content Creator
• Dr. Holly Hatcher-Frazier (noon on Dec. 28) Dance Moms

Along with seeing some familiar Pittsburgh faces, attendees will experience hundreds of colorful characters wearing 150 intricate costumes, a Christmas tree that grows to 15 times its size and over 30 magic tricks performed by a professional magician.

CHARLIE BATCH AND HIS WIFE, LATASHA WILSON-BATCH. PHOTO BY AVIANA ADAMS

“‘The Nutcracker’ is a magical way to celebrate the holidays,” says McKinney in a statement. “Our unique Pittsburgh version of ‘The Nutcracker’ is an unforgettable way to experience the season’s festivities with loved ones.”

Performances take place Dec 5-28 at the Benedum Center. Tickets are available at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s website.

“Letters To My Younger Self ”

Shaheen Dil

Gyroscope Press, $20

Photography as we know it pretty much started in France, when in 1826 the inventor Joseph Niépce — who was also responsible for coming up with the first internal combustion engine — was able to permanently fix an image onto a pewter plate by way of a process he called heliography.

That blurry image of Niépce’s estate in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, entitled “View from the Window at Le Gras,” has survived these many years and currently resides at the University of Texas at Austin. Poetry may be considerably older than photography; the earliest poems even predate written language. But the two artforms make excellent bedfellows.

Both highly value the image — and in a handful of recent collections by local poets, photos take centerstage. Shaheen Dil’s “Letters to My Younger Self” combines ekphrastic poems, which are poems that specifically respond to different sorts of art such as photography, painting and music, and the epistolary form which mimics letter writing. In a series of 43 letter-poems, Dil addresses the girl and young woman she was as she moves through the world from Pakistan to Pittsburgh.

Dil writes, “I know the bend in the road you can’t yet see, / what lies past / the hill rising.” The poems are, by turns, playful and nostalgic, and suffused with the bonds of family.

Dil does not shy away from the harder stuff of history, though. Violence and prejudice are never far from the surface. Dislocation and cultural assimilation are themes that are tightly threaded throughout.

“Pittsburghese”

Robert Gibb

Wheelbarrow Books, $15.95

Robert Gibb would be the poet laureate of Homestead, if such a position existed.

In more than a dozen collections of his poems, Gibb has documented his hometown as granularly as James Joyce did Dublin. In “Pittsburghese,” Gibb’s poems are in direct conversation with the photographs of Ramon Elouza and W. Eugene Smith.

As the reader has come to expect from Gibb, these are poems of grace and power.

As a disembodied voice says in the poem “Voice-Over,” “I live in Homestead with ghosts.” Gibb offers a spectral excavation of the past while grounding his work in the crumbling firmament of the present.

“Playing For Payback”

Lainey Davis

Bookcase Media, $15.99

Since their founding in 1967, the Pittsburgh Penguins have had their fair share of ups and downs — but championships didn’t start coming their way until they drafted a kid from Montreal named Mario Lemieux.

Seven years after Lemieux’s 1984 selection, the Stanley Cup resided in Pittsburgh; the Pens have lived in the hearts of Pittsburghers ever since. It comes as no surprise, then, that hockey in Pittsburgh is at the center of two recent and very different novels. Alder Stag of the Pittsburgh Fury is playing the most important game of his career when suddenly the Kiss Cam flashes images of his boyfriend passionately making out with another man — the boyfriend of the team’s new dentist, Dr. Lena Sinclair.

Dazed by this very public betrayal, the puck gets past Alder. Just like that, the season is over, and his love life has capsized. Lainey Davis’ light and sexy “Playing for Payback” is an arena-sized romantic romp.

Alder and Lena join forces to exact a bit of revenge on their exes only to discover just how quickly things can heat up on the ice. Personal body image and human sexuality can be thorny subjects, but Davis treats her characters with respect and, in doing so, offers a very reassuring look at love and romance.

“Fine Young People”

front view of Blank book cover white .

Anna Bruno

Algonquin Books, $29

“Fine Young People” is a thriller set in the monied halls of Sewickley prep school St. Ignatius, where star hockey player Woolf Whiting has died under mysterious circumstances.

Eighteen years later, Frankie Northrup and her best friend Shiv reopen the case as part of their senior-year Community Journalism class project. Bruno combines Nancy Drew sleuthing with the nuanced social commentary of a Henry James novel to offer up something deeper than a typical page-turner.

“Fine Young People” is as much an interrogation of class and wealth as it is a murder mystery.

POINT PARK SCHOOL OF DANCE STUDENTS MARGARET KINGSBURY AND GABRIEL TOLMER | PHOTO BY AVIANA ADAMS

When Garfield Lemonius joined Point Park University’s faculty as an associate professor in 2010, the professional dancer, choreographer and educator felt the dance program needed to increase diversity and expand its modern-dance curriculum.

During a rise through the ranks that led to his appointment last January as dean of the newly established School of Dance — and artistic director of the Conservatory of Performing Arts — Lemonius has seen those needs fulfilled, including through the establishment of one of the first four-year hip-hop dance concentrations in the country.

He says, however, that he believes “the School of Dance is in its infancy right now.”

Outreach to the dance community at large, institutional developments and campus expansion are bolstering the school’s standing. Earlier this year, the university hosted the National High School Dance Festival, which welcomed students from across the U.S. and from Canada and Australia. In May, it served as the site for the National Society of Arts and Letters National Ballet Competition; later that month, it became the new home for the Summer Project, an annual initiative of Springboard Danse, a dance service organization formerly based in Montréal.

“Events like [these] highlight Pittsburgh as an arts center,” says Lemonius, adding that they bring revenue to Pittsburgh, increase visibility for the university and raise awareness of the school for potential students.

The ballet-centric dance program — initiated in 1968 as an experiment in academic studies and performing arts (which birthed Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre) — since has broadened its artistic focus and reinforced its well-established reputation for excellence. It was earlier this year listed among 25 top dance institutions by DanceUS.org, a website that provides resources for aspiring dancers.

POINT PARK SCHOOL OF DANCE STUDENT MOLLY CRIST | PHOTO BY AVIANA ADAMS

The elevation from “department” to “school” enables the development of more specialization; currently, the departments of concert and commercial dance are under the umbrella of the school. As a school, educational partnerships with the university’s other schools can be established, and degree options can be broadened.

Lemonius says, for example, that the School of Theatre, Film and Animation could generate a dance-cinema program, while the dance-education program, currently a joint venture between the schools of dance and education, could spin off. The new “fast-track bachelor’s to master’s” program is collaborative and facilitates earning a four-year B.F.A. or B.A. in dance simultaneously with an MBA (in business), M.A. (in communications) or M.Ed. (in education).

The curriculum aims to meet the demands of the industry and prepare the current 360-plus dance majors for jobs. A minor in choreography launched with this year’s fall semester; a new four-year hip-hop concentration joins the ballet, modern dance and jazz programs.

“Hip-hop is growing so much that it needs to be part of the curriculum. Today’s industry is looking for versatility,” says Associate Professor Crystal Frazier, who is the heart of the school’s hip-hop program.

Frazier, who joined the faculty in 2019, is one of the first tenured hip-hop professors in the country. Along with teaching her students hip-hop styles ranging from breaking to waving, she imparts history and culture to enable students to speak of the genre with the same level of knowledge that they discuss other dance forms.

“It’s about training the students to walk out the door knowing and understanding the movement,” she says.

More than 1,000 hopefuls apply annually; of those, 120 are admitted. Academic acceptance is required, as is an audition that evaluates previous training, skill, aptitude and potential.

Dancers declaring the hip-hop concentration also must show proficiency in both structured and freestyle dance. “I need to know that they understand the ‘groove.’ Without the ‘groove,’ there is nothing — anybody can do ‘arm-ography,’” says Frazier.

The school’s state-of-the-art facilities now occupy four Downtown buildings. Four large studios recently were installed on the second floor of 225 Blvd. of the Allies, which extends the university’s urban campus to 15 properties and increases the total number of studios to 14 (or 18, counting four studios in the Pittsburgh Playhouse, the campus’ main performance venue).

Currently, the Conservatory Dance Co. provides a performing outlet for students. However, Lemonius says, “I believe that, potentially, we can create a dance company [that provides] the experience of what it’s like to be in a professional dance company.”

He debunks the old adage, “Dance career first, education later.” He says a rigorous undergraduate dance education produces mature, well-rounded artists who can cope with demanding careers. Alumni have gone on to work in professional dance companies, on Broadway, on cruise ships and as backup dancers for musical artists.

“The industry needs professional dancers, and we want dancers who are skilled to become dance educators to train tomorrow’s dance artists,” he says. “We are responding to this.”

Trafford author Dave Newman has been working overtime. In less than a year, he has published three new books in three separate genres: “She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall” is a collection of short stories told primarily from the viewpoint of female characters; “How to Live like Li Po in Pittsburgh” is a generous helping of personal essays; and “Better than The Best American Poetry” is his newest book of poems.

No matter the form Newman’s writing takes, though, his content remains laser-focused. The short poem “Working Class” lays it out like this: “Every other culture finds rewards / for their suffering // We are held accountable / for the wealth of the rotten class.”

Or there’s this, from the essay “Ditch-Digger for the Butcher Lie, or Why Universities are a Terrible Place to Work.” “Some days I close my eyes and remember 1988, the sadness of that year and those men, and the icy goodness of having a beer and the belief that college would keep me from the unemployment line, from jobs that barely paid and the midnight shift.”

The people who populate Newman’s literary world work terrible jobs for very little pay. Whether driving a truck or working as adjunct professors, they are desperately trying to keep themselves above the poverty line. Many are juggling multiple jobs while trying to finish a college degree, with loan debt piling up and without health insurance. The threat of the unemployment line hangs over everyone.

Thinking about Newman’s work, I’m reminded of something the artist Robert Crumb wrote about the work of the Cleveland writer Harvey Pekar: “[E]ven the most seemingly dreary and monotonous of lives is filled with poignancy and heroic struggle. All it takes is someone with an eye to see, an ear to hear.” Dave Newman is that someone. By turns angry and funny, his work offers dignity to lives that too often go overlooked and unconsidered.

THE CLEMENTE MUSEUM | PHOTO BY ROB LARSON/CLEMENTE MUSEUM

Pittsburgh punches above its weight when it comes to museums.

Institutions including The Andy Warhol Museum and the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History have gained international fame — but they’re far from the only spots for visitors and locals alike to learn and explore.

In fact, some of the city’s most fun exhibits and institutions are so unheralded that even lifelong yinzers may not realize they exist. Here are 10 Pittsburgh museums that visitors and locals alike should keep on their radar.

Pittsburgh Tattoo Art Museum

5413a Walnut St., Shadyside

PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

A one-room museum in the heart of Shadyside serves as an ode to the history and art of tattooing. Tattoo artist and collector Nick Ackman has spent decades amassing an extensive collection of tattoo memorabilia and antiques — a collection that has grown so big that only about 10% of it can fit in the Pittsburgh Tattoo Art Museum.

It may be time for a bigger home. Tattoos, after all, have a long history. Ackman, who founded the museum in 2022, has carefully curated the items on display, including many of the rarest and oldest items in his collection. One highlight is a set of personal sketches from early 20th-century tattoo artist Lew Alberts, a highly influential figure in American tattooing who contributed to the design of motorized tattoo guns used today. It is one of only two known sets of Alberts’ drawings still extant (the other belonging to tattoo artist and entrepreneur Ed Hardy).

Stencils and sketches from other well-known figures in tattooing history make up much of the collection. Most are from the early 20th century, and are accompanied by signs and photographs that provide context on the artists and their role in American tattoo culture.

There are several antique tattoo guns on display; they date back to the 1890s, not long after the electric tattoo machine was invented. Among them is a traveling kit used by carnival tattooists made from a repurposed, hollowed-out record player. Visitors who like the vintage designs on display won’t have to go far to get one inked. The Pittsburgh Tattoo Art Museum also is a working tattoo shop, with four resident artists.

