EA Plans to Show Off Its Jazz Skills During Festival

September 14, 2019 |

By Bonnijean Cooney Adams | Posted in: Entertainment, North Versailles Twp. News

East Allegheny Wildcats Marching Band members take to the field for a practice session on a beautiful summer evening. (Bonnijean Cooney Adams photo special to Tube City Almanac)

East Allegheny Wildcats Marching Band will showcase its jazz-themed show when it hosts eight other units for a competition that begins at 6 p.m. today (Sept. 14) at Churchman Stadium in North Versailles Twp.

“We’ve been doing jazz music since 2015 — we’ve found our own niche — and the students enjoy the music and have become very proficient with it,” band director Justin Rosco said.

The show “New York Dreams” features three main production numbers performed against a New York City skyline for a production that runs approximately eight and a half minutes, he said, and includes vocal performances.

MLT Brings Classic Peanuts Characters to Life With ‘Good Man’ Revival

September 13, 2019 |

By Bonnijean Cooney Adams | Posted in: Entertainment

Matt Tracy as Schroeder is taken aback by Catherine Hayashi as Lucy. (Bonnijean Cooney Adams photo, special to Tube City Almanac)

McKeesport Little Theater kicks off its new season with three weekends of the family-friendly musical, “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.”

The show made its Off-Broadway debut in 1967, based on characters created by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz in his Peanuts comic strip. It opened on Broadway in 1971, with a revival in 1999 that led to a Tony Award for actor Kristin Chenoweth.

Lora Oxenreiter returns to MLT as director and set designer for the production, which opens today (Sept. 13).

“We are doing the 1999 revival that has a few new numbers,” Oxenreiter said.

Featured are Scott Thompson as Charlie Brown, Adam Wainwright as Snoopy, Ben Blinn as blanket-toting Linus, Matt Tracy as piano prodigy Schroeder, Anneke Elmhirst as Charlie Brown’s sister Sally, and Catherine Hayashi as opinionated Lucy. The producer is Phillip Boatright.

Tiger Band’s New Show Nods to Region’s Industrial Heritage

August 22, 2019 |

By Bonnijean Cooney Adams | Posted in: Entertainment

CORRECTION: Names of three members of the color guard were accidentally left out of this story. We apologize for the error. (Aug. 25, 2019)

Tiger color guard members toss their flags up high and execute perfect catches during rehearsal. (Bonnijean Cooney Adams photo for Tube City Almanac)

McKeesport’s industrial heritage is featured with a theatrical twist and condensed to an eight-minute show when the Tiger Marching Band takes to the field in “A Day in the Mill.”

Ryan Raible, the assistant band director and drill designer, said each year is a challenge to create a show that the audience will understand and relate to.

“It’s a lot of pageantry arts, telling a story. I tell the kids it’s like performing an entire musical in only eight minutes,” Raible said.

When considering music, he and band director Drew DeCarlo connected with Randall D. Standridge, a composer, arranger, and drill designer, whose work is performed internationally.

Serra Band’s Shows Will Have French Flair

August 19, 2019 |

By Bonnijean Cooney Adams | Posted in: Entertainment

Serra Catholic marching band members focus on drills while perfecting their playing during camp. (Bonnijean Cooney Adams photo for Tube City Almanac.)

This year's field shows by the Serra Catholic High School marching band will have a bit of Continental flare.

The band was initially considering a field show that would be themed around foods, but that evolved into a focus on France, said Jesse Bush, marching band director, whose students will be playing and even dancing to tunes ranging from “Work Song/At the End of the Day” from “Les Miserables” to the “Can-Can.”

“Each song in the show represents something from France,” Bush said, with solos by instrumentalists and color guard members.

“I think it’s a very fun show for us to do and, with the French theme, is more theatrical than last year,” said color guard senior Anna Osinski, who is featured as a revolutionary in the excerpt from “Les Miserables.” “The guard girls are playing different parts and there’s a guitar with the pit.”

'Love, Loss' at MLT Explores Clothing's Role in Triggering Memories

June 25, 2019 |

By Bonnijean Cooney Adams | Posted in: Entertainment

Rehearsing for "Love, Loss, and What I Wore," a benefit to support McKeesport Little Theater, in front from left, are Nancy Batko and April Ohms. In back are Megan May, Lynne Franks, and Kendra McLaughlin. (Photo: Bonnijean Cooney Adams for Tube City Almanac)

Sometimes the clothes we wore for a special occasion – the prom, our wedding, a funeral – or even that highly anticipated first date that turned out to be a total disaster – trigger memories long after the events themselves have faded.

When McKeesport Little Theater veteran Rose-Lorene Miller read the play “Love, Loss, and What I Wore” by Nora and Delia Ephron, based on a book by Ilene Beckerman, she insisted her friend Linda Baker read it, too.

