In The Raw
The narrative around In the Raw has evolved over the years. From the early days of simple readings that supported playwright’s during their (re)writing process, to a festival that workshopped three plays selected from a call for submissions, and finally to a devised theatre festival that gave playwrights, directors, and actors the experience of creating new work from audience suggestions, In the Raw has always been an incubator for the practice of theatre.
(R)evolution
July 21 – August 30, 2014
Two teams of local theatre artists work together and create two brand new plays inspired by Pittsburgh: her landscape, people, history and future. Using our audience to generate source material means the results are truly of, by, and for the people of Pittsburgh.
Dis Place
#TeamIncline (Team A)
by Maureen McGranaghan
Directed by Cynthia Croot
Cast
Jill Keating
Lara Miller
Joel Richardson
Bria Walker
Andrew Wind
Dramaturgs
Tyler Crumrine
Annie DiMario
Hymn to Future Tense
#TeamBlastFurnace (Team B)
by Conner Shioshita Pickett
Directed by Risher Reddick
Cast
Lauren Ashleigh Bethea
Chris Josephs
Connor McCanlus
Missy Moreno
Kelly Trumbull
Dramaturgs
Tyler Crumrine
Annie DiMario
Special Thank You to Our Sponsors:
Copies on Carson
First Commonwealth Bank
90.5 WESA
WYEP
Noah’s Ark
November 18, 2013
Inspired by activist, theologian, and writer James Douglass’s book “JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters,” Noah’s Ark sails the rough waters of the Kennedy presidency–the Bay of Pigs, the summit with Khrushchev in Vienna, a line in the sand in Berlin, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the prelude to Vietnam–to reveal the depths and shallows of humanity, drama, fear, and passion at the heart of these world events.
Cast
Jeffrey Carpenter
Tami Dixon
William Cameron
Connie Egan
Jack Gordie
John Gresh
Matt Henderson
JJ Lendl
Joe Rittenhouse
Phil Winters
The Gospel Singer
May 19 & 20, 2013
Religion is a drag! Isaac Dumont is achieving a cult following performing as “Ruthie” in The Eden Club, a local jazz haven where his partner, a mechanic by trade, serves as the emcee. But Isaac’s true desire is to sing the gospel music dearest to his heart — a dream that rankles his religious community as much as his professional one. Set in 1987 and based on real events, The Gospel Singer bounces between communities all seeking spirituality in very different ways.
Cast
John Gresh
Leslie Howard
Varian Huddleston
Sally Raida
Sean Sears
Mark C. Thompson
Music Director: Deryck Tines
A Raisin in the Sun
May 13, 2013
Directed by Edwin Lee Gibson
In this classic play, the Youngers awaits the arrival of a large insurance check. Living in a small city apartment, the family sees the money as their ticket to a better life. However, not everyone in the family has the same idea on how to spend the money. Struggling to navigate the harsh reality of race, class, loss, and domestic imbalance, the Youngers forge ahead to create their version of the American dream.
Cast
Joshua Elijah Reese as Walter Younger
Bria Walker as Ruth Younger
Rita Gregory as Lena Younger
Shaun Nicole as Beneatha Younger
Cameron Knight as Joseph Asagai
Monteze Freeland as George Murchison
Ron Black as Bobo
Sundiata El Terry as Travis Younger
Tameka Cage Conley as Mrs. Johnson
Jeffrey Carpenter as Karl Lindner
For the Tree to Drop
May 5 & 6, 2013
By Lissa Brennan
As a Southern plantation mourns the loss of its owner’s son, felled in Civil War battle, a slave works tirelessly to bury her own brother, who had been hanged as punishment for an act of rebellion. Familial roots are exposed and frayed in this updated retelling of Sophocles’s Antigone.
Cast
Ken Bolden
Vanessa German
Erica Highberg
Joshua Reese
Bria Walker
A Streetcar Named Desire
April 29, 2013
This Pulitzer Prize-winning play is set in the sweltering heat of summer in New Orleans. Stanley and Stella Kowalski, a young couple with a baby on the way, are surprised by the sudden arrival of Stella’s sister Blanche. As the three shared a small apartment in the French Quarter, they face their most hidden fears, desires, and realities.
Cast
Patrick Jordan as Stanley
Daina Griffith as Stella
Tami Dixon as Blanche
Jason McCune as Mitch
Hannah Nielsen-Jones as Eunice
Parag S. Gohel as Pablo
Dan Krell as Steve
Stage Director: Marci Woodruff
Ganglia: Instructions for the Symbiogensis
April 21 & 22, 2013
By Peter J. Roth
Norman and Amelia arrive in their new neighborhood armed with their worldly possessions, their friendly demeanor, and an alien parasite that was feeding off each of their brains. First on their list to conquer were their neighbors, then the audience, then the world. They’ve come in peace to unite humanity in one great protocol. The only problem is that Amelia is losing faith in protocol and falling in love.
Cast
Tressa Glover
Patrick Jordan
Mark Staley
Bria Walker
Tar Beach
August 27, 2012
By Tammy Ryan
Directed by Sheila McKenna
It is July 1977 and New York City is in the midst of a brutal heat wave. Two best friends, sixteen year old Mary Claire and Mary Francis start that day sunning themselves on the roof of an Ozone Park row house. Younger sister Reenie is searching for her prize-winning Greek Mythology class project – the head of Medusa, while their parents are consumed by the battles of their troubled marriage. The boy-crazy Marys hatch a plan to stay out all night with a bonfire on the beach, but the unexpected happens: the biggest blackout since 1965, a chance encounter with Son of Sam and a sudden loss of innocence.