When he’s not tattooing, Ackman can usually be found sketching in the back of the museum. He’s happy to answer questions, give background on items in his collection or just geek out about the art he loves.

Hours: Wednesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
Admission: Free

Bicycle Heaven

1800 Preble Ave. Chateau

PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

Want to see the bike Pee-wee Herman rode in “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure?” Or the four-person tandem bike ridden by the Monkees? Both are on display at Bicycle Heaven, alongside thousands more.

This combination museum and bike shop is incongruously located in Casey Industrial Park in Pittsburgh’s North Side. Bicycle Heaven is the world’s largest museum dedicated to bicycles. It started as the personal collection of bicycle aficionado and repairman Craig Morrow, who collected antique bikes while running a repair shop in nearby Bellevue.

He upgraded in 2011 to the North Side space, where today he showcases roughly 3,500 of the more than 27,000 bicycles in his collection.  Bicycle Heaven regularly provides props for movie and TV productions; bikes used in films including “Super 8” and “Fences” are among those on display.

The collection also features bikes dating back to the 1800s, including several penny farthings and an all-wooden bicycle made before the Civil War. The rarest bikes in the collection are four colors of Bowden Spacelander, a fiberglass bicycle made in 1946. (Morrow owns 19 of the estimated 38 remaining in the world.) Visitors can also see pedal-free bikes powered by bouncing on the seat and a chunk of a tree with two bicycles partially encased within it.

While Bicycle Heaven’s famous and rare bikes are the main draw, they’re not the only items in the collection. Several were donated to honor their former owners. Signs posted on these bikes explain their significance, from treasured childhood possessions to bikes used to win races and souped-up models used for stunts.

Another detail setting Bicycle Heaven apart from other museums: If guests like something they see, they might be able to take it home. They sell used, new, and collectible bikes both in-store and on their website. Others can be rented for visitors who want to ride around the city, something Morrow says happens on a near-daily basis. It’s also still an active bike repair shop, with a million or more spare parts interspersed among the complete cycles in the collection.

Hours: Daily, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.
Admission: Adults $15; groups of 5+ $10 each; kids under 9 free

Johnny Angel’s Ginchy Stuff

1800 Preble Ave., Chateau

PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

Anyone visiting Bicycle Heaven on the weekend should allow time to also visit its next-door neighbor: Johnny Angel’s Ginchy Stuff. This museum and collectibles shop is a must-visit for music lovers, particularly those with an interest in those golden oldies — and vintage records.

Founder Jack Hunt (better known by his stage name, Johnny Angel) is a lifelong yinzer who grew up in the Woods Run area of the North Side, not far from where his museum is located. His first band, the Cordells, released their debut record in 1966, evolving into the better-known Johnny Angel and the Halos in the 1970s. From then on, they were a fixture of the music scene until 2024, when Hunt was sidelined by a stroke.

During his more than 50-year-long music career, Hunt shared a stage with James Brown, Chuck Berry and the Four Tops. Along the way, he amassed the collection of records, autographs, outfits, instruments and other memorabilia that has been displayed in his shop since it opened in 2016.

Visitors first encounter the museum’s record shop, which has an extensive array of hard-to-find and vintage vinyl for collectors to peruse and purchase. The rear space of the shop is a kind of rock and roll thrift store, selling an eclectic mix of books, collectibles, clothes and art.

To tour the museum itself, just head through the beaded curtain. From there, you’ll explore several rooms of exhibits spanning musical eras and genres. There are an autographed drumhead from the Yardbirds, a game of Chubby Checker Twister, a vintage Green Book, colorful suits worn by soul groups like the Temptations and the Flamingos — and, naturally, an array of Johnny Angel and the Halos gear from their performing years.

Visitors with questions about items in the museum can often get the answer straight from Hunt. He’s usually the one behind the counter and is happy to chat, whether it’s about his music career, his internet radio show (the “Heavenly Soul Show”) or a rare record that a museum guest has been trying to track down.

Hours: Saturday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
Admission: Free

Moonshot Museum

1016 N. Lincoln Ave., Chateau

PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

Space lovers of all ages will have out-of-this-world fun at the Moonshot Museum. This edutainment destination opened in October 2022, making it one of Pittsburgh’s newest museums. Operated by the Astrobotic Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Astrobotic Technology, it also holds the distinction of being the first space museum in Pennsylvania.

The highly interactive museum’s exhibits pack a great deal of hands-on learning into a compact space, giving visitors an immersive introduction to 21st-century space exploration — not just the math and engineering elements of space travel.

Visitors start their tour in the Moonshot Theater for an introduction to the modern space industry and a look at the role Astrobotic and Pittsburgh play in it. With this background in mind, you’ll launch your own simulated lunar mission: Build a lunar rover in The Lab and then head to the moon’s surface to identify potential human settlement sites and learn what it takes to survive in an alien environment. You can design a mission patch, too — and even swing by the Hope Moonshot exhibit to send a future message to the Moon, to one day be carried aboard one of Astrobotic’s lunar missions.

Perhaps the coolest thing about the Moonshot is that it also houses Astrobotic’s workshop, where the robotics company builds real lunar landers and rovers for NASA space missions. Visitors get a literal window into the work in progress in Astrobotic’s Clean Room, where they’re building the Griffin-1 Lander. Scheduled to launch in late 2025, Griffin-1 will carry Astrobotic’s FLIP rover to the Moon’s South Pole, along with dropping off payloads for NASA and the European Space Agency.

Once construction is completed, the Griffin-1 will pass through the Moonshot Museum on its way to the launchpad at Cape Canaveral. Upcoming events will be announced on Astrobotic’s and Moonshot’s social media accounts, for visitors who want to see if their visit coincides with a launch or landing. The museum team plans to continue updating its exhibits to match the current work of the Astrobotic team, so repeat visitors will learn and see something new each time they stop in.

Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Admission: Adults $12; children 3-12 $7; kids under 2 free

St. Anthony Chapel

1700 Harpster St., Troy Hill

PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

You might be surprised to learn that Troy Hill holds the largest collection of Catholic relics in the United States. In fact, the more than 5,000 relics at St. Anthony Chapel make up the biggest collection of its kind outside of Vatican City.

St. Anthony Chapel’s nondescript, tan-brick facade belies its ornate interior, which features painted ceilings and a gilded apse reminiscent of the grand cathedrals of Europe. The chapel was founded by the Rev. Suitbert G. Mollinger, the first pastor of the Most Holy Name of Jesus Parish, specifically to house his relic collection. Born into a wealthy Belgian family, he aimed to recreate the elegant churches of his homeland through the chapel’s design and decor. Much of the art, like the life-sized wooden statues for the Stations of the Cross and the stained-glass windows depicting the Virgin Mary and the saints, was imported from Europe.

The shrine opened on the Feast of St. Anthony in 1883 and was designated a Historic Landmark in 1977. It’s dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua, whose tooth is among the relics housed at the site, found in a small reliquary on the St. Anthony altar. All told, there are more than 800 reliquaries throughout the chapel, many of which contain multiple artifacts.

The collection also includes 525 certificates attesting to the relics’ authenticity. Many of these documents are historic artifacts in their own right, with the oldest dating back to 1716. Other highlights of the collection include the entire skeletal remains of martyr St. Demetrius, relics purported to be from Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist and the skulls of martyrs St. Theodore, St. Macharius and St. Stephana.

Visitors can tour St. Anthony Chapel every afternoon (except on Friday). It is also an active house of worship, with Sunday and weekday-morning masses, Novenas to St. Anthony on Tuesdays and Stations of the Cross on Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons during Lent.

Hours: Saturday-Thursday, noon-3 p.m.
Admission: Free

Clemente Museum

3339 Penn Ave., Lawrenceville

PHOTO BY ROB LARSON/CLEMENTE MUSEUM

A few athletes have earned the nickname “The Great One.” But in Pittsburgh (and Puerto Rico), this title is reserved for one legend: Pirates right fielder Roberto Clemente, the only athlete in the city to be honored with his own museum.

During his 18 years with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Clemente won 12 consecutive Golden Glove awards, played in 12 All-Star Games and was the first major league player from the Caribbean to be named MVP of both the National League (1966) and the World Series (1971) — among many other accolades. His on-field accomplishments were significant enough that the National Baseball Hall of Fame changed their rules after his untimely death to make him eligible for an immediate, posthumous induction in 1973.

Clemente left as profound a legacy off the field as he did on the diamond. Born in Puerto Rico, he devoted his offseasons to charity work in Latin America and the Caribbean. This dedication ultimately led to his death, when his plane crashed on his way to deliver aid to victims of the 1972 Nicaragua earthquake. He was 38. Major League Baseball renamed their award for sportsmanship from the Commissioner’s Award to the Roberto Clemente Award in his honor.

The Roberto Clemente Museum celebrates both his incredible baseball career and his humanitarian efforts. The museum was founded in 2007 by photographer Duane Rieder, whose personal collection of memorabilia served as the foundation for the museum, supplemented by photos and artifacts donated by Clemente’s family.

Today, the collection includes thousands of items ranging from professional sports photographs and family snapshots to old uniforms and equipment — even seats from Forbes Field, where he played most of his career. The museum carries on his legacy of charitable giving, too. After Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, it organized relief efforts that raised more than $50,000 and gathered two tractor-trailers full of supplies.

While the Clemente Museum doesn’t offer walk-in hours, visitors can book a docent-led tour on the museum’s website. Tours typically last 90 minutes; available slots are posted a month in advance. The team also offers open-house tours during Pirates home games.

Hours: Scheduled tours are typically available 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday-Sunday and select weekdays
Admission: $21/person

Center for PostNatural History

4913 Penn Ave., Suite 101, Garfield

PHOTO BY RICH PELL/CENTER FOR POSTNATURAL HISTORY

Chickens, dogs and food crops have quite a backstory. Visitors can discover that tale at the Center for PostNatural History, a museum designed to explore the complex relationship between nature, culture and technology — with a collection of plants, animals and other organisms that have been intentionally altered by humans.

Tucked between storefronts along Penn Avenue in Garfield, the Center offers a refocused take on the traditional natural history museum. The timeline of the collection starts some 15,000 years ago with the domestication of dogs and runs through high-tech concepts like genetic engineering. In between, it covers everything from cultivated crops to lab mice to birds trained to imitate humans.

Museum visitors are greeted by the taxidermied remains of Freckles, a BioSteel goat who was modified to produce spider silk proteins in her milk. Other exhibits run the gamut from the familiar to the bizarre: fluorescent mice and GloFish; Sea Monkeys, representing the first time animals were bred explicitly as a toy; and HeLa cells, the immortal human cell line derived from Henrietta Lacks, just to name a few.

The center was founded in 2008 by Carnegie Mellon University professor Richard Pell, with the aim of studying how humans have shaped the evolution of the natural world. He opened the museum in 2012 to fill what he saw as a conspicuous gap in existing collections. As he explained in a 2024 interview with NPR, natural history museums tend to ignore modified organisms, despite their prevalence in everyday life. He set out to create a space where these altered life forms, and their role in human culture and development, could be given the consideration they’re due.

The Center for PostNatural History has garnered international acclaim as the first collection with this focus. Its exhibits have toured cities in Germany, France, Australia and Singapore. Its website offers an extensive archive of current and past exhibits; the center also released a book in 2024, “This is Not An Artifact,” which catalogs the first 16 years of investigation into PostNatural History (and comes with fun 3D glasses).

Hours: Friday 5-9 p.m.; Saturday noon-9 p.m.; Sunday noon-4 p.m.
Admission: Adults $10; students and kids under 8 $5

Bayernhof Museum

225 St. Charles Place, O’Hara

PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

At most cultural institutions, the draw is either the place itself or the treasures it contains. At the Bayernhof Museum, it’s both. Along with more than 150 automated music machines, this sprawling 19,000-square-foot mansion boasts 10 fireplaces, 13 wet bars, 3 kitchens, separate gambling and billiards rooms, a rooftop observatory, a 10-foot waterfall — and spectacular views of Highland Park and the Allegheny River.

