Unseamd’ Shakespeare’s “Out of This Furnace” Running Hot; Ralphie May at Pittsburgh Improv (Thurs., 6/25/15)

Hard times, come again no more: Mark Warchol and Kate Falk in “Furnace.”

1) Out of This Furnace is both a history play and a living piece of artistic history. Plays, films, and novels about blue-collar life were once common, but the genres of working-class drama and literature have been shrinking along with the working class itself, and Furnace is a survivor from the genres’ heyday. The story—which traces three generations of an immigrant steelworker family in Braddock, from the 1880s onward—began as a novel by Thomas Bell. Published in 1941 (not long after James T. Farrell’s Studs Lonigan trilogy and Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath), it was overshadowed by World War II and went out of print. But a 1970s reprint caught on and today the book is read across the U.S., often in college courses on the history of labor. The reprint also spawned a popular theater adaptation by Andy Wolk, which Pittsburgh’s Unseam’d Shakespeare Company has staged twice before. Now Unseam’d presents a newly revised version of Out of This Furnace directed by Lisa Ann Goldsmith.7:30 p.m. Continues through June 27. Studio Theatre in the Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Ave., Oakland.

2) ) Ralphie May doesn’t pull punches. The larger-than-life stand-up comic has been leaving audiences rolling in the aisles for years because he calls it like he sees it, regardless of what anyone might think. Fans of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” will remember May as the runner up to Dat Phan in that show’s first season, in 2003, though it is pretty clear who’s emerged as the real winner since then. May was noted by Variety as one of their “10 Comics to Watch” in 2008, and he has lived up to that billing, recently releasing his record-setting fourth special on Comedy Central. Catch Ralphie May at the Pittsburgh Improv nightly through Sunday; tonight’s show begins at 8 p.m. 166 E. Bridge St., The Waterfront, Homestead.

3) The Pirates are in action today again tonight against the Cincinnati Reds in the last game of a three-day series. Tonight is Pirates Replica Camo Cap giveaway night with the first 20,000 fans through the gate scoring one.  The pirates will be in their camouflage uniforms and it is also Military Night with tributes and fundraising for our brave soldiers. 7:05 p.m. PNC Park.115 Federal St., North Shore.

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