‘Breadcrumbs’ Off the WALL’s Final Production Opens (Fri., 4/10/26)

BREADCRUMBS by Jennifer Haley. Off the WALL Productions. April 10 – 18. 

Off the WALL Productions, a company that has produced some of the most adventurous live theater in the Pittsburgh area, is now formally ending its 19-year run here. The closing production is a two-hander by American playwright Jennifer Haley, and perhaps fittingly, the play deals with issues of memory. But in Haley’s spooky Breadcrumbs, the memories aren’t of a beloved theater company. The central character is an aging writer now slipping into dementia. A young woman sent as an in-home caregiver tries to help the writer untangle elusive trails of thoughts and recollections, and gets caught up in an eerie quest to the heart of life’s secrets. Playwright Haley is known for spinning spider-webby mystery and crime dramas, both on stage and for TV. This play’s title comes from the folk tale in which Hansel and Gretel leave a trail of breadcrumbs in the forest to find their way home, but become lost when birds eat the crumbs. Off the WALL presents the play with Virginia Wall Gruenert, the company’s cofounder and longtime artistic director, acting the role of the writer and Erika Cuenca as the caregiver. 7:30 p.m. See Breadcrumbs at Carnegie Stage, 25 W. Main St., Carnegie. (M.V.)

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