The Bayernhof Museum was originally the private residence of eccentric Gas-Lite Manufacturing Co. founder Charles Brown III (Chuck to his friends). Its construction cost $4.2 million and took six years, in part because his crew consisted of, as he would say, “three kids, two old men and a blue station wagon” under the oversight of an engineer who was still a teenager at the project’s start. This unconventional approach resulted in a labyrinthian layout featuring elements straight out of “Clue,” such as secret staircases hidden behind Murphy doors.

Brown’s intent with his mansion was to bring a slice of Bavaria to Pittsburgh. The name Bayernhof loosely translates to “Bavarian Hall,” and the decor largely matches this moniker; many of the moldings, fixtures and furnishings were bought from castles in Germany. Brown also liked his modern conveniences, though, installing features that were high-tech for the ’80s and ’90s and are now charmingly retro, making the home a historic artifact spanning multiple eras.

The Bayernhof’s music machine collection started from Brown’s interest in old music boxes. This evolved into buying larger and more intricate music machines, primarily antiques that are more than a century old — and, in some cases, are one of a kind. Highlights include a Wurlitzer Automatic Harp, a Rivenc Bird Music Box whose animatronic bird “sings” along with the music and a Hupfelt Phonoliszt Violina, which plays three violins and a piano all at once. Not all of these machines are stand-alone; the home theater has an early 20th-century player piano that also creates sound effects to go along with silent movies.

Tours of the Bayernhof are offered every day, except major holidays (although tours can fill up on busy weekends) and must be scheduled in advance. The tour is an audio as well as a visual experience, including demonstrations of several music machines as well as entertaining stories about Brown, the home’s construction and the history of many of the artifacts that call the Bayernhof home.

The Bost Building

623 E. 8th ave. Homestead

PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

The Bost Building is best known for its role in the Homestead Strike, one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of American organized labor. The interior of this intended rooming house for workers of the nearby Homestead Steel Works was still under construction in 1892, when the strike started on July 1. Despite this, the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers Union used the building as its headquarters during the 95-day strike, putting it at the center of the strike’s two most memorable incidents: the July 6 battle between striking workers and Pinkerton agents and the attempt to assassinate plant operator Henry Clay Frick two weeks later.

In the years that followed, the Bost Building briefly served its intended purpose as a hotel, though not a particularly successful one. It also functioned as a bar, grocery store, gambling hall, brothel and sandwich shop before being designated a National Historic Landmark in 1999. It reopened in 2002 as the headquarters for Rivers of Steel, an organization that preserves the industrial and cultural heritage of southwestern Pennsylvania.

Today, the Bost Building serves as the Visitor’s Center for the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area. Along with staff offices and historical archives, it houses a museum displaying collections of photographs, artifacts, documents and art related to U.S. labor and the Pennsylvania steel industry. The museum’s permanent exhibits focus on the Homestead Steel Works, the Homestead Strike and the restoration of the Bost Building. Two rooms have been restored to their 1892 appearance, while the third floor hosts rotating art and archival exhibits.

The Bost Building is just one attraction in the greater Rivers of Steel site. Visitors with an interest in Pittsburgh’s industrial history can visit the Pump House in Munhall that was the site of the 1892 Battle of Homestead or explore the Carrie Blast Furnaces in Swissvale, the only non-operative blast furnaces remaining after the collapse of Big Steel in Western Pennsylvania.

For those who want more hands-on entertainment, Rivers of Steel also hosts festivals and workshops. These include metal arts classes like blacksmithing, iron-casting and their popular Doodle Bowl Experience (designing and carving a bowl that is cast in solid aluminum). They also lead photo safaris and hands-on graffiti tours of the grounds.

Hours: Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; timed tickets required
Admission: $5/person

Living Dead Museum

Monroeville Mall, 248 Mall Circle Drive

PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

Pittsburgh claims the “Zombie Capital of the World” moniker, thanks to filmmaker and Carnegie Mellon University alum George A. Romero. Romero filmed several installments of his “Night of the Living Dead” series in the region; those films defined zombies in pop culture for the half-century that followed (and launched the career of special-effects guru and Bloomfield native Tom Savini).

Monroeville Mall was the primary filming location for 1978’s “Dawn of the Dead,” so it’s fitting that it’s now home to a museum honoring zombies in film. Visitors can see original props, costumes and set pieces from Romero’s films alongside photos from the production, movie memorabilia and the “Maul of Fame,” a wall of bloody handprints left by horror actors who have visited the exhibit.

Romero’s films aren’t the only terrors celebrated at the Living Dead Museum. It also has exhibits dedicated to other pop-culture zombies, including the cabin set used in “Evil Dead 2” and a statue of Michael Jackson in his full “Thriller” get-up. Other productions filmed in Monroeville Mall have space in the museum, too, such as a room devoted to the 2017 Netflix series “Mindhunter.”

The Living Dead Museum began life as a small display in curator Kevin Kriess’ Monroeville Mall toy shop. It moved in 2013 to Evans City, where Romero filmed the original “Night of the Living Dead” and his 1973 film “The Crazies,” before returning to an expanded space in the mall in 2018. Although the museum no longer calls Evans City home, the town is still worth a side trip for serious zombie lovers, who can see plaques and a mural dedicated to Romero as well as several locations featured in the movie — including the cemetery where the iconic opening scene was filmed.

While the Living Dead museum is open for walk-in visitors year-round, their hours are extended during the summer months. Monroeville Mall also regularly hosts festivals and events related to its spooky claim to fame, most notably the Living Dead Weekend every summer (it was held in early June this year); the macabre gathering features cast reunions, movie screenings and other undead-themed entertainment.

Hours: Monday, Thursday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; Sunday noon-6 p.m.
Admission: Adults $8; students and active military $7; kids 12 and under free

Jess Simms came to Pittsburgh for an MFA from Chatham University and loved the city so much they never left. They write about the region’s culture and creative scene and participate in it as co-founder of Scribble House and Managing Editor of After Happy Hour Review.

PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

From a distance, they look both natural and unnatural. They are bright, incongruous, otherworldly — and yet they seem at home.

Above the lotus pond at Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, four collections of hanging streamers are suspended in the sky, flirting with the surface of the water (while never quite making contact). As you approach, they remind you of clouds — or jellyfish, perhaps? They catch the sunlight and seem to generate their own luminescence, fluttering slightly as they loll above the water.

Then the wind hits.

Suddenly, the four collections of fabric begin moving. They’re fighting the wind as if they’re moving intelligently, weaving and rising as the direction of the breeze changes. Arriving at the lotus pond, you realize that for the first time you are truly seeing the wind itself — observing the contours of the air moving around you, rendered as a quartet of ever-changing colored masses.

The fabric pieces seem to rise impossibly high, testing the limits of the rigging that tethers them to nearby trees. Then, the wind fades, and they sink back to the pond’s surface once again — relaxing as if they weren’t wonderfully alive a moment ago.

This creation, “Elevated Reflection,” is part of the installation “Momentum” by the artist Patrick Shearn of the studio Poetic Kinetics, an international studio specializing in the creation of experiential, interactive works of public art. Shearn, who currently lives in his native Colorado, says “Momentum,” which is part of his globe-spanning “Skynet Series” and will remain on view for the next several months, came from specific reference points in the natural world.

“My initial inspirations were schooling fish — or the murmuration of birds in the sky … [I watched a flock of birds and thought,] ‘Something is happening; they’re all flying and moving in synchronicity.’” Shearn, who has created site-specific works for major festivals including Coachella and Burning Man, says he wanted to “recreate that sense of wonder in people that experience this artwork.”

The other piece of “Momentum” is similar in substance but meant to be experienced up close — in fact, from within. Located near the all-ages, interactive Garden of the Five Senses, “Vivid Echo” hangs at ground level, where guests can walk through it, observing the ways the colored streamers change the perception of sound and light. (This is decidedly a worthy pursuit for guests of all ages; while children will run through giggling, adults likely will pause for a particularly vivid selfie.)

“I lean on the wind pretty heavily in these pieces,” says Shearn, who began his career working on films such as “Jurassic Park” and “Fight Club.”

“When you’re walking down the street, you feel the wind on your skin, and you’re aware that it’s blowing, but you don’t really think about it,” he says. “You can watch the little ripples through the individual streamers … You become much more connected to the scale and scope of the world around you.”

The installation coincides with an anniversary for the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden; it has been a decade since the site, which sprawls across portions of Collier and North Fayette townships, began welcoming visitors. A former mining property, efforts to reclaim and rehabilitate the land began in 1988. The lotus pond that provides the setting for “Elevated Reflection” once was a small body of water polluted with acid mine drainage; it’s now treated via a limestone bed, neutralizing pollutants through natural processes and connecting to Chartiers Creek.

The garden has expanded significantly since its 2015 opening; a picturesque visitors’ center and cafe welcome guests to miles of winding trails that are full of surprises (look for the giant birds’ nest).

“The public garden environment, the community, is by far my favorite” place to work, Shearn says. “We’ve done [public gardens] all over the world; we’ve engaged this community of people that are working toward something good — and they feel good about what they’re doing.

“The experience with Pittsburgh Botanic Garden was extraordinary. It was such a symbiotic relationship; they have a great team, and they’re doing great things there.”

The Soul of Pittsburgh:
Essays on Life, Community and History

Ed Simon

The History Press, $24.99

Waxing wistfully poetic, James D. Van Trump, co-founder of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, once wrote these words about his hometown: “Here, I say to myself, looking along the serrated line of the South Side hills or the far escarpments up the Allegheny or even the brief tree-hung streets of Schenley Farms, here is enough to excite forever the curiosity of the mind or to spur the farthest searches of the heart.”

Two recent books take Van Trump at his word, and make deeply personal and idiosyncratic explorations of the city. Ed Simon’s previous book about the Steel City was entitled “An Alternative History of Pittsburgh” and traced the city’s history from the late Paleozoic Era up to the modern age in brief essays that hit on highlights such as the first formation of the region’s coal, Gen. Edward Braddock’s defeat at the Battle of the Monongahela, Andrew Carnegie’s arrival in Pittsburgh and the 1960 World Series.

For his follow-up, “The Soul of Pittsburgh: Essays on Life, Community and History,” Simon, who is the editor of Belt Magazine and a staff writer at Lit Hub, takes a much more personal line of inquiry. “If the first book focused on history, on that process of ordering one damn thing after another, then this current volume is more concerned with what it feels like to be a Pittsburgher today,” writes Simon in his introduction. Simon is an excellent guide and seems to have something smart and witty to say about nearly everything.

He’s particularly engaging on yinzer linguistics, our variegated neighborhoods, confounding paper streets and the Black & Gold diaspora. With these two books, Simon can lay claim to being Pittsburgh’s finest contemporary expositor.

Pittsburgh in 50 Maps

Stentor Danielson

Belt Publishing, $30

Stentor Danielson is associate professor of geography at Slippery Rock University. His “Pittsburgh in 50 Maps” is just that — a look at the city via some super-specific maps.

Here you’ll find maps detailing everything from race and ethnicity to the area’s tree cover to political and religious designations. Gentrification, air pollution and fracking all get their own maps as well.

My favorites, though, are the map that tracks every intersection where a Pittsburgh Left is possible and the map entitled “The Parking Spot Outside the Evergreen Café on Penn Avenue.”

“Behind the Yoi: The Life of Myron Cope,
Legendary Pittsburgh Steelers Broadcaster”

Dan Joseph with Elizabeth Cope
University of Nebraska Press, $34.95

Near the end of his wonderfully readable biography, “Behind the Yoi: The Life of Myron Cope, Legendary Pittsburgh Steelers Broadcaster,” author Dan Joseph serves up an appendix listing all of the magazine stories Cope published as a freelancer from the 1950s through the 1970s.

This isn’t so much an afterthought as it is a clarification. For all of his renown as a radio and television personality, for every “yoi” and “double yoi” that burst forth during Steelers games, for every Terrible Towel proudly held aloft, what Cope admitted he really wanted to be remembered for was being “a pretty decent writer.”

