Pittsburgh’s Light Up Night to Shine Brightly; ‘The Merchant of Venice’ at PICT (Fri., 11/18/16)

Joe Grushecky and The Houserockers bring the Bash to a rockin’ climax.

1) Tonight’s 56th Annual Light Up Night is the official kick off to Pittsburgh’s holiday season—even if some national retailers started the holiday season the day after Halloween. Highlights include several tree-lighting ceremonies, ice skating at PPG Plaza, Fireworks Finale (Rachel Carson Bridge 9:40 p.m.), and an appearance by Santa. There’s also top-notch local entertainment featuring Beauty Slap, Jeff Jimerson, Dane Vannatter,  Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers. National acts performing include O.A.R., Daya (a Mt. Lebanon native), and Gloria Reuben. Merriment and goodwill will spontaneously occur all over the Golden Triangle. This is a holiday celebration not to miss. For a complete schedule, visit Downtown Pittsburgh for the Holidays. 6 – 10 p.m., Downtown.

Shylock (James FitzGerald) pleads his case in a land where Jews don’t get a pound of flesh; they just get pounded.

2) PICT Classic Theatre is staging a controversial classic with Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Written at a time when anti-Semitism was the norm, the play revolves around the Jewish moneylender Shylock, who notoriously demanded a pound of flesh as payoff for a defaulted loan.

For centuries, Shylock was played as a greedy, conniving stereotype, but Shakespeare didn’t write the part that way. He gave the man lines and scenes that bring out the complexity of his character, and show how he was often tormented by a society aligned against him. PICT has James FitzGerald as Shylock, in a production that re-sets The Merchant of Venice in a perilous modern era: the 1930s. 8 p.m. Sunday talk back. Performances through November 19. Union Project, 801 N. Negley Ave., Highland Park. (MV)

 3) Now for something completely different. Edward Bond’s play The Sea is set in a quaint English seaside town in 1907—a town where a man has just been drowned, alas, during a storm—but no, this is not another dreary working-class drama about commoners bearing up nobly in the face of grim hardships. These people are flat-out wacky. Indeed, as anyone who has frequented small towns will attest, the wackiness in them can exceed that found in our tumultuous urban centers. In The Sea, reactions to the drowning include a belief that space aliens have invaded. Bond, one of England’s legendary living playwrights, is one of its most idiosyncratic. The Sea is a satirical comedy and Point Park University’s Conservatory Theatre is performing it in our town. Studio Theatre at Pittsburgh Playhouse, 222 Craft Ave., Oakland. 8 p.m. Through December 4. (MV)

Share on Social Media