Theater Guide Nov. 2025: Out of the Mouths of Babes, Youthful Truths

My granddaughter, soon to turn four, likes to read story books out loud to her parents. Of course, she can’t read many words yet, but she knows the basics of story telling. Opening an illustrated book about a family of bunnies, she’ll turn each page, describing what she sees, saying, “And then the pink bunny ate a radish…” and, turning another page, “And then the blue one hopped away…” And then, coming to the last page, she’ll say, “And then the bunnies went to sleep.” My granddaughter naturally understands that stories are a progression of events and that the characters in her stories do things—they change things, they make things change on their own or they may even change themselves—so that each page is different from the last, until the story ends. I like to think she understands basic plot development, narrative voice, and character arcs. After all, she is my granddaughter.

But that’s a long way to get to a theme I have found common in much of what will appear on Pittsburgh stages this November. No sooner will my granddaughter come of age literally, so too will she literarily, by reading a whole lot of coming-of-age stories. It’s a rite of passage. And no such genre is more dependent on plot, voice or character development than coming-of-age stories. Take Alicia Keys’ self-reflective journey out of “hell” or Poe’s several and slippery dives into it. Experience what Louisa May Alcott has to say about her own youth. Or hear a young Fantine sing about surviving the inherent challenges of growing into an adult. Youth comes with many hard-fought battles. The parents in God of Carnage may succumb to them while Sugar Ray finds triumph in defying their odds. Finally, Pittsburgh Opera’s modern tale of innocence versus indoctrination asks if our young country has yet to come of age. Please flip through our “pages” of picks below. And then… order your tickets!

Shows are previewed below in two sections, Spotlight Picks for the month and Other Shows of Interest, followed by a look-ahead to Big Shows on the Horizon. Spotlight Picks are listed by run dates. The Theater Guide is created by the theater writers and editors of Entertainment Central including Mike Vargo (M.V.) and C. Prentiss Orr (C.P.O.).

Spotlight Picks

HELL’S KITCHEN (musical) by Alicia Keys, with book by Kristoffer Diaz. Touring production at the Benedum. November 4 – 9. 

Hell’s Kitchen isn’t really hellish. The mid-Manhattan neighborhood now qualifies as a case study in gentrification, but it was a dodgy district when Alicia Keys grew up there, and the name makes a catchy title for her jukebox musical. Keys spent 12 years developing Hell’s Kitchen while pursuing her Grammy-studded career as a recording artist and songwriter. The songs are mostly hers and the story is a fictional take-off on her own youth. To write the book, Keys engaged playwright Kristoffer Diaz, who had been a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his hilarious sociopolitical satire The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (which was staged in Pittsburgh in 2016 by barebones productions). There is humor in Hell’s Kitchen but it’s basically a high-energy coming-of-age tale, in which a teenager named Ali—the fictional Alicia—finds inspiration amid personal turmoil and friction with her mom. The show hips and hops in numbers like “Empire State of Mind,” the Jay-Z/Keys anthem adapted as the musical’s grand finale. While Hell’s Kitchen is still running on Broadway, you can see it here when the touring company visits for a run that’s nearing sold-out status. Presented through the PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh series at Benedum Center, 237 7th St., Cultural District. (M.V.)

GOD OF CARNAGE by Yasmina Reza. barebones productions. November 7 – 23.

Surprisingly, the play God of Carnage is billed as a comedy. A rapt audience will indeed laugh because this extraordinary playwright clearly encourages it. And for good reason. God of Carnage is so intense, so emotional and so dark, the audience must relieve the tension that tightens on stage. We weird humans exhale with laughter when the roller coaster ride has ended or when the magician has nearly drowned, kicking and gasping in his own escape tank. It’s much the same with Yasmina Reza’s 2009 Tony Award-winning play, translated from the French by Christopher Hampton and also produced as a taut 2011 film, Carnage. The story is simple. Two couples meet after their respective eleven-year-old sons have had a playground fight. Sticks and stones may have broken some bones, but just wait for the words and name-calling that fly among the adult parents who should know better. God of Carnage is one of the great plays of this century. And, if you think you’ve heard the name Yasmina Reza somewhere before, the revival of her play Art is currently selling out on Broadway. Meanwhile, barebones productions presents God of Carnage in its black box theater. 1211 Braddock Ave., Braddock. (C.P.O.)