Cast
Cassidy Adkins
Tami Dixon
Hayley Nielson
Jason McCune
Brandi Wellle
Manchild: My Life without Adult Supervision
May 14, 2012
By Alan Olifson
According to a People magazine senior editor, “40 is not just the new 30, it’s the new 20.” And Olifson has just the play to prove it. Manchild: My Life without Adult Supervision is a one-man show chronicling the author’s ongoing battle with adulthood (i.e. settling down, marriage, fatherhood) through a series of essays accompanied by a live DJ score. It is theater in the spirit of Spalding Gray with a splash of David Sedaris and This American Life; storytelling with a soundtrack.
Cast
Alan Olifson
The 2nd American Revolution
December 12, 2011
By Gab Cody
The 2nd American Revolution is a modern-day farce modeled on Moliere’s Tartuffe, set amidst an incendiary Tea Party-like meeting in the Deep South. The Tartuffe character is a hot-shot African American political consultant who promises to lead the radical crackers to victory.
Cast
Theo Allyn
James Fitzgerald
Manteze Freeland
Micheal Fuller
Linda Haston
Laurie Klatscher
Gregory Lehane
The One That Got Away
December 5, 2011
By Michael McGovern
Directed by Maggie Vos Balsley
Suppose you gave a cocktail party and nobody came? Thus begins the evening for our host Joyce Jarvis. The party is for her friend Sharon who recently moved to New York. The guest list of fifteen has rapidly dwindled down to six–but the six who show up are the perfect ingredients for a charming, sexy, fun evening. As the alcohol flows, the partiers gets more uninhibited and the flirtations, conversations, confrontations and seductions become more outrageous. It’s Noel Coward meets Christopher Durang on a midsummer’s night!
Cast
Ken Bolden
Jeffrey Carpenter
Patricia Cray
Patricia Gena
Lisa Ann Goldsmith
Marty Schniff
Tammy Tsai
Fat Beckett
April 18, 2011
By Gab Cody
Directed by Sam Turich
Gab Cody explores and explodes Beckett’s legacy, transforming one of the most important playwrights of the 20th Century into the most inspirational of the 21st. Cody and Reis revamp Beckett’s existential questions for our generation, with a focus on the struggles and challenges of being female.
Cast
Gab Cody
Rita Reis
Song of Extinction
December 13, 2010
By E.M. Lewis
Directed by Jeffrey Carpenter
The play is centered around Max, a musically gifted high school student, who is falling off the edge of the world – and his biology teacher is the only one who’s noticed. A play about the science of life and loss, the relationships between fathers and sons, Cambodian fields, Bolivian rainforests, and redemption. Max Forrestal is going to fail Biology if he doesn’t complete a 20-page paper on extinction by 2pm on Tuesday – but his mother, Lily, is dying of cancer, and school is the last thing on his mind. His father, Ellery, a biologist obsessed with saving a rare Bolivian insect, is incapable of dealing with his wife’s impending death, or his son’s distress. Max’s biology teacher, Khim Phan, is trying to figure out why Max is failing the class. Helping Max, however, pushes Khim into a magical journey of his own – from the Cambodian fields of his youth into the undiscovered country beyond.
Cast
Ken Bolden
Brett Kennedy
Justin Krauss
Robert Park
Jim Scriven
Adrienne Wehr
Lindsey’s Oyster
December 7
By Tammy Ryan
Directed by Melanie Deyer-Lude
Ryan’s play focuses on 16 year old Lindsey, date raped and pregnant, and pressured by her parents to get an abortion. Instead, Lindsey decides to get a tattoo. Told through flashbacks, text messages, and scenes with Rooster, a middle aged Tattoo artist, the play examines what stereotypes prevail in our culture and who in our society controls the narrative of a young woman’s life.
Cast
Gregory LeHane
Laurie Klatscher
Maggie Ryan
Justin DeWolf
Tea-Totaled
November 22, 2010
By John Walch
Directed by Jeffrey Carpenter
“I don’t recommend puking in a ficus tree. It’s really hard to get that smell out of the potting soil,” comments Truly, the beautifully damaged middle-school history teacher who stubbornly refuses to examine her own history. But when a mint green floral tea pot from Occupied Japan, an enamel tea cup from the American Revolution, and other ancient tea sets begin arriving at her door, Truly has to come face to face with her own past and the dying mother she has tried to beat from her memory. As Truly sifts through the shards of her broken relationship with her mother, her own relationships begins to break apart, and she is forced to confront the tyranny of her own perspective. Steeped in ferocity with lumps of quirky humor, Tea-Totaled explores the fragility of human relationships, the addictive nature of negativity, and how personal desolation and a post office box in Mail Boxes Etc. might just lead you to discover the beauty in the imperfections of yourself and others.
Cast
Tami Dixon
The Teetotaler
November 22, 2010
by Ian McCulloh
Directed by Jeffrey Carpenter
“The dreaded morning after and a broken man, a failing memory, and a shattered reality sit in an otherwise empty room. Questions arise: What happened last night? How far did things go? And whose blood is that? When the answers involve a broken promise of sobriety and a lifetime of forgetting, the truth is too horrible to face.
Cast
Jarrod DiGiorgi
Lost Boy Found In a Whole Foods
April 27, 2009
By Tammy Ryan
Directed by Kellee Van Aken
Lost Boy Found In a Whole Foods tells the story of a woman who met a Sudanese refugee working in the produce section of Whole Foods and invites him to live with her and her teenage daughter. In the early 90s in Sudan, after civil war destroyed their villages, an exodus of boys trekked across Africa until finding sanctuary in refugee camps in Kenya. In 2001, the US resettled 3,600 of these “Lost Boys.” Their stories have been the subject of numerous books and documentaries. Ryan was inspired to write this play, a work of fiction, after working with Playback Theater and a group of these men in Pittsburgh in 2003.