Joseph ably makes the case for Cope as one the great sportswriters of the 20th century. In 1963, Cope won the prestigious E.P. Dutton Prize for “Best Magazine Sportswriting in the Nation” for his article on Muhammad Ali. In 2004, Sports Illustrated selected his profile of Howard Cosell as one of the magazine’s 50 all-time great articles. Cope published four books in his lifetime.

All the familiar stuff is here, too — the creation of the Terrible Towel, Cope’s crackerjack radio shows, his beloved Kennywood commercial with Steelers great Jack Lambert. But it’s his work as a journalist that truly shines in these pages.

“Behind the Yoi: The Life of Myron Cope, Legendary Pittsburgh Steelers Broadcaster” is co-authored with Elizabeth Cope, who brings a wealth of personal insight into her father.

“Sonny Clark: Fragile Virtuoso”

Derek Ansell
Next Chapter, $23.99

The famed jazz pianist Sonny Clark, subject of “Sonny Clark: Fragile Virtuoso” by the late British writer Derek Ansell, moved with his family to Pittsburgh at age 12. Only three years later, he appeared at the Syria Mosque as part of “Night of the Stars” celebrating Pittsburgh’s place in jazz history.

In 1933, Conrad Yeatis “Sonny” Clark was born in Herminie, Pennsylvania, specifically the small coal patch known as Herminie No. 2, just outside the larger town in Westmoreland County. He died of a heroin overdose in New York City in January 1963 and is buried in O’Hara’s Greenwood Cemetery.

Clark’s bluesy conception of the piano was in great demand during his too-brief professional career. He recorded with jazz greats Grant Green, Serge Chaloff, Dexter Gordon, Lee Morgan and Sonny Rollins, among others.

Ansell is at his best documenting Clark’s recording sessions, offering up vivid scenes of musical creation. He’s on less solid footing when he imagines Clark’s day-to-day activities away from the studio and bandstand.

“Homing: Instincts of a Rustbelt Feminist”

Sherrie Flick
University of Nebraska Press, $19.95

The author Sherrie Flick has been very busy lately. These last few months have seen the publication of two substantial new collections of her work. The two books are quite different in their approaches, but both largely concern themselves with interrogating how people become who they are and pinpointing the decisions and experiences that brought them to their current moment.

“Homing: Instincts of a Rustbelt Feminist” is Flick’s debut essay collection. Her attention to telling details, her easy way with revealing character, and her suitability for companionship and comedic timing are all on full display; Flick examines her own upbringing, working-class culture, her wanderings through America in the 1990s, and her eventual return to Western Pennsylvania to carve out a life on the South Side Slopes.

“What I wear, how I move, I learned through the osmosis of growing up in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. A booming and then not-so-booming and then finally dead steel town,” she writes in “Bank Shot.” “Whether your parents worked in the mill or not, you learned a few things: how to play pool, the lyrics to every Bruce Springsteen song, the talk-yelling banter needed to communicate with the mechanic, the ins and outs of the corner bar, and the nuance of pierogies, square-cut pizza and oversized fish sandwiches served up by church ladies.”

front view of Blank book cover white .

“I Have Not Considered Consequences: Short Stories”

Sherrie Flick
Autumn Horse Press, $19.95

Flick, a senior lecturer at Chatham University, is best known for her short stories. And I do mean short. One of the stories in “I Have Not Considered Consequences: Short Stories” is only eight sentences long. And yet the brevity of her fiction only serves to astonish the reader further when the largesse of depth and nuance is experienced in story after story no matter the length.

Much like those artists whose metier is painting portraits on grains of rice, Flick understands that the horizontal scope of art is no limitation if you choose each stroke of the brush with precision and with the understanding that each tiny detail is a world unto itself. Flick puts on a clinic in these pages. Here in full-flower is what a master storyteller can do with the short form.

Oh, and there are bears. Lots of bears.

BONNIE AND THE MERE MORTALS ON STAGE AT THE PITTSBURGH HONKY-TONK.| PHOTO BY SEAN COLLIER

For half an hour or so, the scene on March 29 at the Bloomfield Liedertafel looked a lot like every Friday night at a Western Pennsylvania fire hall or VFW. Small groups gathered around low tables; individuals lined up at the bar to buy cheap beer and mixed drinks in plastic cups.

If you looked closely, you might’ve noticed some clues that this was actually the early moments of Pittsburgh Honky-Tonk, a monthly celebration of community and country music. There were, after all, more cowboy hats, ornate boots and high-waisted jeans present than you’ll find at the average Moose Lodge. Otherwise, though, an average Friday night.

Then, everything changed: Suddenly, a dance lesson erupted.

PHOTO BY SEAN COLLIER

Maggie Millward, an instructor with 412Step — billed as “Pittsburgh’s all-inclusive line dancing, waltzing and 2-stepping community” — took to the stage and began teaching a line dance to the growing crowd. She explained the easy-to-follow steps, encouraging wallflowers and enthusiastic dancers alike.

In the tentative steps — not to mention the new, unscuffed boots — it was clear that we were not out west. But once the music began and the crowd started swaying, you could close your eyes and mistake this Pittsburgh hideaway for a roadside bar deep in the heart of Texas.

“I’ve found that if you keep an open mind, there’s a version of [country music] for everybody,” says bandleader and founder Jon Bindley. “You can find the joy and the camaraderie in it. Some of it is not taking it too seriously, but part of it is also respecting the genre and the history.”

Bindley and his band, Bindley Hardware Co., have become flag bearers for Americana and western music in the Pittsburgh region. The frequently sold-out crowds for Pittsburgh Honky-Tonk — which from its 2018 inception until earlier this year was called Honky-Tonk Jukebox — indicate that there’s a much larger appetite for traditional country sounds than the Steel City’s classic-rock reputation would indicate.

“I think there’s a fundamental American heartstring that’s plucked when you hear country,” Bindley says. “It’s like Dolly Parton, when you hear her voice — or Johnny Cash, or Elvis. There’s every kind of story in country music that you can imagine, and there’s every kind of person, too. If you look for it, everyone actually is a part of American country music. I think people get fooled into thinking otherwise.”

The set list at Pittsburgh Honky-Tonk includes songs from all eras, from mid-century tunes that have become standards to contemporary hits, with plenty of original turns from Bindley and his rotating cast of bandmates mixed in. He says the evening is about more than specific songs, however, citing community as a key component — as well as the fancy footwork.

“I think, from the beginning, we said — and advertised — ‘We want to dance.’ An older cohort of people really started that in the beginning; people who took swing dancing and country swing,” he explains. He adds that some younger audience members can be reluctant to dance with a stranger, but says they often come to realize that a quick dance at a country-and-western show can be, essentially, a handshake.

Although there’s more than one couple that met on the Honky-Tonk dance floor and ended up married.

Bindley, who was raised in Pittsburgh and spent time pursuing music in Nashville, ceded hosting duties for the March show to frequent collaborator Molly Alphabet, as he does every March for an all-women show tied to Women’s History Month. Instead, he posted himself at the door, selling tickets and greeting frequent guests.

It’s not just this night that he’s in the trenches; he books and plans the shows himself, eschewing promoters in favor of a DIY approach. “Inviting people to a show when you’re not in charge of things is like having a dinner party but you don’t get to decide where the chairs are — or what you’re serving,” he explains. “If you send an email about a problem with your ticket, it goes to me.”

Perhaps that hands-on approach has maintained the show’s scrappy, underground feel even as the crowds have grown. Shows are split between the Bloomfield Liedertafel and the larger Spirit Hall in Lawrenceville, which will host the June 27 show. An all-ages version for younger cowpokes, “Honky-Tonk Juicebox,” is also set for June 14 at the Liedertafel.

By the time the band launches into Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!,” the once-hesitant crowd is confidently stepping and kicking around the floor. Tables are pushed aside, and wallflowers become dancers, never quite getting every step right but making up for it with enthusiasm.

Bindley smiles at the full room. “I don’t even know that I can take that much credit for it,” he says. “It’s sort of been a little bit of ‘If you build it, they will come.’ I’m not superstitious, but I recognize that there’s always been a magic to this event.”

PHOTO BY DAVE DICELLO

*The Allegheny County Summer Concert Series

June 2025

River City Brass*

When: Sunday, June 1

Where: Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater

Vampire Weekend

When: Tuesday, June 3

Where: Stage AE

Joe Grushecky & the Houserockers*

When: Friday, June 6

Where: South Park Amphitheater

Teddy Swims

When: Friday, June 6

Where: Stage AE

Mt. Joy

When: Saturday, June 7

Where: Stage AE

The Skyliners*

When: Sunday, June 8

Where: Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater

Justice

When: Tuesday, June 10

Where: Stage AE

Slightly Stoopid, Iration & Little Stranger

When: Thursday, June 12

Where: Stage AE

BPM: Brian Bromberg, Paul Brown, Michael Paulo*

When: Friday, June 13

Where: South Park Amphitheater

Thomas Rhett

When: Friday, June 13

Where: The Pavilion at Star Lake

Jack’s Mannequin

When: Friday, June 13

Where: Stage AE

Alabama with Jamey Johnson

When: Saturday, June 14

Where: Iron City Stage

Halsey

When: Saturday, June 14

Where: The Pavilion at Star Lake

Less Than Jake

When: Saturday, June 14

Where: Stage AE

The Vindys*

When: Friday, June 20

Where: South Park Amphitheater

Megan Moroney

When: Friday, June 20

Where: Stage AE

Khruangbin

When: Saturday, June 21

Where: Stage AE

Easy Star All-Stars*

When: Sunday, June 22

Where: Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater

Whiskey Myers

When: Monday, June 23

Where: Stage AE

Brand New

When: Wednesday, June 25

Where: Stage AE

Avril Lavigne

When: Thursday, June 26

Where: The Pavilion at Star Lake

The Disco Biscuits

When: Friday, June 27

Where: Stage AE

Red Baraat*

When: Friday, June 27

Where: South Park Amphitheater

The Clarks

When: Saturday, June 28

Where: Stage AE

Allegheny County Music Festival*

When: Sunday, June 29

Where: Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater

July 2025

311

When: Tuesday, July 1

Where: Stage AE

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra*

When: Saturday, July 5

Where: South Park Amphitheater

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra*

When: Sunday, July 6

Where: Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater

The Lumineers

When: Wednesday, July 9

Where: The Pavilion at Star Lake

American Authors*

When: Friday, July 11

Where: South Park Amphitheater

Sam Barber

When: Friday, July 11

Where: Stage AE

Mo Lowda & the Humble*

When: Sunday, July 13

Where: Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater

Blues Traveler, Gin Blossoms & The Spin Doctors

When: Sunday, July 13

Where: Iron City Stage

Pantera

When: Tuesday, July 15

Where: The Pavilion at Star Lake

Hatebreed

When: Wednesday, July 16

Where: Stage AE

Phil Wickham and Brandon Lake

When: Thursday, July 17

Where: PPG Paints Arena

Chuck Prophet & His Cumbia Shoes*

When: Friday, July 18

Where: South Park Amphitheater

Ghost

When: Friday, July 18

Where: PPG Paints Arena

Wiz Khalifa & Sean Paul

When: Saturday, July 19

Where: The Pavilion at Star Lake

The Family Stone*

When: Sunday, July 20

Where: Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater

Keshi

When: Wednesday, July 23

Where: Stage AE

Toto + Christopher Cross + Men At Work

When: Thursday, July 24

Where: The Pavilion at Star Lake

Ashley Cooke*

When: Friday, July 25

Where: South Park Amphitheater

Kesha and Scissor Sisters

When: Saturday, July 26

Where: The Pavilion at Star Lake

Mat Kearney*

When: Sunday, July 27

Where: Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater

August 2025

Blackberry Smoke & Mike Campbell and The Dirty Knobs

When: Friday, August 1

Where: Stage AE

Herman’s Hermits Starring Peter Noone*

When: Friday, August 1

Where: South Park Amphitheater

Luke Bryan

When: Saturday, August 2

Where: The Pavilion at Star Lake

Rock, Reggae & Relief: Stephen Marley, Damian Marley & The Elovaters

When: Saturday, August 2

Where: Stage AE

Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets*

When: Sunday, August 3

Where: Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater

The Head and The Heart

When: Sunday, August 3

Where: Stage AE

The Doobie Brothers with The Coral Reefer Band

When: Wednesday, August 6

Where: The Pavilion at Star Lake

Idobi Radio Summer School: Rain City Drive, Charlotte Sands & Taylor Acorn

When: Wednesday, August 6

Where: Stage AE

Lord Huron

When: Thursday, August 7

Where: Stage AE

Over the Rhine*

When: Friday, August 8

Where: South Park Amphitheater

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

When: Friday, August 8

Where: Iron City Stage

Jason Aldean

When: Saturday, August 9

Where: The Pavilion at Star Lake

The Flaming Lips & Modest Mouse

When: Saturday, August 9

Where: Stage AE

KT Tunstall*

When: Sunday, August 10

Where: Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater

Styx & Kevin Cronin + Don Felder

When: Sunday, August 10

Where: The Pavilion at Star Lake

Robert Jon & The Wreck*

When: Friday, August 15

Where: South Park Amphitheater

Smash Mouth*

When: Sunday, August 17

Where: Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater

Linkin Park

When: Tuesday, August 19

Where: PPG Paints Arena

Chevelle, Asking Alexandria & Dead Poet Society

When: Thursday, August 21

Where: Stage AE

Pittsburgh Honky-Tonk*

When: Friday, August 22

Where: South Park Amphitheater

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre*

When: Sunday, August 24

Where: Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater

Gary Clark Jr.

