This week I visited the Cabaret Ballroom in Homewood, Nola on the Square in Downtown, The Greater Pittsburgh Coliseum in Homewood, AMC Loews Theatre in Homestead, Ava Lounge in East Liberty and Savoy Restaurant in the Strip District. Tené Croom celebrating her birthday with my boy Elmer McClung at Nola on the Square, Downtown.
Thursday 26 Jazz Jam CJ’s Restaurant & Lounge presents “The Roger Humphries & RH Factor Jazz Jam Session” at 8 p.m. at 2901-2911 Penn Ave., Strip District. There will be live jazz and fun every Thursday night. Must be 25 years or older and there is a dress code that will be enforced. No tennis shoes, sweats, or athletic gear. For more information, call 412-642-2377.
What do people do on a Monday night in Pittsburgh after they leave their day job? You can go to the mall, maybe go to church, how about going out to eat or to a movie. Or just go home until it is time to go back to work the next day. All of those are good options. But how about attending a staged reading during the “Readers Roundtable” at the August Wilson Center that is absolutely free? DURING INTERMISSION—Doreen Scott talks to playwright Randy Pitts. On Jan. 9, a sizeable audience enjoyed “Secrets of the Paranormal” by playwright and retired IRS employee Randy Pitts. So what is a staged reading? It is a reading of the play with script in hand, without costumes and blocking. The actors sit in chairs on the stage and read their parts. The reading can be a helpful tool for the writer. The writer can hear their work and often gauge audience reaction.
Stage actor Lindsay Smiling loves performing the works of William Shakespeare. “Once people can see that you can handle the language of Shakespeare, you get more calls to do it,” explained Smiling whose theater credits have included “Othello” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” LINDSAY SMILING “What I enjoy about Shakespeare is that his work deals with things that we don’t deal with today like castles and banishment, but people then like today deal with love, family, friendship and all these great things. I also love it because I get to use the full musicality (of) the words to tell the story.”
Oh, the things you said to your parents! Imagine how melty they felt when you, as a toddler, declared your love and adoration. Think about how proud they were when you spouted the kind of child-wisdom that kids always seem to utter. Remember how they told everybody all about the cute things you used to say? Imagine how they felt the first time you screamed “NO!” or declared hate or reminded them that it wasn’t your idea to enter the world. Out of the mouths of babes? Yes, and into the new book by Bill Cosby. In “I Didn’t Ask to Be Born (But I’m Glad I Was),” the Cos is back to make us laugh about childhood, parenting, and things in between.
Award-winning poet and Carnegie Mellon University English Professor Terrance Hayes has been chosen to serve as a panelist for President Obama’s new National Student Poets Program, the country’s highest honor for young poets presenting original work. Five high school students will be selected to serve for a year as national poetry ambassadors. Hayes is one of four literary leaders who will judge students who received a National Scholastic Art & Writing Award for poetry. TERRANCE HAYES
(NNPA)—Dear Gwendolyn: I am currently on a crusade. Ten years ago I quit law school and married a man with four children. His wife had left him and I made the mistake of taking up with him. I did not know that his intentions were to misuse me.
The December edition of the August Wilson Center’s monthly Reading Roundtable Series broke new ground with a first staged reading of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” with an all-female cast on last month in the August Wilson Center for African American Culture. “There are so few roles for women in August Wilson’s plays,” said reading director Vanessa German. “I’ve always wanted to get on stage and say some of the wonderful monologues that August wrote for men. It’s the language, and the ferocity of the story; to have the opportunity as an actress to come alive inside of those words is earth shaking.
This week I visited Savoy Restaurant in the Strip District, CJ’s in the Strip District, Greater Pittsburgh Coliseum in Homewood and Melange Bistro Bar in Downtown Pittsburgh. My first stop was at Melange Bistro Bar in Downtown Pittsburgh where Jay Owens of VIP Entertainment celebrated his birthday in grand style with family and friends from all over the city. Everyone came out for Steelers Weekend at Savoy Restaurant in the Strip District.
Thursday 19 Jazz Jam CJ’s Restaurant & Lounge presents “The Roger Humphries & RH Factor Jazz Jam Session” at 8 p.m. at 2901-2911 Penn Ave., Strip District. There will be live jazz and fun every Thursday night. Must be 30-years or older and there is a dress code that will be enforced. No tennis shoes, sweats, or athletic gear. For more information, call 412-642-2377.
