Certain tropes dictate that being struck by a lightning bolt denotes a punishment from a divine being, a stroke of misfortune, a warning. In that case, City Theatre should have the worst luck in the world, as the Pittsburgh company’s South Side headquarters has been hit not once, but twice, the first time during its 1999-2000 season.
“The first time we were hit by lightning, we were in the middle of [The Mystery of Irma Vep],” says Patti Kelly, a resident production stage manager who is now entering her 36th season at City Theatre. “And the lightning hit, and one of the crew members was backstage and she said she literally saw it come down a ladder.”
The strike, as she recalls, took out half of the theater’s dimmer rack, making it difficult to light the show. The audience was offered refunds and, as Kelly remembers, “not one person left that night.”
“They all stayed,” Kelly continues. “And we had so much fun doing that show because the actors were so game for it.”
The story speaks to why City Theatre has thrived as “Pittsburgh’s home for bold new plays,” its dedicated cast and crew — many of whom, like Kelly, have stayed on for decades — pushing through everything from lightning strikes to a recession to COVID. This year, City Theatre celebrates its 50th season with a new slot of envelope-pushing productions and a retrospective that honors the loyal audiences that have supported the company’s work for decades.
The season launched with a show that adheres to the company’s role as a contemporary theater that, as managing director James McNeel, puts it, is always looking for new and topical work. Now running through Oct. 13, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive comes during another deeply contentious election season, its title and promotional artwork not so subtly referring to a certain former president now running against VP Kamala Harris. The hit Broadway farce follows seven women “responsible for keeping the president presidential” after “a crude comment, a problematic paramour, and an unfortunate medical mess turn a PR nightmare into a global crisis.”
New and returning talent encompasses POTUS’ all-female cast and main crew — Arcade Comedy Theater regular Missy Moreno takes the City Theatre stage for the first time alongside veterans like film and television actor Tamara Tunie, who previously acted in the company’s production of The Roommate.
“They're formidable women and funny women as well,” says Kelly, who serves as stage manager on POTUS. “So I think that Pittsburgh is in for a real treat this show … A lot of these actors have worked with us before, and we’re bringing them back because they have become part of the family.”
The concept of family runs deep in City Theatre, as Kelly and McNeel, who is now entering his 10th season with the company, can attest. Kelly explains that she has stayed with the company since her days as a student at the University of Pittsburgh, where City Theatre was first housed, and many staff members, including retiring co-artistic director Marc Masterson, have stayed on for decades “You don't see that a lot in theater,” she adds. “And the loyalty and the family feeling of the theater did not change through our growth, which has been nice.”
When, in 1991, City Theatre moved from Pitt to its current location, a former church on Bingham St., Kelly remembers how everyone contributed to readying the space.
“Our scrappy little group of people were in this building with the construction company, physically removing the pews from the space upstairs,” she recalls. “We were physically helping with that kind of stuff, down and dirty our hands in it, and we managed to have our first preview in this space with literally paint still drying on the wall.”
That familial energy extends beyond the confines of City Theatre. McNeel points out that the company formed in the mid-1970s, around the same period as several other Pittsburgh arts organizations, including the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Contemporary Craft, and WYEP.
“We would be remiss not to celebrate the extraordinary journey of this organization and, frankly, of this cultural community,” he says. As part of its 50th anniversary season, the company will present an evening of excerpts from work by the Kuntu Repertory Theatre, a local Black-led group formed around the same time as City Theatre. Kuntu’s late founder, Dr. Vernell A. Lillie, was part of the City Theatre family, and the company honored her memory by naming a theater after her.
McNeel believes maintaining long-term relationships contributes heavily to sustaining City Theatre, providing longevity that can “serve as the backbone” of the organization and provide an environment wherein “folks can come in and learn the business with these veterans.”
“We're big enough that we can do grown-up things,” he says. “We have a facility, we have a professional staff. We can bring a really strong artistic quality, but we are small enough that everyone gets to do a lot of different things here. We can be agile.”
McNeel points out that there are also practical elements to having long-time staff members. “When also you're doing plays in a building built in [the mid-1830s], it's really useful to have somebody who knows all the quirks,” says McNeel, to which Kelly replies, with a laugh, “I know where the breaker box is.”
The 50th season programming continues from POTUS with special events highlighting the company’s past. City Rewinds: 50 Years of New Plays revisits some of the theater’s most popular plays from the last 50 years, all crowd-sourced from audience members, while
Sister Strikes Again: Late Nite Catechism 2 welcomes actor Kimberly Richards back to reprise a role she debuted at City Theatre 20 years ago.
The season will also see the world premiere of Ghosted: Tales from Carson Street, the Pittsburgh premieres of Birthday Candles and King James, and the 25th anniversary of the Young Playwrights Festival, as well as productions of The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley and The Real James Bond...is Dominican. The season culminates in a 50th Birthday Party weekend extravaganza scheduled to take place May 2025.
“We wanted to make sure that we honored the full scope and scale of our history, our various thoughts along the way,” says McNeel. “So we really did want to make sure we had programming throughout the year that allows folks to look back a little bit and celebrate. We have a very loyal audience that has been coming here, literally from day one, while we were in Oakland … So the season is really an opportunity to celebrate our history, but also, the history of live theater in this community.”
