“Battle at the Forks” featuring the Chris Norman Ensemble
This week, even period music enthusiasts are getting into — yes — “Pittsburgh 250” mode, with Concerto Caledonia, the School of Drama of Carnegie Mellon University and the Chris Norman Ensemble uniting for the multidimensional performance, “Battle at the Forks.” Although it makes sense to explore the history of the Battle of Fort Duquesne on…
When Facts DON’T Speak for Themselves
Maybe it was just yesterday’s shitty performance of the Steelers offensive line, but I found myself in a foul mood when I sat down to read the Post-Gazette forum section last night. Seeing the P-G’s op-ed section swallow a GOP talking point hook, line, and sinker did nothing to help my mood. The P-G’s Sunday…
Fall Arts Highlights
10th Annual Black Sheep Puppet Festival The nation’s longest-running annual puppet fest features workshops, lectures and performances by a national roster of avant-garde puppet artists. Oct. 10-26 The Brew House, South Side www.blacksheeppuppet.com Pittsburgh Opera Season-opener Samson & Dalila (Oct. 18-26) is followed by the Pittsburgh premiere of The Grapes of Wrath (Nov. 15-23).…
Social commentary is big on the season’s visual-art scene.
The show finds artists and architects exploring the “physical and social complexities” of a suburbia that’s grown beyond tract housing and picket fences.
Highlights from the season’s upcoming literary offerings.
Scratch your head, laugh and realize you’re in the company of a wildly educated and painfully clever word-nerd when you go see Pulitzer-winning Paul Muldoon.
From tango to Dirty Little Secrets, Orwell to Gatsby, it’s a full slate of fall dance.
Attack Theatre takes audience participation to another level in [Insert Clever and Thought-Provoking Title Here], Oct. 31, Nov. 1 and 3 at the New Hazlett Theater.
Notable non-canonical plays dominate fall stages.
The Pittsburgh Public Theatre has staged every episode of Wilson’s cycle, from Gem of the Ocean to King Hedley II, but the saga’s final installment makes the vision complete.
Fall Film Guide
Without question, fall is the most exciting time of year for cinema-goers. Forget all the artificial thrills of summer’s fading blockbusters: Autumn’s slate of festivals, special events and yes, even Tinseltown’s Oscar-bait is what sets area film enthusiasts a-tingle. The first of the ‘Burgh’s two long-running festivals to return is the Pittsburgh International Lesbian and…
Tempt fate this fall concert season
As the man says, “Surrender to Jonathan.”
The Cultural Trust reprises its Festival of Firsts.
It’s staged in Shadyside’s cavernous Ellis School Armory — with timed admissions for one patron at a time to a labyrinth full of performers.
Stage performer Tim Crouch returns to the Warhol’s Off The Wall series with the provocative England.
Among the show’s purposes is to ironically interrogate its own title: to question the substance of “nationality.”
Pittsburgh Project Remix captures a vanishing past in everyday people’s stories, on stage.
“So often when I tell people these stories I hear exclamations like, ‘Oh my god that’s my grandfather!’ or ‘That happened to my parents too!'”
Transsiberian
An American couple – Roy (Woody Harrelson) and Jessie (Emily Mortimer) – opt to return from China on board the fabled Trans-Siberian Express. Roy’s a rail-geek and falls easily into the low-rent camaraderie of the train. But, Jessie, more worldly, is troubled by their dubious young bunkmates, one of whom confesses to a bit of…
Kenny
This day-in-the-life account of Kenny, a cheerful, hard-working Australian supplier of porta-potties, may be the most heartwarming mockumentary I’ve ever seen. It’s also screamingly funny. But this family affair – brother Shane and Clayton Jacobsen wrote the script; Clayton directs and Shane stars as Kenny — brings massive amounts of dignity to Kenny’s poo-pumping job,…
Ghost Town
It’s a new riff on a familiar comedic plot: Troublesome ghosts enlist the living in order to tidy up the loose ends left hanging when they were suddenly whisked off this mortal coil. The pesky specter in David Koepp’s comedy is Frank (Greg Kinnear), a well-to-do philanderer who needs a warm body to prevent his…
Education: Pittsburgh schools trying to get away from race-based admissions
Worried that a Supreme Court decision brands the Pittsburgh School District’s admissions system as unconstitutional, school officials are carefully planning to remove the system’s reliance on racial quotas without destroying schools’ racial diversity. Born in the 1970s as a voluntary way of desegregating the district, magnet schools have been among the most successful programs in…
Environment: Proposed alert network would provide needed river monitoring
Sometimes, it’s easy to tell when a river’s water quality has been compromised — such as when, in 2005, a train carrying toxic gas derailed in East Deer Township and two of its cars ended up in the Allegheny. Other times, though, contamination can be more subtle — such as when the sewers overflow during…
Human Rights: Torture survivor to tell his story during conference
Hector Aristizabal didn’t need the “war on terror” to wrestle with the moral implications of torture: He’s been carrying his own torture story since 1989. As a university student in Medellin, Colombia in the early 1980s, Aristizabal was arrested by police and tortured by the army under what he describes as “a national security law…
Downtown: After a week, the new Downtown bus station still doesn’t look, smell like a bus station
Abandon all hope, ye who enter the Greyhound station. Albany, New York: a veritable homeless shelter surrounded by acres of windswept parking lot. Washington, D.C.: packed all hours with cigarette-bumming zombies. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: every surface greasy, the floors dotted with trash. Everywhere, bearded men pushing shopping carts full of rags. Indigestible food. The…
Dorothy 6
Dorothy is peopled with solid, real portraits of stricken steelworkers.