When: Tuesday, August 26

Where: Stage AE

Voelkerball – A Tribute to Rammstein

When: Wednesday, August 27

Where: Stage AE

Dierks Bentley

When: Friday, August 29

Where: The Pavilion at Star Lake

Tamburitzans*

When: Friday, August 29

Where: South Park Amphitheater

Monty Alexander*

When: Sunday, August 31

Where: Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater

ERIN ANDERSON (LEFT) AND JEANNE MARIE LASKAS OF “CEMENT CITY.” | PHOTO BY MARTHA RIAL

On a sunny afternoon in Donora, Jeanne Marie Laskas and Erin Anderson amble down the main street of their old stomping grounds: a downtrodden former steel town where they had a poured-concrete house for three years. Passing one vacant storefront after another, the two podcasters look for signs of hope.

They stop dead outside The Early Bird Diner. Its lights are off, and there’s no one inside. “Is it closed?” exclaims Laskas, gasping, her green eyes widening. The diner, opened in 2019 by former Mayor Jim McDonough, was supposed to be a sign of revival. But she later learns that the diner is indeed closed, at least temporarily. Whether it will reopen or leave town altogether — like McDonald’s, the gas station and other businesses before it — is an open question.

To call the two University of Pittsburgh writing professors intrepid is an understatement. While other reporters parachuted in and out of Mon Valley towns after the first election of Donald Trump, Laskas bought a house in 2017 in Donora and stayed for three years. From this work base, they created their highly acclaimed podcast, “Cement City,” named for the concrete housing created for millworkers. The New York Times named it one of the top podcasts of 2024.

Laskas is an author of eight books, including the New York Times best-selling “Concussion” (which inspired the Pittsburgh-shot movie starring Will Smith). Anderson is an audio producer who won the Sarah Lawrence College International Audio Fiction award for an audio drama.

Together the two wrote the “Cement City” script, which is narrated by Laskas. By turns, the 10-episode documentary podcast is poetic and profound, hopeful and hilarious. They poke fun at themselves, not editing out their most awkward moments — such as a stammering Laskas interviewing a city council candidate about running for office while under indictment for theft.

“We were outsiders, and we were very aware of that the entire time,” Laskas says. “If you stay long enough, you can at least approximate what it might feel like, but you never really know.”

They also stop by the “Cro Club” — the orange-brick American Croatian Citizens Club, which is still very much alive. But there’s a sad postscript here. During Episode One, they interviewed a man named Guido, who told them how Donora residents look out for each other. “We don’t got no bank, no grocery store,” he told them. “We got nothing but each other … I love it. I’ll die here.”

They didn’t realize at the time that his comment would be prophetic. After they left town, Guido passed away.

The two professors run into old friends and recurring podcast characters, such as Mayor Don “Piglet” Pavelko. The mayor and his wife, DeAnne (also known as the Smog Queen), hug Laskas and Anderson outside the Pavelkos’ house.

The Pavelkos embraced the idea of creating a museum to commemorate the 1948 Donora smog disaster that killed 20 people and caused respiratory problems for thousands more. Instead of viewing it as a source of shame, they saw it as a tourist attraction. The Smog Museum is in downtown Donora, with a sign that says, “Clean Air Started Here,” a reference to how the accident led to the federal Clean Air Act of 1970.

Mayor Pavelko, who was also mayor during their three years in Donora and got back in office after they left, says no one knew what to make of the two women initially. “When they first got here, everyone was like, ‘What’s going on here?’

“Then pretty soon it was like, ‘Where they at?,’” he says. No event was complete without the two. They became such a fabric of the community that one resident dressed up for Halloween as Anderson, holding her ever-present microphone.

The mayor loved the podcast. “I thought it was fantastic,” he says.

“I got a text from you saying you were crying,” Laskas says, holding up her phone. “I have receipts.” Pavelko laughs and nods.

DeAnne says the town gathered each week to hear the latest episode drop. “Everyone loved it.”

Anderson accumulated 850 hours of recordings, allowing her to immerse listeners in the atmosphere of Donora. The podcast has also been a boon for the Smog Museum, with more Saturday visitors, according to a museum volunteer who tells them. “He’s mailing T-shirts to random places,” Anderson says.

The one question they always get is when listeners can expect Season 2 of “Cement City.” Life has gotten busy for Laskas and Anderson, but they hope to continue the podcast, unraveling new storylines for adoring listeners in Donora and beyond.

Cristina Rouvalis is a frequent contributor to Pittsburgh Magazine. Her debut middle-grade novel, “Snoopers & Sneakers,” came out in January.

“Andy Warhol’s Mother”

Elaine Rusinko
University of Pittsburgh Press, $40

Flowers? Check. Brunch reservation? Check. Looking for something a little extra to give Mom this year? Check out Elaine Rusinko’s “Andy Warhol’s Mother: The Woman Behind the Artist.”

Rusinko, who is associate professor emerita of Russian language and literature at the University of Maryland,

Baltimore County, has crafted not only a fascinating biography of the famed artist’s mother, but also written a richly detailed cultural history of the Carpatho-Rusyn people.

“Carpatho-Rusyns, also known as Rusyns, Rusnaks, Carpatho-Russians and Ruthenians, are a stateless people, whose homeland today stretches across five European countries – Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Poland,” writes Rusinko.

Andy Warhol’s parents emigrated to the United States and, eventually, to the city of Pittsburgh from Mikova, a small village in Slovakia. Julia Warhola has been described by other biographers of Warhol as “oddball” and “freaky”.

Rusinko, however, finds in Warhol’s mother a woman “who, for most of her life, defied the limits imposed upon her by poverty, hardship and illness.” Julia Warhola emerges as tenacious, persnickety and personally artistic (the lettering in Warhol’s paintings is actually Julia’s handwriting).

Lou Reed once sang, “There’s no Michelangelo coming from Pittsburgh,” but “Andy Warhol’s Mother: The Woman Behind the Artist” offers plenty of insight as to how Andy Warhol’s family background informed the world-renowned artist he eventually became.

“Every Hard Sweetness”

Sheila Carter-Jones
BOA Editions, $19

One sweltering evening last summer, in the back room of a Lawrenceville brewery, the poet Sheila Carter-Jones gave a particularly powerful reading. She introduced a selection of poems from her new book, “Every Hard Sweetness,” by telling the audience, “I’m from a small coal-mining town, and during the ’60s, my dad was beaten by cops and sent to a state hospital for the criminally insane. And all he did was be a Black man with a voice.”

Carter-Jones’ father was incarcerated for 6½ years beginning in June 1965. “Every Hard Sweetness,” the cover of which is illustrated by photos of the author’s parents as young children, is about trauma. Specifically, it is an unflinching study of the pain and lasting damage — personal, familial and national — inflicted by institutional racism. The poem “My First Boyfriend Is A Dark Silhouette Of Moon” sets the stage:

“A total eclipse happens when

an ordinary man is abducted and packed away

in a place nicknamed cold storage for the way voices

demanding change are clipped. My mother’s mind is stolen too,

but her body is still here, Inside the house we teeter

on a narrow orbit called family.”

The poem “Facts” explores how history is manipulated and distorted to both reinforce and exonerate the prevailing power structure: “the teacher teaches that slaves loved / to sing for their masters. // He says slaves loved to dance for / their masters. Pictures // in my U.S. history book prove it.”

Carter-Jones is also interested in how bureaucratic language by way of its very blandness can be an instrument of violence, as in these lines from “Anatomy Of A System.” “Race: Black/Negro. Gender: Male. / Attitude: Threatening. Mental Capacity: / Twelve-year-old. Notes: seems to have / his own philosophy about his place in / society. Diagnosis: Schizophrenic.”

“Every Hard Sweetness” is an incredible collection of poems — one that very much speaks to the current moment in our country. At that reading last year, Carter-Jones reflected on her recent process: “It took me a while to write this book. Each poem was a traumatic experience for me. I cried the entire time. I’m glad that I got it out. ’Cause I think I can live with less heaviness in my life.”

“WICKED” | PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS

Something wicked is coming to Pittsburgh.

“Wicked” on Broadway returns to the Benedum Center for the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s 2025-26 season, the organization announced Monday. It has made several visits to Pittsburgh since its debut on Broadway in 2003, the last time in 2018.

Also set to return is “Les Misérables,” which last swung through Pittsburgh in 2022.

“LES MISÉRABLES” | PHOTO BY MATTHEW MURPHY

What Broadway shows are coming to Pittsburgh?

• “A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical”: Tuesday, Sept. 9 through Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025
• “SIX”: Tuesday, Oct. 7 through Sunday, Oct. 12, 2025
• “Hell’s Kitchen”: Tuesday, Nov. 4 through Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025
• “Les Misérables”: Tuesday, Nov. 25 through Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025
• “Clue”: Tuesday, Dec. 30 through Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026
• “Wicked”: Wednesday, Jan. 14 through Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026
• “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast”: Tuesday, Feb. 24 – Sunday, March 1, 2026
• “Chicago”: Tuesday, March 10 through Sunday, Mar 15, 2026
• “Water for Elephants”: Tuesday, March 31 through Sunday, April 5, 2026
• “Shucked”: Tuesday, April 14 through Sunday, April 19, 2026
• “The Great Gatsby”: Tuesday, May 26 through Sunday, May 31, 2026

Season tickets for the 2025-26 season are on sale now.

PHOTO COURTESY THE FRICK PITTSBURGH

Summer Fridays aren’t just for the office — they’re also at The Frick.

The museum’s outdoor concert series is back for its 11th season, which kicks off June 27 with “Make Music Pittsburgh” — a program that supports music-making Pittsburghers. The event will feature The Barrels of Beethoven Ensemble. The group works to preserve the steelpan — a handmade instrument made from a steel barrel — and honor the legacy of Pittsburgh steelpan builder, tuner and player Phil Solomon.

Each Friday, the Farina Foundation will collect instruments for a donation drive. The Frick will collect nonperishable food for the Singing Winds Food Pantry.

June 27

Make Music Pittsburgh

Celebrate the legacy of musician Phil Solomon.

July 25

Smooth Sounds & Dynamic Grooves

Hear covers and originals from The Stemtecs Band, which plays jazz, pop and R&B.

