Culture Archives - Page 7 of 39 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

In a review of a Shakespeare production several years ago I argued that, as a general rule, it has proven easier to do Shakespeare new rather than well, but with Quantum Theatre’s current production of “Hamlet,” director Jeffrey Carpenter has demonstrated that it’s possible to do both. The challenge with this play — arguably the …

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Books

The Allman Brothers Band – and Me

by Alan Paul

The road may go on forever, but it began in my brother’s bedroom on Inverness Avenue, where he handed me a copy of the Allman Brothers Band’s Eat A Peach and told me to listen to it, when I was in seventh grade. I put on some headphones, lay down on the yellow shag carpet, …

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Books

Donora Death Fog: Clean Air and the Tragedy of a Pennsylvania Mill Town

by Fred Shaw

Amid outcry over the recent train derailment and subsequent leak of vinyl chloride in nearby East Palestine, Ohio, and environmental rights groups’ concerns about emissions from Shell’s ethylene cracker plant in Beaver County, dialogue over the balancing act between commerce and public health continues. In his well-researched new book, Donora Death Fog: Clean Air and …

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Books

Pittsburgh’s Orphans and Orphanages

by Joann Cantrell

For as long as I can remember, every time my grandmother spoke of her childhood, it made me sad. Margaret Schall, affectionately known as “Tootie,” was raised in the Odd Fellows Home for Orphans on the North Side of Pittsburgh from 1920 until 1933. She was an orphan of circumstance, rather than by the death …

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History

Ye Olde Parking Meter?

by John Beale

Municipalities struggle with parking. Some have eliminated parking meters. Pittsburgh, Sewickley, Mt. Lebanon, and Carnegie have installed kiosks instead. The time for parking meters hasn’t expired, but in many communities, you’ll no longer need coins. In Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Dormont, McKeesport, and others, meters still exist, but thanks to the innovative Pittsburgh-based app company MeterFeeder, payments …

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Books

A Satiric End of the World

by Fred Shaw

What might the end of the world be like? According to Michael Simms in his debut novel, Bicycles of the Gods: A Divine Comedy (Madville Books, $ 19.95), it could happen a bit like a “screwball comedy” as he navigates a wacky scenario by using “apocalyptic satire” to boldly comment on the troubled state of …

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Arts

The Carnegie International

by Vicky A Clark

Like it or not, the Carnegie International eclipses everything the Carnegie Museum of Art does. Every director has grumbled about how it commandeers all available resources. But it’s a time-honored tradition, still associated 125 years later with the values of founding father Andrew Carnegie. It has survived the vicissitudes of world wars, economic crises, evolving …

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Arts

The Audience as Character: Kinetic Theatre’s “Every Brilliant Thing”

by Stuart Sheppard

There are many reasons to like Kinetic Theatre Company’s “Every Brilliant Thing,” but perhaps the best one is in the way it creates a bonding experience with the audience – rare enough these days — and furthermore, that it does so in a manner that is not political, sentimental, or didactic – the three crutches …

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Arts

“We Shall Not Be Moved”

by Stuart Sheppard

Part tragedy and part myth, as well as part history and part prophecy, Pittsburgh Opera’s “We Shall Not Be Moved” (which premiered in 2017) may be one of the most modern theatrical spectacles you will see — with its synthesis of music, singing, dance, and video projection — yet it may also be one of …

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Arts

The Intersection of People and Nature

by Elizabeth Castonguay

I knew I was an artist at age 4. at 8, when studying oil painting, I knew I would speak through my art. I have always been passionate about the beautiful palette of human diversity and nature, but also empathetic to the struggles of humanity and the vulnerability of all life forms. My decades-long art …

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Arts

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre: On the Threshold of a New Era

by Stuart Sheppard

Watching Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s latest production, “Balanchine and Beyond,” reminded me of the first time I saw the work of the visionary film director Sergei Eisenstein, and encountered cinematography as a form of rapture, instead of the mere recording of imagery. PBT’s three-work production — subtitled “The Masters Program” — comprising contemporary, modernist, and neoclassical …