MR. EDGAR A. POE PRESENTS: TALES OF MYSTERY, HORROR & IMAGINATION by Lawrence C. Connolly, from the works of Poe. Prime Stage Theatre. November 7 – 16

So, you think spooky season ends with Halloween? You think Thanksgiving isn’t scary, with giant helium-inflated monsters parading in the streets of New York, and tribal rituals performed around the corpse of a murdered bird? Bwah-hah-hah! Perhaps you should prepare by seeing Prime Stage Theatre’s new Edgar Allan Poe show. Bearing the comprehensive title Mr. Edgar A. Poe Presents: Tales of Mystery, Horror & Imagination, this anthology is scripted by the veteran horror-and-fantasy author Lawrence C. Connolly. The show features Poe himself as a character, played by Sam Lander, while a quartet of fellow actors perform a quartet of stories from the Poe corpus. Presumably this combination provides insights into the mind of Poe, provided you’re willing to go there. And since Prime Stage has education as part of its mission, the page to reserve tickets for Mr. Edgar A. Poe includes an array of links to fascinating info about the mysterious Mr. At the New Hazlett Theater, 6 Allegheny Square East, North Side. (M.V.)  

SUGAR RAY by Laurence Holder, acted by Reginald L. Lewis. Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company. November 8 – 9. 

Today, boxing is mostly a niche sport, but during the 1950s it rivaled baseball and football in mass-market popularity, and the most dazzling athlete of that era was middleweight champ “Sugar” Ray Robinson. He was breathtaking to watch, even on a tiny black-and-white TV. Robinson combined a lightning knockout punch with an uncanny ability to dance and weave (in fact, at one point he quit boxing to try a career as a dancer and singer). Robinson was a generous man who lived large. He made a splash in Paris with his entourage, drove a hot pink Cadillac, and owned a New York restaurant frequented by show-biz celebrities—at a time when a Black man couldn’t be served in many restaurants in other parts of the country. Robinson died in 1989 but now you can spend an evening with him thanks to AI: artistic ingenuity. Actor Reginald L. Wilson, acclaimed for playing the boxer in the one-man show Sugar Ray, visits town courtesy of Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company. See Wilson as Sugar Ray in the cabaret space at PPTCo’s Madison Arts Center. Three performances only, so reserve a ringside seat promptly. 3401 Milwaukee St., Upper Hill District. (M.V.)

FELLOW TRAVELERS (opera) with music by Gregory Spears and libretto by Greg Pierce. Pittsburgh Opera. November 14 – 16.

Not all operas are old or classic. Some speak to modern prejudices, taboo affairs, and political scandals as are surely rampant in Washington, D.C. these days. Fellow Travelers premiered in 2016 and is based on the 2007 novel by Thomas Mallon, yet it’s set during the McCarthy era in the early 1950s. A young crusader against communism comes to meet a dashing State Department official who takes the young man under his wing. Their sexual dalliance proves that the Red Scare holds no candle to homophobia, especially in the arena of pressure politics. Written and sung entirely in English, the accessibility of Fellow Travelers to American audiences also helps dispel the expectation that great operatic story-telling can only succeed with divas fawning over long arias. Pittsburgh Opera presents this modern masterpiece for three performances only in November, specifically, 14, 15, and 16. At the Byham Theater. 101 Sixth St., Cultural District. (C.P.O.)

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT’S LITTLE WOMEN adapted by Lauren Gunderson. City Theatre. November 15 – December 7.