Aug. 8

Klezmer on the Lawn

Henry Shapiro’s Klezmerati brings a new take to Klezmer. The performance is rooted in history — Klezmer originated in Eastern Europe — but adds a new energy.

Aug. 29

80’s Music and Beyond

The Pittsburgh-based Adorabulls play your favorite dance tunes with a twist. The group incorporates instruments like the accordion, ukulele and acoustic bass.

Joey Welsh

JOEY WELSH | PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

Around his 31st birthday, Joey Welsh was in a rut, so he took an improv class at Arcade Comedy Theater. There, his teacher singled him out for his talent, and he took his newfound confidence into his real love: stand-up. “I always like being funny on my own terms,” he says. Nine years later, Welsh is a regular feature comic at the Pittsburgh Improv and otherwise gets on every stage he can, be it at a bar or a VFW. His career as a firefighter, his marriage, his two kids and society at large give him plenty to pull stories — and the occasional rant — from.

Related: Enter to Win VIP Tickets to the National Comedy Center

Amanda Averell

AMANDA AVERELL | PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

Six months into her comedy career, Amanda Averell started producing shows. She saw that there was an open night on Steel City Improv Theater’s calendar and seized the opportunity. As a queer woman, she wanted to book more diverse shows than were available in 2015, guided by the adage, “if you’re not getting a seat at the table, build your own table.” It’s worked for her ever since, whether in Pittsburgh or on the road, performing or helping fellow comics find their way. “I’ve just wanted to create a safe space,” Averell said. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

Asher O’Briant

ASHER O’BRIANT | PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

If there’s anything 24-year-old Asher O’Briant wants from himself and his fellow comedians, it’s authenticity. Working from that place is “not only going to be funnier, but then you can sleep soundly at night knowing no one else could tell the same joke,” he says. O’Briant’s own authenticity as a transgender man has led him over the past five years to drag comedy as well as sketch writing and playwriting. He finds that the latter two allow space for a thematic throughline that gives audience members something to both laugh at and take away. They also rely on collaboration, which, for O’Briant, is just as fulfilling.

Related: How Pittsburgh’s Comedy Scene Is Rebuilding Itself

Brittany Alexis

BRITTANY ALEXIS | PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

The first time Brittany Alexis went to Hambone’s in 2017, it was for pasta — and it turned out to be open-mic night. She realized stand-up could be a way to work on her presence in the courtroom, which she’d need if she passed her upcoming bar exam. “Juries shouldn’t be laughing anyway. So, if I bomb, that’s fine,” Alexis says. But when she got onstage the next week, she didn’t bomb. And she was hooked. Now a 32-year-old attorney by day and comic by night, Alexis performs across Pittsburgh, including giving comedic city tours on The Burgh Bus, in addition to teaching stand-up classes and producing shows.

Xazrianna

XAZRIANNA | PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

“Most people would say, unfortunately, I’ve been a jackass my whole life,” says 35-year-old comedian Xazrianna. Tired of being told to get serious, she opted to lean into her natural humor instead. During her first stand-up class at Arcade, she says, “I finally felt like I was at home because every rule of writing jokes that we learned, I had already had it in my veins.” She later took classes in improv and sketch; her performances, at times, blend the three forms. Her point, really, is to enjoy her work as a comedian and revel in imagination, whether her own or collaborating with someone else’s.

ADOBE STOCK

On a Sunday evening in February, Steve Barth and Brad McNary welcomed the audience for their monthly show, “Your ACT With Nonsense,” at Arcade Comedy Theater.

“How’s everyone doing?” Barth asked. The 17-person crowd murmured a response. Barth replied, “That is the lackluster energy we want.”

The show, featuring Barth’s and McNary’s two-person improv team, is a community night of sorts for the two-stage, 150-seat Downtown theater. It provides a safe space for comics, improv teams and sketch writers to try out new material or to get back into performing after an extended absence.

Up that night was Xazrianna — a 35-year-old comedian whose work crosses all three of those styles — as her fan-favorite character, Beatrice Thorogood. Beatrice, the world’s oldest “everything,” according to Xazrianna, was ready for her first night doing stand-up, mere days before her 92nd birthday.

In contrast to the response for Barth’s opening question, the audience brought their enthusiasm for Xazrianna and Beatrice, the latter of whom has a succession of deceased husbands. “You know what they say,” she quipped, “the best way to get over someone is to kill another husband.”

The creativity, the support, the show that goes on every month no matter how sparsely attended — these elements encapsulate a comedy community that, according to performers, has been determined to rebuild since the fallout of the pandemic cratered large parts of it.

Related: Enter to Win VIP Tickets to the National Comedy Center

A Brief History of Comedy in Pittsburgh

XAZRIANNA | PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

Stand-up and sketch comedy as we know them today began around the turn of the last century. Pittsburghers in 1904 watched vaudeville comedians and comic performers at the newly built Nixon and Gayety (now Byham) theaters. Depending on your source, modern improv was born with the founding of Chicago’s Second City in 1959; by 1963, the form found a home in Pittsburgh with the inaugural performance at Bill Kramer’s Back Room, attached to an Oakland restaurant.

Theaters, clubs — including the original location of the national Funny Bone chain — and coffeehouses around Pittsburgh came and went over the decades, as did the national appetite for the varying forms.

Pittsburgh comedians place the most recent local boom around 2010, when Steel City Improv Theater opened on the North Side; that space billed itself as “Pittsburgh’s original home for long-form improvisational comedy.” (More about “long-form” soon.) Open-mic nights at Hambone’s in Lawrenceville began after a change in ownership in 2011. The year also saw the Improv Academy open; Arcade followed in 2013, alongside Unplanned Comedy. The Pittsburgh Comedy Festival, the first in Western Pennsylvania, debuted in 2014.

In many ways, the scene then was the same as it is now: Pittsburghers dedicated to their comedic craft, or those who wanted to try stand-up or improv for the first time, took classes and hit open mics in an assortment of bars, restaurants, clubs and (you can still do this!) a barber shop (Bryant Street Barbershop in Highland Park, to be exact).

Some of those opportunities closed out prior to 2020: The last Pittsburgh Comedy Festival took place in 2018. Hambone’s, which boasted 30-some people performing on any given open-mic night, closed in October 2020 after the death of its owner, Jeff Holt. The Improv Academy closed, as did the Unplanned Comedy Theater. The Funny Bone is long gone. Steel City Improv stopped putting on shows. More recently, comedy-friendly venues like the South Side’s Club Café and Rex Theater closed their doors as well.

So where do you go — literally and metaphorically — from there?

Classes, and “Getting Out There”

JOEY WELSH | PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

It isn’t all bleak. Steel City Improv still offers classes, as does Arcade (improv, stand-up and sketch); since it opened in 2021, Bottlerocket Social Hall in Allentown does, too (stand-up, improv, sketch and more).

While classes are obviously not a prerequisite for getting started in comedy, they do offer skills and (perhaps more important) community. “Stand-up classes are essentially supportive of open mics,” says comic Joey Welsh, who got his start in Arcade classes in 2016. Welsh said that his teachers suggested they start getting onstage right away. After a new comic shows up often enough at an open mic, he says, other comedians begin to take them seriously and will start to offer support and encouragement.

Even after her first open mic — having never even thought about taking a class — stand-up comic Brittany Alexis says, “Everyone was so kind and welcoming.” She had assumed the experience would be a one-off, but the response and the thrill of performing kept her at it.

Related: 5 Pittsburgh Comedians to Know

And Now: How Improv Works

BRITTANY ALEXIS | PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

“When you say comedy, people immediately think of stand-up,” Xazrianna says, explaining that people are more likely to attend a stand-up show just because it seems like a cool thing to do. “Improv and the other, smaller, more fine-tuned genres of comedy, people … show up because they care.”

The sub-world of improv primarily consists of short-form and long-form (see — promised we would return to that). The United States version of the TV show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” began in 1998 and introduced short-form improv to mainstream entertainment; in this style, performers play games or create scenes only a few minutes in length, based on the audience’s suggestions — the sillier, the better (at least for the audience).

Long-form improv is also performed off-the-cuff by way of audience suggestions. These scenes are (obviously) longer, and they tie together thematically, the true joy coming in the surprise of the performers bringing the audience back to where they began.

“It really is just like playtime,” said Barth, “and finding the relationships between the characters to try to heighten different feelings or experiences or relationships.”

Improv, whether short or long, relies on community. Barth said improv comedians typically start as audience members, getting to know a particular space and crowd, before joining an on-the-spot team at an open mic or forming a standing team. Then the hardest part of all: stage time in a real show.

“It was way easier when we had, like, three different theaters to pick from,” said Barth. Arcade, however, is the only dedicated theater currently standing. “[They’re] really working towards trying to make that stage available for all types of people.”

And a Bit of Sketch for Good Measure

ASHER O’BRIANT | PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

Sketches are also relatively short scenes, pre-written and rehearsed; think “Saturday Night Live” or “The Carol Burnett Show.” Arcade houses Sketch Lab, where writers hone their craft and create sketches for others to perform onstage. In contrast to the solo and competitive nature of stand-up, comedian and Sketch Lab facilitator Asher O’Briant says, “When you work in a writer’s room, or you start collaborating with other individuals, it really brings a lot more work, a lot more material.”

Arcade recently hosted its first “Sketch Lab Report” showcase, where the best material from the first year of the program was revived and produced. The well-received show featured more than a dozen sketches from local writers and performers.

O’Briant is also a writer on Arcade’s “Fridge Art Sketch Show,” which he describes as “a jagoff’s version of ‘Saturday Night Live.’” Even with that framing, the sketches, no matter how absurd, come “from real places,” O’Briant says. “Your work should be more than funny for the sake of being funny. We can do more than that.”

Where Are We? And Where Are We Going?

AMANDA AVERELL | PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

Rebuilding Pittsburgh’s comedy community has opened up opportunities both traditional and somewhat experimental. Welsh’s brother, for instance, opened Playground Dropout in Millvale, where Welsh hosts “Game Show Experience,” a comedic mashup of knockoff TV game shows.

O’Briant has observed that, in terms of experimentation, Pittsburgh is the place to be. “I’ve seen so many types of comedy that would not be appreciated elsewhere,” he says.

Amanda Averell, a stand-up comic who has also been producing shows and hosting open mics since 2015, says, “It’s always an uphill climb to try and build a room into something, or a show into something, to get a recurring audience.” She’d love for a “B room,” the stand-up term for a 50-to-60-seat space, to open. It would bridge the gap between smaller shows and larger spaces like Homestead’s Carnegie Music Hall and the Pittsburgh Improv, which draw larger crowds for national acts.

In her work creating new spaces, Averell, a queer woman, is intentional in making them more inclusive. Something she and other marginalized comedians have noticed since the pandemic is the increase in women and nonbinary comedians, queer comedians and comedians of color. A decade ago, Averell says, she was one of four female comics on consistent rotation in shows.

Like Alexis and O’Briant, though, she points out that there’s still a long way to go.

“It’s hard because times are kind of changing,” Xazrianna, who sometimes describes herself as a speck of pepper in a sea of salt, says. “The [state of diversity in comedy] is overwhelmingly crappy. But then it’s hard to kind of talk about the intensity of how crappy it is when you do see little glimmers of hope here and there, because it makes you sound bitter.” She says some open mics are known for being “gnarly,” where people onstage say racist and sexist things without actually telling a joke. “Like, bro, you forgot the punchline.”

Fortunately, Averell says, there are hundreds of comics who might be part of making the community larger and more inclusive. “If you have a venue and owners of the venue that are supportive of what you’re doing, then you’re able to try new things and just take it further,” she says. “I have hope.”

Amy Whipple is a part-time writer, part-time writing instructor and full-time awesome. In addition to Pittsburgh Magazine, her work can be found in PublicSource and Imprint.

BETH CORNING | PHOTO COURTESY OF CORNINGWORKS / FRANK WALSH

At age 3, Beth Corning crashed an adult soirée sans pajamas (but with an upside-down wastebasket on her head) and garnered tremendous response as she wandered among the crowd.