Baker, who has been affiliated with the community theater in key roles for years, said she liked it so much that she proposed producing it as a benefit. The show runs Friday through Sunday, June 28-30.

MAHS' 'Addams Family' is Quirky, Creepy Fun

April 11, 2019 |

By Bonnijean Cooney Adams | Posted in: Entertainment

Cast of "The Addams Family" musical awaits opening night at McKeesport Area High School. (Photo courtesy of producer Carolyn Carreiro)

Fans of the original “Addams Family” TV show or subsequent movies may find it difficult to believe the story could be updated and made into – of all things – a musical.

But it has, and McKeesport Area High students are ready to bring their interpretation of its quirky and sometimes macabre characters such as Gomez and Morticia Addams, their children Wednesday and Pugsley, and even their extended family of living relatives and ancestors to the high school stage April 11, 12 and 13.

All versions are based on characters from cartoons by Charles Addams that appeared in the New Yorker.

In the musical, little Wednesday is all grown up and has fallen in love – with Lucas Beineke from a “normal” family from Ohio.

Pittsburgh Premiere of ‘Bright Star’ Will Light EA’s Stage

April 08, 2019 |

By Bonnijean Cooney Adams | Posted in: Entertainment, North Versailles Twp. News

Musicians join actors onstage in this moveable house during East Allegheny's "Bright Star," with bluegrass/country music by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell. (Bonnijean Cooney Adams photo)

“Laugh, cry, and find your way home again,” is the tagline director/producer Amanda Rosco suggested as a way for East Allegheny students to explain the essence of this year’s musical, “Bright Star.”

Written and composed by Steve Martin -- comedian, actor, musician, author, playwright and producer -- and Edie Brickell, the musical is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina just after World War II, with flashbacks to 1923.

The music is a mixture of bluegrass and country, and grew out of their collaboration on “Love Has Come for You,” a 2013 Grammy-winning bluegrass album with Brickell’s lyrics and singing and Martin on banjo.

“Bright Star” opened on Broadway in 2016, and was nominated for a number of awards.

Serra’s ‘Wizard of Oz’ is a Family Affair

April 03, 2019 |

By Bonnijean Cooney Adams | Posted in: Entertainment

Dancers rehearse a tap number, under the direction of Serra graduate Cassie Fedor, who returned to her alma mater to choreograph the show. (David P. Adams photo, special to Tube City Almanac)

If Dorothy Gale had as many family connections as the cast, crew -- and even the director -- have called upon to help produce Serra Catholic High School’s spring musical, she may never have left Kansas.

In “The Wizard of Oz,” which opens today and runs through April 6, siblings are cast as leads, a Serra grad returns as choreographer and gets to work with her brother, while Ryan Gedman’s brother creates his Tinman costume and paints sets.

Although Alani and Abby DiLonardo have performed in previous Serra musicals, this is the first time they have shared some serious stage time.

Alani is Dorothy, while Abby is the Cowardly Lion. Savino DiLonardo is part of the elementary ensemble.

Family-Friendly 'Shrek Jr.' Takes Stage in Elizabeth

March 21, 2019 |

By Bonnijean Cooney Adams | Posted in: Entertainment

The family-friendly story of a guy just trying to find a little peace and quiet and protect his home – or rather swamp – complete with a cast of storybook characters comes to the Grand Theatre stage in Elizabeth through “Shrek the Musical Jr.”

Familiar to audiences of all ages through the animated DreamWorks film and Broadway musical, the story of an ogre named Shrek and the princess Fiona blossoms under the guidance of Kathy Hawk as director of the Mon River Arts youth theater production, which opens tonight and continues through Sunday (March 24).

Hawk, a music teacher in Baldwin-Whitehall School District, is a veteran director, musical director, and performer in various community theater ventures.

Durang's 'Bathwater' at MLT is a Farce With Plenty to Ponder

March 14, 2019 |

By Bonnijean Cooney Adams | Posted in: Entertainment

John (Andrew Wolf) and Helen (Randi Ippolito) have a different approach to bringing up their baby as they adjust to their new roles as parents.

What happens when a child raised female by well-meaning, unprepared parents who were “too polite” to check the child’s actual gender grows up and becomes a parent himself?

It’s a predicament tackled in McKeesport Little Theater’s production of Christopher Durang’s “Baby with the Bathwater,” which premiered March 31, 1983. The comedy, full of farce and satire, provides audiences with plenty to ponder.

Directed by Dan J. Kirk and produced by Phillip Boatright, the show features a small cast, many who worked together previously, and some in multiple roles. It opens March 15 and runs weekends through March 24.

The audience first meets the baby, eventually named Daisy as a toddler, when parents Andrew Wolf as John and Randi Ippolito as his wife Helen bring their newborn home from the hospital.