All stories by Ghoover on BroadwayStars

Friday, September 6, 2019

Fierce Female Voices Drive “Julius Caesar” at Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks by Ghoover

  “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!” Iconic. Evocative. Declarative. Historic. But even the canon, once considered untouchable, needs a little revamping and re-imagining.…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 01:26PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, August 21, 2019

All the Fun, Straight, No Chaser in “Savannah Sipping Society” by Ghoover

By Eva Phillips Randa is an unstoppable career woman whose prosperous career as an architect has just been, well, stopped after an unfortunate (but justifiable) at-work eruption. Dot is a vi…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 01:12PM[SHARE]
Monday, August 19, 2019

Leave Your Troubles at the Door? Haunting Splendor in Little Lake’s “Cabaret” by Ghoover

By Eva Phillips The first time I ever encountered Cabaret, I was a severely depressed 19-year-old, being moved to tears in a Dunkin Donuts at 2 AM as I watched Bob Fosse-directed, spectacula…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 08:35PM[SHARE]
Saturday, August 17, 2019

“Queer, Jewish” Births Inclusive Rituals by Ghoover

By Miriah Auth On Saturday, August 10th, performing artists took the stage at Off The Wall Productions in sweats and warm-up clothes only to walk out the theater exit. They led the audience …

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 02:37AM[SHARE]
Thursday, August 8, 2019

“Hello, Dolly!” Delights from Start to Finish by Ghoover

By Eva Phillips The unpleasantries and discomforts of growing old, being financially disenfranchised, being a woman in a patriarchal world (and so on, and so forth) really go down much smoot…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 01:39PM[SHARE]
Monday, August 5, 2019

“Queer, Jewish”: A Discussion by Ghoover

We limit the rich potentiality of our identities when we adhere to constructs or conceive of the self as static. Whether we render the components of our identity as parallel structures that …

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 08:32PM[SHARE]

Comtra Theatre Exposes All That’s Known in “Spring Awakening” by Ghoover

By Eva Phillips It is unsurprising that Goethe makes an appearance, in the beautiful yet eviscerating coming-of-age musical Spring Awakening. After all, the inimitable musical, with music by…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 03:57PM[SHARE]
Sunday, August 4, 2019

Foot-Stomping and Heartbreaking: “Once” by Ghoover

By Eva Phillips Overly melancholy Irish folk music really does something to me. Rousing, but also melancholy, Eastern European folk music REALLY does something to me. The two musical cosmose…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 02:20PM[SHARE]
Thursday, August 1, 2019

Finding the Self in Nicole Gallagher’s “Mija: One Bitch’s Tale” by Ghoover

By Eva Phillips There is a particularly arresting moment in folkLAB’s newest production, Nicole Gallagher’s mija: one bitch’s tale, that for the sake of the integrity of the story, and…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 01:10PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Alumni Theater Company Triumphs with “Passing Strange” by Ghoover

By Brian Pope They say that youth is wasted on the young. Well, I don’t know much about the “They” who coined that cliche, but I am sure that They have not yet seen Alumni Theatre Comp…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 11:05AM[SHARE]

Uncommon Women Lead Quantum’s Season with “Looking for Violeta” by Ghoover

  A season of uncommon women and others take Quantum Theatre audiences from a Chilean peña, to Shakespeare’s hometown, to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The journey during Quantum’s 29t…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 09:05AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Hijinks Galore at Apple Hill Playhouse’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” by Ghoover

By Eva Phillips A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is one of those shows that vividly proves that the Greco-Romans of the B.C. era really knew how to live with drama nerd flair. …

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 01:16PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Confronting Life’s Agonies in Throughline’s “‘Night Mother” by Ghoover

By Casey Cunningham How do you save a person who doesn’t want to be saved? How do you convince a person that life is worth living when life has never once been kind? Is it nobler, (to para…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 08:04PM[SHARE]

Pittsburgh Classic Player’s “A Streetcar Named Desire”: A Study in Meaningful Theatre by Ghoover

By Eva Phillips Pittsburgh Classic Player’s A Streetcar Named Desire is not an easy thing to sit through. This is in no way a reflection on the quality of the show as a whole—which is ex…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 11:43AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Seeing the Wonder in Stage 62’s Mamma Mia! by Ghoover

By Eva Phillips There is an embarrassing truth that should be addressed before I embark on a review of Stage 62’s Mamma Mia! I could write about Mamma Mia! in my sleep—not just because o…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 12:31PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Madcap Mafia and Moliere Re-Imagining in Kinetic Theatre’s “Scapino” by Ghoover

By Eva Phillips Mob bosses. Murderous fathers. Ill-fated romance. Deceit and chicanery. Florida. Moliere. If these somewhat incongruous elements seem like a combustive recipe for intrigue an…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 08:25PM[SHARE]
Saturday, July 13, 2019

Pittsburgh Classic Players Challenge Canon in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Ghoover