She’s been performing — and creating — ever since. “I love performing for the sense of community it provides and the sense of interacting with people that I can’t get anywhere else in my life,” says Corning, the artistic director of CORNINGWORKS.

This month, the world premiere of “Stand By – an allegory,” a multidisciplinary exploration of life, mortality and never having to say you’re dead, lands at Carnegie Stage. The production is part of The Glue Factory Projects, CORNINGWORKS’ award-winning and best-known initiative. (It’s among the very few national and international organizations dedicated to harnessing the talents of artists over age 40.)

“What are we here for? If we treat death differently, would we live our lives differently?” ponders Corning, who is known for raising provocative questions that generate ruminations on topics steeped in the human condition — without offering answers.

CORNINGWORKS also “umbrellas” the site-specific Unexpected Exposure Series, launched in 2022, and national and international tours, including Corning’s solo performances; Corning also performs in The Glue Factory Projects.

“I’m honored by the people wanting to work with me — that’s huge,” says Corning, who has welcomed more than 90 artists to perform and/or collaborate. Among them: choreographer Donald Byrd, actress Françoise Fournier and director Dominique Serrand.

Corning chooses her artists based on individuality, attention to detail and the vibe they emit. Time constraints impact the rehearsal process, necessitating participants to understand, as she says, “this is how I work. No divas allowed. I used to actually have that in the contract, but stopped [including it] — and then I ran into a few,” she says.

Many recruits are longtime acquaintances or are recommended by them. Others, she spies in performance, including current “Stand By” collaborator and puppeteer Tom Lee, a master of Japanese Kuruma Ningyō (cart puppetry).

“After the show [in which Lee participated in 2023 at Point Park University], I ran down to the stage like a crazed fan and said, ‘Here’s my card,’” recalls Corning, who loves puppets and has incorporated puppetry into several previous works.

FROM CORNINGWORKS’ “STAND BY — AN ALLEGORY.” | PHOTO COURTESY OF CORNINGWORKS / FRANK WALSH

“This work is a real stretch for all the artists involved,” she says, noting Lee designed a 4-foot, hand-built puppet for “Stand By” and will perform with it. “The mix of disciplines really pushes each artist into a new area.”

For Corning, formal dance training led to university degrees, followed by solo tours stateside and abroad. In 1981, she established corning dances & company in Sweden and later relaunched it in Minneapolis, where it ran until 2003. Its rechristening as CORNINGWORKS in 2010 succeeded her 2003-2010 tenure as artistic director of Pittsburgh’s now-shuttered Dance Alloy Theater.

More than 20 Glue Factory Projects later, “It doesn’t get any easier. Every work is challenging. Just when you understand the game, the rules change — that’s part of this game.”

Multi-year funding has taken the edge off, but money is always a question mark.

“Innovative arts take time. It takes money to engage visionary artists to make it. You don’t just throw together stuff in a month,” she says.

Her penchant for “small” keeps CORNINGWORKS spare on overhead and accommodates her preference for intimate venues with limited seating. (“I like to hear the audience breathe,” she says.)

The memories are many, from an onstage cooking disaster during 2013’s “Remains” that necessitated impromptu improvisation to a hasty 2014 rehearsal for “Parallel Lives” during which a sofa’s wooden frame collapsed under the weight of choreography.

A slow-motion scene in 2023’s “The Fisherman, The Butterfly, Eve & Her Lover — A Parable” brought Corning to tears because of dancer/actor Evan Fisk’s unfaltering focus, precision and elegance while donning a pair of pants. “It was a stunning, humbling moment,” recalls Corning, who observed his performance before making her entrance in a blue trash bin.

While plans are in the works to tour with “Stand By,” details are under wraps for the Unexpected Exposure Series’ next pop-up event.

“My goal is to keep creating new work with extraordinary people,” and “for the audience to walk out of the theater thinking and feeling,” says Corning, who is waiting for the next topic to trigger her imagination.

Please stand by.

JAKE GREFENSTETTE (LEFT) AND SAMUEL HAZO OF THE INTERNATIONAL POETRY FORUM. | PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD

The International Poetry Forum closed up shop in 2009. In its 43 years under the guidance of founder and director Samuel Hazo, the forum hosted readings by more than 800 poets and performers.

Just a short list of the luminaries who graced the forum’s stage is staggering to consider: former U.S Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks, novelists Kurt Vonnegut and John Updike, Oscar and Emmy-award winning actor James Earl Jones, Pulitzer Prize-winning poets Anne Sexton and Elizabeth Bishop, Princess Grace of Monaco, Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet and playwright Seamus Heaney and Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges.

Even the actress and model Brooke Shields made an appearance, surprising the audience with a selection of poems read in French and English by the likes of Jacques Prevert, Mona Van Duyn and Naomi Shihab Nye.

Hazo taught at Duquesne University for 43 years. Now, at age 96, he holds the position of McAnulty Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus. He was named Pennsylvania’s first — and only — poet laureate in 1993, serving for 10 years.

He reluctantly shut down the nonprofit forum 15 years ago. It was the time of the Great Recession; funding streams for many arts organizations dried up.

In his closing remarks at the forum’s final event, Hazo quoted Spanish poet Antonio Machado, perhaps a bit wistfully as he looked toward an uncertain future: “Wayfarer, there is no road. You make up the road as you go.”

Fast forward 14 years to a sunny afternoon last September at the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall in Oakland, where the forum made an improbable return. In the hall that served as home to the forum’s first incarnation, Jake Grefenstette — the forum’s 31-year-old new president and executive director — introduced Hazo to the stage as the first reader of this new era.

Grefenstette grew up in the Baldwin-Whitehall area and attended high school in Mt. Lebanon. After graduation he lived a peripatetic life studying philosophy, theology and poetry.

“I hopped around a little bit. Went to Notre Dame for undergrad, was in China for graduate school,” receiving his master of philosophy degree from Peking University, before heading to England, where he most recently received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.

“But Pittsburgh was always the end goal. About the time our daughter was born a few years ago, we moved back. We couldn’t be happier.”

It wasn’t until he returned to Pittsburgh that he met Hazo through a mutual friend. “Sam has always loomed as this kind of hero,” Grefenstette acknowledges. That friend reached out to Grefenstette soon after that meeting, informing him,“Sam’s been talking about this [the return of the forum] pretty seriously for the first time in years. Would this be something you’d be interested in?” Grefenstette was thrilled.

Along with fundraising and curating events, Grefenstette is jump-starting the Poets in Person program, which Hazo began in 1966. This brings visiting writers into local high schools for readings and workshops, upholding one of the missions of the forum to help students “feel like they’re growing up in a city where you can be a poet.”

To that end, he is taking the forum into new territory with a podcast called “The Greatest Lines of All Time.” “The idea is we have episodes under 2 minutes that focus either on a local poet or an alumnus of the forum,” he says. He will start posting these short episodes on social media at the end of January.

Grefenstette stresses that all of these initiatives are meant to showcase, on both a local and national level, that “Pittsburgh is a great literary city.”

In addition to Hazo, the opening season featured National Book Award-winner Terrance Hayes and British-American classicist Emily Wilson. Coming April 15 is poet Srikanth Reddy, University of Chicago professor and poetry editor of The Paris Review. Also, Grammy Award-winning artist Judy Collins will read from her new poetry collection at a forum-sponsored event on May 31 during the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books. She had appeared twice before with the forum years ago.

When Grefenstette introduced Hazo to a standing ovation on that sunny afternoon in Oakland last September, he shared an anecdote. “I’m sure that many of you have heard the story that, in the very first year of operation, Dr. Hazo received a phone call from Harrisburg asking about chickens in Pittsburgh … wanting to know what was going on with the International Poultry Forum.”

The line got a big laugh, but it served as a good reminder of just how far the forum and the City of Pittsburgh have come in the intervening years.

“Sam created something very special here,” he says.

Kristofer Collins writes the Pittsburgh Lit column for Pittsburgh Magazine. His most recent poetry collection is “Roundabout Trace.” He recently was invited to join the International Poetry Forum Advisory Council, an unpaid position. He lives in Stanton Heights with his wife and two children.

 “Pittsburgh When I’m Hungry”

Karen Lillis

Karen’s Book Row, $25

The French-American photographer Elliott Erwitt, reflecting upon his chosen artform, suggested, “The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words.” It’s fitting, then, that the poet and novelist Karen Lillis found her latest project, “Pittsburgh When I’m Hungry,” while avoiding writing a short story.

Lillis, who is also a bookseller and publisher, was an art major in college and pursued photography in grad school at New York University and at the International Center of Photography. Setting aside the piece of fiction she was working on, she idly scrolled through her personal archive of photos. “I realized I had all these pictures of restaurants,” she says.

The photographs collected in “Pittsburgh When I’m Hungry” are atypical in that the camera does not linger over mouthwatering entrees or capture diners and waitstaff in action. There are no action shots of hectic and expletive-laden kitchens. In fact, actual human beings rarely appear in these pages. And when they do it’s always a little jarring.

Instead Lillis celebrates the spaces themselves: the tables and booths, signage, light fixtures and cutlery. “I was thinking of the subtitle … as ‘The Architecture of Hospitality.’”

While most of the photos were not taken during the pandemic, the book speaks directly to that uncertain and frightening time. The restaurant industry was deeply and disastrously affected by the pandemic. According to the Washington Post, 90,000 bars and restaurants had closed across the country as of spring 2021.

“For me, it was like if you go to a restaurant and there’s the little condiment caddy, you know, that’s so intentional, something that’s been made for you, something that is catering to your needs,” Lillis says. “I was just more aware of that level of things, like we’re all so needy at different moments in this pandemic era. So to go to a restaurant, you can have that feeling that the whole place has been set up to serve you, to greet you, to interact, to recognize you and your little creature comfort needs. You can’t take that for granted anymore.”

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“Make My Wish Come True”

Rachael Lippincott & Alyson Derrick

Simon & Schuster, $19.99

If basic cable programming has taught me anything, it’s that what people want most of all this time of year is a good rom-com. The proliferation of holiday-themed lovey-dovey flicks (I’m looking at you, Hallmark Channel) clearly scratches a particular itch in the zeitgeist. Meet-cutes, opposite attractions and will-they-or-won’t-theys just feel better when they’re wrapped up in cozy sweaters, cocoa and picturesque snow-covered hamlets.

Readers looking for an extra hit of yuletide spice should look no further than “Make My Wish Come True” from Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick. Arden James is a young Hollywood starlet with a bad reputation. Her wild behavior keeps her name in the tabloids, but when she goes after the role of a lifetime, the director is unconvinced James can pull off being a regular small-town girl. To prove her bona fides and that she isn’t the enfant terrible she’s been portrayed as, Arden and her agent hatch a plan.

Arden will travel back to her hometown of Barnwich, Pennsylvania, for the holidays to be with her long-time love, Caroline, and the whole trip will be written up in Cosmo. And it doesn’t hurt that Barnwich is obsessed with all things Christmas. Arden promises a sleigh-load of wholesomeness. The only hitch is Arden hasn’t spoken to Caroline since she left town four years ago. Will her once best friend go along with the ruse? Will old flames reignite? “Make My Wish Come True” is the definition of delightful and the perfect companion for long winter nights.

“Pride and Prejudice in Pittsburgh”

front view of Blank book cover white .

Rachael Lippincott

Simon & Schuster, $19.99

Still hankering for some cute canoodling? Check out Rachael Lippincott’s solo novel “Pride and Prejudice in Pittsburgh.”

Audrey Cameron hadn’t planned on adding time travel to her to-do list. She just wants to get into the art school of her dreams and give her broken heart some time to heal after an unexpected break-up with her boyfriend. When she finds herself suddenly whisked out of her family’s East End convenience store and literally dropped onto Lucy Sinclair’s English estate in the year 1812, Audrey will need to figure out why she’s there and how to get back to 2023.

Here’s a hint — romance might just be her ticket home.

(We independently review everything we recommend. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission.)