In this world premiere, produced by Pittsburgh’s City Theatre in collaboration with regional theaters in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Palo Alto, Louisa May Alcott takes center stage in presenting her own story of growing up with sisters, while exploring the mores and memories of her beloved literary characters coming of age in the aftermath of the Civil War. Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is a new journey into a 19th-century classic from playwright Laura Gunderson. City Theatre-goers have been treated to two successive installments of Gunderson’s adaptations of Jane Austen’s works, both subtitled Christmas at Pemberley, in recent and successful holiday runs. But now, this new work focuses on the American experience, promising to be something altogether different. Little Women, of course, is the loosely autobiographical story of Jo March and her sisters, Meg, Beth, and Amy. Yet here, Louise May Alcott, their creator, appears as her own character to confer and confess on more personal issues of ambition and womanhood. Infused with holiday spirit, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women plays on City Theatre’s mainstage. 1300 Bingham St., South Side. (C.P.O.)

LES MISÉRABLES (musical) by Alain Boublil, Jean-Marc Natel, and Claude-Michel Schönberg, with English lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer. Touring production at the Benedum. November 25 – 30.

Which Broadway musical is the GOAT? Nostalgia drives some people to argue for old classics while recency bias favors shows like Hamilton, but a strong contender straddling the worlds of old and new is Les Misérables. Just recall that Les Miz is actually a French musical, having premiered in Paris in 1980. An English-language version didn’t appear until 1985, in London. Finally in 1987 came the Broadway premiere, and the rest (as far as we Americans are concerned) is history. Keep in mind, too, that Les Miz is seldom considered a perfect musical. Lead writer Alan Boublil and lyricist Jean-Marc Natel took tremendous liberties in cutting Victor Hugo’s epic novel down to performable size. There are key characters not fleshed out and places where the narrative is only skimmed. The writers and the composer, Claude-Michel Schönberg, caught flak from critics who felt a literary masterpiece had been oversimplified and sentimentalized. 

So then, what’s great about Les Miz? It has songs and scenes that are unforgettable: Fantine’s “I Dreamed a Dream.” The brief but fiery appearances of the revolutionary, Enjorlas. Every fan has a list of favorites, and Hugo’s original story is so good that it shines through despite the cuts. The musical dramatizes many high points powerfully, creating an experience that has moved millions. The latest touring production of Les Misérables visits Pittsburgh for an eight-show run, via the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh series. Benedum Center, 237 7th St., Cultural District. (M.V.)

University Theater

In addition to Pittsburgh’s professional and community theater companies we have many outstanding university theater programs as well. Check their box office pages for what’s onstage:

Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama
Duquesne University Red Masquers
Point Park University’s Playhouse
Robert Morris University
University of Pittsburgh Department of Theatre Arts

Other Shows of Interest
(Listed by opening date)

Through November 30
Get Ready (New Horizon Theater)

Tuesday, November 5
Grand Kyiv Ballet Presents: Swan Lake (Kelly Strayhorn Theater)

November 6
Oklahoma! (Stage 62)

November 14
Next to Normal (Riverfront Theater Company)
Texture Choreography Project (Texture Contemporary Ballet) 

November 20
Birthday at Tiffany’s (New Hazlett CSA)

Friday, November 21
The Jungle Book (Resonance Works)

Saturday, November 22
On the Run (fireWALL Dance Theater)

Big Shows On the Horizon
(Listed by opening date)

December 4
A Christmas Story: The Play (Pittsburgh Public Theater)
Midnight Radio: Lampoon’s Christmas Vacatyinz (Bricolage Production Company)

December 5
The Nutcracker (Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre)

December 11
A Dinah Washington Christmas At Pittsburgh’s Crawford Grill (Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater)
A Sherlock Carol (Kinetic Theatre)

December 30
Clue (PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh)

C. Prentiss Orr is a Pittsburgh-based writer who covers theater and other topics for Entertainment Central. He is the author of the books The Surveyor and the Silversmith and Pittsburgh Born, Pittsburgh Bred. Mike Vargo is an independent writer based in Pittsburgh.

Share on Social Media