Tennessee Williams is a master of diffusely permeating the social consciousness and cultural lexicon. His inimitable style is why his works are held in the esteemed canon for theatre and fil…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 02:03AM[SHARE]
Friday, July 5, 2019

Jinkx Monsoon and Major Scales Bring the Moxie to Pittsburgh in “The Vaudevillians” by Ghoover

In 1999, at the zenith of my adolescent paranoia that was fixated on the imminent cataclysm of Y2K, a film called Blast From the Past spoke to me and my fretfulness. The film centered around…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 10:46AM[SHARE]
Sunday, June 30, 2019

Pittsburgh Festival Opera’s 2019 Season is Coming Soon by Ghoover

  Pittsburgh Festival Opera, our local “Intimate Opera Theater,” has added much to the summers’ musical offerings for some years now, and the ambitious company’s new season begins F…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 08:46PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Split Stage Productions’ “Titanic The Musical” is an Excitingly Immersive Theatrical Experience by Ghoover

By Linda Harkcom Last weekend I was assigned to cover Split Stage’s production of Titanic The Musical at The Lamp Theatre in Irwin. I’ll admit that I didn’t know much about the show, o…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 11:37AM[SHARE]
Friday, June 14, 2019

Heated Tempers and Scorching Parody in Apple Hill Playhouse’s “Moonlight and Magnolias” by Ghoover

By Eva Phillips Gone with the Wind was the perfect storm of an unfathomably successful novel, insatiable industry hype, and the biggest names (and egos) in Hollywood in one tempestuous press…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 01:52PM[SHARE]
Thursday, June 13, 2019

Summer Preview 2019 by Ghoover

  A Letter from the Editor, Well, y’all, we’ve fought our way tooth and nail to the golden promise land of Summer. The Spring saw some phenomenal changes and growth for all of us at PGH…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 08:13PM[SHARE]

Theatre Gets Body-Slammed In Kaiju Big Battel by Ghoover

  Monsters are real. Danger can happen. And theatre as we know it will never be the same. Don’t fret. This isn’t some Orson Welles-esque announcement warning of Godzilla’s doomed fora…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 05:20PM[SHARE]

Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble Electrifies Contemporary Composition by Ghoover

Pittsburgh is a city that is proverbially filled to brim with theatre companies and artistic collectives. Which is by no means a gripe—that there are well over twenty theatre companies, a …

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 04:22PM[SHARE]

Mob Bosses, Moliere, Sherlock Holmes, and Snakes–Kinetic Theatre’s Thrilling Summer by Ghoover

Kinetic Theatre is one of the few companies in Pittsburgh that prospers on the nomadic model. Helmed by tireless and resourceful Producing Artistic Director Andrew Paul, who has directed all…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 03:36PM[SHARE]

Five Theatre-Things To Whip Your Jazz Hands Out For Summer 2019 by Ghoover

Oklahoma! at Pittsburgh CLO (June 21st-June 30th at the Benedum) I have a morbid fascination with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1943 Musical Oklahoma! (their first ever musical collaboration, …

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 02:45PM[SHARE]

Daphne Alderson Puts Spotlight on Lotte Lenya by Ghoover

Soulful tributes to some of the world’s most beloved–and sometimes enigmatic–singers are the artistic specialty of Daphne Alderson. Aptly described as a chanteuse, Alderson far ex…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 02:09PM[SHARE]
Monday, June 10, 2019

Point Park’s Breakthrough International Summer Dance Returns by Ghoover

  For over thirty years, Point Park University has hosted International Summer Dance, a six-week intensive program offering conservatory style training to students in Ballet, Jazz, and Mode…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 06:29PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Pittsburgh CLO Puts the Fun in Summer with “Spamilton An American Parody” by Ghoover

By Linda Harkcom The Pittsburgh CLO is putting the fun in musical theater this summer by producing the hilarious Spamilton An American Parody at the Greer Cabaret Theater in Pittsburgh. I re…

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 09:04AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Channeling the Splendor of the Fabulous 50s with “The Taffetas” by Ghoover

By Eva Phillips A surreal comparative train of thought I often entertain is pondering the striking differences between my father’s world and my own. When I turned 21 in 2012, I was paying …

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 02:23PM[SHARE]
Thursday, May 9, 2019

Complex Devotion in “World Builders: A Love Story” by Ghoover

By Eva Phillips Imagine the most elaborate world you can. Think of “elaborate” in this context in its strictest biological meaning—producing a new substance from original constituents …

SOURCE: onstagepittsburgh.com at 03:39PM[SHARE]

All that Chat

2025-2026 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 12, 2025: Call Me Izzy - Studio 54
Sep 16, 2025: Art - Music Box Theatre
Oct 08, 2025: Beetlejuice - Palace Theatre
Nov 13, 2025: Oedipus - Studio 54
Nov 16, 2025: Chess - Imperial Theatre
Mar 23, 2026: Giant - Music Box Theatre
Apr 06, 2026: Becky Shaw - Hayes Theater
Apr 16, 2026: Proof - Booth Theatre
Apr 26, 2026: Drama Desk Cut-Off