“Raising the Dead: The Work of George A. Romero”

Adam Charles Hart

Oxford University Press, $39.95

The filmmaker George A. Romero is a legend in the movie business as well as a beloved local fixture. Romero’s classic 1968 chiller “Night of the Living Dead” was a landmark for independent cinema as well as the horror genre.

His follow-up “Dawn of the Dead,” shot almost entirely in the Monroeville Mall, was so successful that it put Pittsburgh on the map as The Zombie Capital of the World.

Scholar and archivist Adam Charles Hart’s “Raising the Dead: The Work of George A. Romero” offers a very deep dive into Romero’s movies and unrealized film projects. In researching this book, Hart discovered not just a great number of Romero’s horror projects but also goofy comedies, children’s movies, musicals, talky dramas and an X-rated Frankenstein spoof called “Peterstein.”

Hart provides the fullest portrait yet of Romero as a restless creative artist who was eager to push his own boundaries as a writer and director into new territories. Hart’s exuberance for his subject sweeps the reader up with tantalizing glimpses of the movies that could have been had Romero been able to get the backing for his many dream projects. As Hart writes, “Romero was a pioneer in low-budget independent filmmaking with truly world-shaking successes, but piecing together financing was a constant struggle — a struggle that was, it must be emphasized, mostly unsuccessful.” The book is a must-read for horror fans but should captivate movie buffs of all stripes.

“Lazarus”

Jason Baldinger

OAC Books, $20

Pittsburgh-based writer Jason Baldinger is best known for his peripatetic poetry depicting industrial decline across the country and the small towns most affected by the changing economy. “Lazarus,” a stunning collection of Baldinger’s photography, is much more than a companion piece to his poems — these photos are a stark portrait of the Rust Belt-Appalachian nexus.

In his particular snapshot poetics, an ingenious use of the reflections captured by storefront windows, Baldinger’s work achieves a depth of field as well as a succinct commentary on our current political and economic reality.

(We independently review everything we recommend. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission.)

A STILL FROM “CLEMENTE,” A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE LIFE OF PITTSBURGH PIRATES LEGEND ROBERTO CLEMENTE. | PHOTO COURTESY FILM PITTSBURGH

The annual Three Rivers Film Festival kicks off Nov. 13 with the local premiere of “Clemente,” a documentary about the life of Pittsburgh Pirates legend and Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente.

“Clemente,” which screens at 7 p.m. at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, includes heartfelt interviews with his family, fellow pitcher Steve Blass, and others from the 1971 Pirates team, as well as Pittsburgh native and actor Michael Keaton, sportscaster Bob Costas, Puerto Rican former baseball catcher Yadier Molina and Puerto Rican actor Rita Moreno. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker, David Altrogge, Blass, Roberto Clemente Jr. and others.

It’s the beginning of a busy two weeks of movies, with 21 new features (from Nov. 13-20) and 10 collections of short films as part of Pittsburgh Shorts (from Nov. 21-24). Screenings take place at Downtown’s Harris Theater and the Lindsay Theater in Sewickley.

“Clemente” isn’t the only film in the festival with a tie to the Pirates. Director Russ Babines will be exploring Pittsburgh in the 1970s with his new film, “The Great One,” which follows a young Pittsburgher and avid Pirates fan. The character, an award-winning yet jaded sportswriter, returns to her hometown for the funeral of her childhood friend. As she visits her old stomping grounds, she longs for the innocence and meaningful friendships of her youth. The Pittsburgh-made film’s title is a nod to Roberto Clemente; it will be shown twice — at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 14 at the Harris Theater and at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 16 at The Lindsay Theater.

“THE GREAT ONE,” DIRECTED BY RUSS BABINES, EXPLORES PITTSBURGH IN THE 1970S. | PHOTO COURTESY FILM PITTSBURGH

Jesse Eisenberg’s new film, “A Real Pain,” also premieres on opening night at the Harris Theater at 7:30 p.m. The film stars Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin (of HBO’s “Succession”) as polar opposite cousins who travel to Poland to honor their grandmother after her death. Old tensions rise as their personalities clash. The film was written and directed by Eisenberg; the screening will be the film’s Pittsburgh premiere.

JESSE EISENBERG’S “A REAL PAIN” STARS EISENBERG ALONGSIDE KIERAN CULKIN. | PHOTO COURTESY FILM PITTSBURGH

Among other festival offerings, Pittsburgh director Melissa Martin will screen her new film, “Basic Psych,” a psychological thriller pitting a psychiatrist who tries to protect his family against a paranoid murderer. The film was shot locally and stars two local favorites, David Conrad and two-time Tony Award-winner Michael Cerveris. It will be shown at 8:30 p.m. on Nov. 15 at the Harris and at 7 p.m. on Nov. 16 at the Lindsay; a Q&A with the filmmaker will follow each showing.

Visit Film Pittsburgh’s website for tickets, which are available in advance or in person. Virtual screenings are also available through the festival website.

PHOTO BY GABRIELA HERRING

Whimsical, serious, gracious and angry. “Flight of Empowerment,” Songbird Artistry’s most recent art exhibit, embodies the multitudinous spheres of female existence.

As owner Debbie Jacknin says, “It’s [about] fighting the power and celebrating the strength and journey of women.

“Maybe, it’s because I can tell their stories and have a platform where people will hear [them],” Jacknin says. Perhaps it’s that “people are more willing to listen now.”

The Lawrencville spot is a combined gift shop, gallery and learning space, and is owned and run by Jacknin and her two daughters, Jennifer and Jacklyn Orefice — the women-owned aspect of their business gives a personal emphasis to the gallery’s latest exhibit.

For “Flight of Empowerment,” 12 female artists were invited to translate the show’s theme into art. The subject matter covers stories of immigration, single-parent households, transitioning and identifying as a woman and raising children with disabilities. The artists represent an array of backgrounds, ensuring a multidimensional representation of female experience.

PHOTO BY GABRIELA HERRING

Ally Bartoszewicz’s piece, “Tall Poppy Celebration,” is a reinterpretation of the idea of “tall poppy syndrome.” The concept suggests that individuals, particularly women, who achieve great success are often cut down. Bartoszewicz’s work — acrylic on canvas featuring thin-stemmed poppies intertwining against a pink-and-purple-streaked sky — reverses this assumption, presenting the opportunity for mutual growth through supporting one another.

The potential to uplift is “nothing short of a miraculous force,” says Bartoszewicz.

Considering the abstract curation of the exhibit, Jacknin was elated to discover how so many distinct works, created entirely separate from one another, fit together to create a cohesive exhibit. Works by both Bartoszewicz and Maria DeSimone Prascak incorporated poppies — a serendipitous amalgamation that allowed a visual thematic marker to emerge.

PHOTO BY GABRIELA HERRING

“What’s really fun is these were my first two to come in and I kept thinking, ‘Boy, they belong together, but they didn’t look good next to each other,’” Jacknin says. The arrival of Kyrie Allshouse’s “Life in Flight,” featuring a white bird and a black bird flying between orange and purple flowers, placed between the poppy-forward pieces, “tied it all together.”

Jacknin herself also has a piece displayed as part of the exhibit — the mosaic artwork is the first work she completed on her own following the death of her husband in 2017; it’s titled, “She Persists: Power of Knowledge.” The piece, set in a hillside meadow depicted with translucent shards of glass, juxtaposes where women have come from and where they have yet to go. Its impressionist style is a nod to the social constraints put onto women during the time of the style’s peak popularity.

“She’s attempting to bust the glass ceiling,” says Jacknin. “The clear glass is shattering — it’s coming up under the young girl who’s reading and it’s kind of encouraging younger women to educate themselves and continue where women before her have come from.”

Though exhibits at Songbird Artistry typically run for about six weeks, “Flight of Empowerment” will be available for viewing — with many pieces available for purchase — through the holiday season. A closing date has not been set.

THE CIVIC ARENA, WHERE MUCH OF “SUDDEN DEATH” TAKES PLACE. | PHOTO FROM THE ROBERT G. PFLAUM PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION, UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

The 1995 action thriller “Sudden Death” was shot in large part at the Civic Arena — and that’s no accident. The unique architecture of the former arena inspired the film, which was pitched by Karen Baldwin, wife of then-Penguins owner Howard Baldwin.

The film follows Darren McCord, played by the legendary Jean-Claude Van Damme, a fire marshal for the city of Pittsburgh. The setting is a terrorist attack during the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Chicago Blackhawks — a fictionalized rematch of the 1992 championship series. The conflict kicks off when a group of terrorists take the Vice President and several other VIPs hostage during the game. Darren fights to defeat the terrorists and save the city — and his family, who are in attendance.

“Sudden Death” also features a number of faces familiar to longtime Penguins fans, including a prominent appearance by mascot Iceburgh and former superstar Luc Robitaille, who scores the game-tying goal for the Penguins, sending the game to sudden-death overtime.

As someone who is not a Pittsburgh native but has been sightseeing in the city, it was nice to identify spots like Mount Washington, Station Square and the Fort Duquesne Bridge. Director Peter Hyams succeeds in capturing the heart of Pittsburgh by using iconic locations for the film that capture the beauty of the Steel City.

Unfortunately, “Sudden Death” came out at a time when “Die Hard” was a staple for American action cinema, sticking close enough to that film to feel like a ripoff. The lack of originality dampens the enjoyment. Darren McCord is an obvious rip-off of John McClane; it’s too blatant to ignore. The action certainly keeps the viewer engaged, but for me to really enjoy a film, I need the story and characters to be as interesting as the spectacle. Darren McCord is a one-dimensional character, a traditional stoic badass. I never doubted his ability to defeat the terrorists, so there was a lack of tension.

Many contemporary reviews did praise the film, especially for its action sequences; Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle hailed it as “one of the best action thrillers of 1995.” “Sudden Death” could be a fine pick for movie night; its outrageous action scenes and fast pacing will appeal to many audiences, and Pittsburghers will enjoy watching the camera scale Mount Washington and track through the Fort Duquesne Bridge. While it has its flaws, “Sudden Death” will please action fans.

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

Clear your schedule for Oct. 8 — Stevie Wonder is coming to town.

The veteran performer, who has 25 Grammy wins and 74 nominations, announced Thursday that he’ll play PPG Paints Arena as part of his “Sing Your Song! As We Fix Our Nation’s Broken Heart” tour, a nod to his latest single, “Can We Fix Our Nation’s Broken Heart.”

Pittsburgh is the first stop on the tour. Never mind that it’s less than three week’s notice — it’s Stevie Wonder.

A limited number of complimentary tickets will be given to “those in our communities who are already working tirelessly to fix our nation’s broken heart,” according to a press release.

Tickets go on sale Friday, Sept. 20 at noon on Ticketmaster. Prices are not currently listed.

“HAMILTON” CONTINUES AT THE BENEDUM THROUGH SEPT. 29. | PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

If, like Aaron Burr, you’re “willing to wait for it,” you could score last-minute “Hamilton” tickets for next to nothing.

The hit Broadway musical begins its third Pittsburgh run this Wednesday night, and a limited number of seats for each performance will be sold for $10 each via an online lottery. Fans can enter the “#HAM4HAM” lottery — so named because Alexander Hamilton appears on the $10 bill — via the LuckySeat website or the official “Hamilton” app.

Lottery entries are currently available for the second week of “Hamilton” performances at the Benedum Center and will be accepted through Thursday; winners will be notified via email and push notification on Thursday afternoon and can pick up tickets at Will Call two hours before showtime. (Lottery tickets cannot be resold or transferred.)

“Hamilton” made its Pittsburgh debut in 2019, drawing packed crowds to the Benedum. The show’s National Tour next rolled through the city in 2022. The ticket lottery has been in place for all of the show’s Pittsburgh appearances; while the location of the lottery tickets has not yet been confirmed, some past lottery winners did receive tickets in the first few rows of the auditorium.

Full information and entry instructions can be found on the “Hamilton” website. The lottery is open to anyone 18 years of age and older; fans can only enter once per week of the show’s run. “Hamilton” continues at the Benedum through Sept. 29.