Tracy Morgan at Pittsburgh Improv; Stage AE Hosts Greensky Bluegrass; ‘Etty’ at Carnegie Stage (Thurs., 2/7/19)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rtNYJa3CXg

1) Actor/comedian Tracy Morgan has had a very successful career of making people laugh over a span of  over 30 years. His first comedy stage was the rough streets of the Bronx in New York City. As he continued to hone his craft he garnered a recurring guest role on the Fox TV series as the “hood’s” best entrepreneur, Hustle Man. SNL creator Lorne Michaels met Morgan when Morgan was selling souvenirs outside of Yankee Stadium. Morgan’s humor and charisma landed him an audition and a cast position on Saturday Night Live. He was later cast in the role of Tracy Jordan, a TV star with an over sized ego, on the Tina Fey produced, “30 Rock.”  Morgan won an Emmy Award for that role in 2009. ‘The Last O.G.” on TBS is Morgan’s latest TV show. He has made a heroic comeback from a terrible car crash in 2014, when the minibus that he and his good friend James McNair and several others were riding in was hit by a Walmart truck. McNair was killed and Morgan was severely injured. Morgan brings his standup act to the Pittsburgh Improv tonight through Saturday. All shows are sold out. 8 p.m. tonight. 166 E. Bridge St, Homestead (The Waterfront).

Tracy Jordan. (photo: sidereel.com and Wikipedia)

2) Greensky Bluegrass will perform at Stage AE in support of this year’s All For Money. Ironic because if you’re in a bluegrass band in 2019, chances are you aren’t in it for money. Still, Greensky Bluegrass has done pretty well for itself. Its previous album, 2016’s Shouted, Written Down & Quoted, peaked at number three on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart, and the album before that, 2014’s If Sorrows Swim, went to number one. The band has sold out venues like Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. Greensky Bluegrass began as a trio in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 2000, and it has since swelled to a quintet. No drummer in this band; instead get ready for banjo, bass, dobro, guitar, and mandolin. Its live shows are known for fantastic light displays. Billy Strings open. Doors open 7 p.m. 400 North Shore Dr., North Shore. (CM)

Susan Stein plays the diarist and Holocaust victim Etty Hillesum in ‘Etty.’ (photo: Ricardo Barros)

3) Etty, a one-person play by New York theater artist Susan Stein, re-creates the story of a remarkable woman who has been called an adult counterpart to Anne Frank. Esther “Etty” Hillesum was, like Frank, Jewish and living in Amsterdam when the Nazis invaded. She too kept a diary that was later published, in book form, after her death in a concentration camp. But the parallels end there. During the Nazi occupation, Etty Hillesum never went into hiding. She was in her twenties at the time, highly educated and keenly inquisitive. Her writings reflect a young woman living a full and somewhat chaotic life, while searching earnestly for a spiritual grounding and her rightful place in the world—a search greatly complicated by the terrors she witnessed, as the campaign to eliminate the Jews closed in around her. Stein’s play, drawn from Etty’s diary and letters she wrote, is said to be profoundly moving. Off the WALL productions presents Stein performing Etty at Carnegie Stage. 7 p.m. Performances continue through February 10. 25 W. Main St., Carnegie.(MV)

4) YOU CAN CALL ME AL (one-person show) by Ali Hoefnagel. Feb. 7-8 at the New Hazlett. The artist describes this original theater piece as “a long-form story about growing up, getting gay, coming out, living with mental illness, and uncovering family secrets.” Hoefnagel presents it as part of the Community Supported Performance Arts series at the New Hazlett Theater. 8 p.m. 6 Allegheny Square East, North Side. (MV)

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