Wicked
This show features knock-out performances by every member of the cast, and the entire production is the most lavishly outfitted tour I’ve ever seen: breathtaking sets, lights and costumes.
CP announces new local music showcase, CP REMIXED
Coming up in just a couple short weeks, we’re pleased to announce CP REMIXED: A new quarterly music showcase featuring Pittsburgh’s most innovative and intriguing musicians. The first installment is curated by Aaron Jentzen, Music Editor, City Paper; curators and performers for future events will be announced here as they’re confirmed. The first event takes…
The Story
The Story is raw, razor-edged and (dare I say it?) fun in a way that exercises rather than insults your brain.
It’s Greek to Me
A cozy stop for feasting on Mediterranean favorites
Greetings From Pittsburgh
If it’s good enough for Paris, it’s good enough for Pittsburgh. Two years ago, the City of Lights was celebrated in Paris, je t’aime, a compilation of 18 short films in which a variety of filmmakers paid homage to the French capital’s charms. After seeing Paris, Andrew Halasz recalls thinking: “It would be really cool…
Righteous Kill
You don’t serve two hams at one dinner, but that’s exactly what Jon Avnet does in his bad-cop thriller Righteous Kill. Actually, the cured meat in question — stars Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, goofin’ on their reps — is about all that makes this outing palatable. The pulpy plot concerns the NYPD and some…
Lakeview Terrace
In almost every way, this is a pretty typical Sam Jackson movie. He’s intense. He’s furious. He’s armed like an octopus. But this time, Jackson is a Los Angeles police officer, driven to tormenting his neighbors, mixed race couple Kerry Washington and Patrick Wilson — and his director is Neil LaBute, the brutalist playwright/filmmaker (Your…
Crisis Resolution?
North Point Breeze neighbors take issue with the zoning of a new crisis center
Voices and Organs’ sound collages plumb fictional childhoods
At times, the songs fall apart; at others, they are so melodic as to resemble a lullaby.
The name has changed, but Bill Callahan’s Americana gut-punches remain
“I will drive a car that runs on carrots, I will buy life jackets for polar bears, I will do anything I can to stop the end of the world.”
New Music ensemble IonSound Project gives first “in residence” concert at Pitt
“Composers can hit them with almost anything, and they can deal with it.”
This Just In: September 18 – 25
Highlights from the local TV news: Black-and-gold colors that really don’t run.
Pittsburgh n’@
Dispatches from the blogosphere: Pittsburgh in the dark.
The author of a wrenching book on pre-Roe adoptions screens her film in progress.
“Every woman described it as the most traumatic and life-changing event they ever experienced.”
Local band Cry Fire debuts with radio-friendly Strangers
Nathaniel Minto’s vocals are notably strong, a fact that likely adds to the band’s mainstream appeal.
Chris Ryan & Chicken! releases lo-fi CD The City Has Teeth
The songs are often about relations between people and living in the city, and of course occasionally about drinking whiskey.
Quiet Desperation
The latest episode of the Grant Street Follies, you may have heard, is that the Urban Redevelopment Authority is paying executive director Pat Ford $93,000 to stop working for it. That’s a lot of money to pay someone for not working, even in city government. So there’s widespread suspicion that Ford — who wrote a…
Tomato-rama
A few years back, a friend memorably described my kitchen as a place that existed solely for mixing drinks and bathing pets. My pots and pans are always clean, but that doesn’t mean I’m neat: I just have a deep-seated aversion to cooking. However, I also have a pretty serious green thumb, and enjoy growing…
Local music scene organizers Barack the vote.
“This campaign has done a great job in getting young people excited about politics again, and not taking voting for granted.”
Savage Love
Is it possible for a man to insert his balls into a woman? A few months ago, I was making out with a guy and he whispered to me that he wanted to insert his balls into me. I said, “What?!?” and he moved on to other things. I’ve shared this story with a couple…
A Pro-Life Message That Doesn’t Make You Want to Kill Yourself
Word has reached City Paper that a liberal Catholic group, Catholics United, intends to run TV ads challenging John McCain to give a damn about babies after they are born. The ads will run on cable stations in Pittsburgh and other “heavily Catholic” communities. You can see the ad for yourself here. In it, a…
At The Framery, Nikki Sixx meets Tiffany — or does he?
Rounded beads of baby blue, Milk of Magnesia pink, crème de menthe green explode from rusty orifices to brighten the day, let the sunshine in, and generally turn that frown upside down.
