City Theatre’s ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’ at Greer Cabaret Theater (Wed., 5/20/26)

HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH by John Cameron Mitchell, with music and lyrics by Stephen Trask. City Theatre. Through June 14

There are works of theater that defy synopsis, and since we have only a paragraph, here are the basics. Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a rock musical. It’s about a young German, Hansel, who transitioned to become Hedwig, except the surgery went wrong and left an “angry inch,” into the details of which we will not go. At any rate—skipping, for now, everything about the Berlin Wall and the three sexes of humankind, and the first husband who ran off in Kansas—Hedwig is an aspiring rock star. Hedwig’s second husband, the former drag queen Yitzhak, tries to be supportive even while Hedwig is being surpassed on the quest for stardom by Tommy Gnosis, who (in a cruel irony) happens to be Hedwig’s protégé. The combined effects are rather extraordinary. Hedwig and the Angry Inch began as an off-Broadway hit in 1998. Soon it went viral, with productions worldwide, and the eventual Broadway version won a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. Now Pittsburgh’s City Theatre presents Hedwig as a cabaret musical, which should magnify the show’s impact by packing its high-energy numbers into an intimate venue. See Hedwig and the Angry Inch in the Greer Cabaret Theater. 7:30 p.m. 655 Penn Ave., Cultural District. (M.V.) 

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