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PQ Poem

Highway 491

by Lawrence Wray

If it happens that this road is heaven,close your eyes. On the drive acrosssuch a vast country as heaven must be,the road waves as this one does.Its graceful long arcs lead all the wayto the horizon. And isn’t it sothe road stretches even beyond there?You’ll find you’ve been here all alongon Highway 491. On maps just …

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Arts

Opera Shines at Maecenas

by PQ Staff

On Saturday night, 200 attendees celebrated the Pittsburgh Opera and the 38th annual Maecenas Gala at the Bitz Opera Factory. The Maecenas Award was presented to Mary Louise Gailliot and the late Henry J. Gailliot. The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Janet Sarbaugh, who served as the Vice President of the Creativity Program for The Heinz Endowments until …

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Arts

Sympathy for the Devil: Quantum Theatre Conjures a Postmodern Faust

by Stuart Sheppard

Perhaps the second most essential question in life after “Why are we here?” is “Whom should we trust?” The obvious answer would seem to be, trust in God, but we all know how often human beings end up putting their faith in that more convenient, self-serving, and nefarious alternative, the devil. In fact, one of …

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Culture PQ Poem

October

by David Thoreen

On his birthday she whispered, bereft,and understood her place in the scheme of things.The man next door walked his cocker spaniel,a plastic bag in his hand. The kettle began to steam. At the park she found her bench was takenby a man in an Irish sweater, so went a little furtherand sat beneath the linden. …

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History

Renewing the Promise of Pittsburgh

by David McCullough

Editor’s note: Historian David McCullough delivered the following words on a Pittsburgh riverboat in a speech to a select group of local leaders at the launch of the Riverlife Task Force. We are publishing this essay for the first time with permission of The Heinz Endowments on the occasion of the launch of a new …

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Arts Culture

The War Against Aesthetics in Contemporary Art

by Stuart Sheppard

Often when I walk through a gallery of contemporary art, I can hear a murmuring between the works that echoes journalist Herbert Morrison’s voice describing the crash of the Hindenburg in 1937: “Oh, the humanity!” It’s as if the depiction of suffering in any form has become the criteria by which we judge art, rather …

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PQ Poem

A Moment

by Judith Sanders

While chops sizzle and onions brown,the radio intones failures, floods, and fires,and the family cries its needs, Step out the kitchen doorTrain your eyes on the clouds, rumpled on the darkening sky How big are they, you wonder, and where is that cicada with its kazoo, and the bees that all day probed the flowers? How far is …

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Books

Ramona Reeves wins Drue Heinz with First Collection

by Jan Elizabeth Watson

Take the mordant wit of Flannery O’ Connor, combine it with the stripped-down empathy of Raymond Carver, and you just might have something like It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories. This debut collection by Ramona Reeves offers a window into the entwined lives of characters in Mobile, Alabama — a politically, socially and …

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Culture

Pittsburgh Opera’s Laced/Unlaced Fashion Show

by PQ Staff

A capacity crowd of 275 recently filled the Bitz Opera Factory for Pittsburgh Opera’s ‘Laced/Unlaced’ fashion show. The event combined ‘Gothic romance’ opera fashion assembled from pieces in Pittsburgh Opera’s costume shop vault with elegant, accessible luxury fashion from Skye Douglass’ House of Couture Designs, and seductive lingerie from Pulchra Intimates. Pittsburgh Opera’s Resident Artists and local tenor Ben Werley sang dramatic operatic …

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Arts Culture

Pitt Stages’ “Seven Guitars” Gives Life to a Dream Deferred

by Stuart Sheppard

It has been said that the sign of great actors is that they don’t care if you watch them perform or not – as they disdain “playing to the crowd” — and I would argue that the same can be said of great playwrights, who write in a way that invites you to listen to …

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Culture PQ Poem

Homewood Poem

by Doralee Brooks

Stranahan, steepest hill in Homewood, pulls my primary-school bones like iron filings across an etch-a-sketch from Belmar at the top to flat Apple Street running across its base near 7101, Mystery Manor. Bought by Woogie Harris, the gangster banker, in the 30’s. In rabbit fur maxi-coats, chinchilla-draped shoulders, jewel-studded t-straps, and wingtips, people stepped from …

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