Comedy, cabaret to highlight all-live Pittsburgh Humanities Festival
The tagline for the Pittsburgh Humanities Festival is, “Smart talk about stuff that matters,” but that doesn’t mean it’s a series of esoteric talks by a group of stuffy academics.
“We’re more liberal than some about our definition of the humanities, and that’s deliberate,” said Randal Miller, director of dance programming and special projects for the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, which produces the festival with the Humanities Center at Carnegie Mellon University. “We try not to limit ourselves to things that are strictly humanities.”
Three featured events for this year’s festival, set for March 21-27 in the Cultural District, will highlight cabaret-style entertainment and comedy.
The festival also includes a series of Core Conversations “exploring what it means to be human,” with topics including the city’s history, policy and politics, Kennywood, racial inequities, drag culture, Shakespeare, food, art and more.
The first featured event will be two performances by Tony Award-winning Broadway actor Ali Stroker, presented jointly with the Trust Cabaret Series. This will be the first joint offering of the festival and the cabaret series.
“I think it’s a natural fit, because cabaret as an art form is 50% story-telling already, so it needed no adaptation to fit into the realm of the humanities festival,” Miller said. “Ali Stroker, as the first person to win a Tony (while performing) in a wheelchair has a unique perspective and lived experience to share.”
Stroker won the 2019 Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her role as Ado Annie in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “OKLAHOMA!” She made history as the first actor in a wheelchair to appear on Broadway, in Deaf West’s 2015 revival of “Spring Awakening.”
She will appear at 7 p.m. March 21 and 22 at Greer Cabaret Theater, 655 Penn Ave.
Next up is Sh!tfaced Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at 8 p.m. March 25 in the Byham Theater, 101 6th St. The show features a rotating cast of classically trained actors in an inebriated version of Shakespeare’s classic tale of four Athenian lovers lost in the woods and one antic fairy bent on creating mayhem.
“An Evening with Dulcé Sloan” will take place at 8 p.m. March 26 in the Byham Theater. The comedian is a correspondent on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.” She was included in Variety’s “Top 10 Comedians To Watch” list, and recently was hailed by Rolling Stone as one of the “10 Comedians You Need to Know.”
“We discovered a few years ago that humor and comedy is a great bridge to the humanities,” Miller said. “Some people might hear ‘humanities festival’ and think, ‘I don’t feel like hearing people talk or getting lectured.’ Making featured events have a touch of comedy helps draw in people who might have written off the festival but would love to come to a drunken Shakespeare performance.”
Pittsburgh loves Pittsburgh
The 14 Core Conversations will take place March 26 and 27 at the Trust Arts Education Center, 805 Liberty Ave.
“In the planning, we look to see if there are conversational tracks, so this year Pittsburgh is one, visual arts is another and there’s also an LGBTQ representation,” Miller said. “We know that Pittsburgh loves Pittsburgh, so you’ll see that we have Ed Simon with ‘An Alternative History of Pittsburgh,’ and Rick Sebak and Brian Butko with ‘Kennywood Behind the Screams,’ which we expect to be pretty well attended.”
Submissions also are being accepted until 11:59 p.m. Monday from members of the public who would like to present a Core Conversation of their own. One presentation will be selected by a jury panel to appear in the lineup at 3 p.m. March 27. Information is available on the festival page of the Trust website.
Prices vary for the featured events. A $10 Core Conversations Pass ($5 for students) is good for all of the conversations, each of which includes an audience question-and-answer segment.
During the pandemic, Miller said, “A truncated version of this festival went online in fall 2020 and spring 2021 as Humanities Festival at Home, and those talks are fantastic. I would recommend that anyone interested in seeing what the humanities festival is like watch one of those.”
Those presentations can be found by clicking on “About” on the festival page, and then clicking on the “Past Festivals” link.
Some of this year’s events may be streamed and some may be available for viewing online afterward, but logistics are still being worked out, Miller said.
For complete event listing, tickets, passes and more information, visit trustarts.org.
Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Shirley by email at smcmarlin@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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