Photo: Sharon Eberson
Students perform at the kick-off event for Pittsburgh CLO's summer musical series, Fri., March 28
The organization announced its summer musical theater show lineup that will bring classical and contemporary works to the Benedum Center. The series kicks off in June with a production of Anything Goes and ends in August with Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, a 2012 work based on the writing of Russian author Leo Tolstoy.
"Guests that come to the Benedum Center this summer are going to see familiar faces both on stage and in the audiences," says CLO executive producer Mark Fleischer in a press release, "we love to hear the stories of Pittsburgh CLO friendships that occur from traditions of meeting back up each summer at the theater."
The release also boasts that CLO will employ "hundreds of local theatre professionals to bring the summer’s best musical theatre to life." To drive that point home, CLO points out that all six of the 2023 summer shows will have sets built by the CLO Construction Center in Springdale, Pa., self-defined as one of the "largest, most cost-efficient set-building facilities between New York and Los Angeles."
The local shop and warehouse used local union labor to build Broadway-quality sets for not only CLO’s summer season but for "other regional performing arts organizations, national tours, and musical theatre productions" throughout the United States." The Construction Center also runs a set rental program available to local and national theaters.
CLO also announced a new partnership with the Carnegie Libraries of Pittsburgh to create a Quiet Space for every summer show this year at the Benedum Center. The effort will provide neurodivergent audience members with a calming, comforting space where they will find puzzles, story books, fidget tools, and coloring pages provided by CLP.
Besides Anything Goes, CLO will stage two other classic American musicals, Guys and Dolls and The Sound of Music.
Alternatively, musical theater fans will find newer works on the roster, including Once on This Island, a retelling of The Little Mermaid set in the Caribbean, and Stephen Sondheim's 1987 Broadway hit Into the Woods.
