Pittsburgh Playwrights’ Opens ‘Art of Wise’ (Fri., 4/11/25)

ART OF WISE by Mark Clayton Southers. Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company. April 11 – May 4.

Maybe we can’t exactly claim to live in the nation’s theater capital, but Pittsburgh is a great place for seeing adventurous new shows, thanks to organizations like Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company. PPTCo has a dual focus: producing plays by writers who are from the city or connected to it, and using theater “to examine the Black experience.” Now comes a new work that delivers on both counts. Art of Wise is the latest from Mark Clayton Southers, the company’s founding artistic director. It’s the fifth entry in his cycle of plays set in America during the 1800s. Here we are transported back to the slaveholding days of 1822. The “Art” refers to two young women getting a chance to experiment with painting, which may in turn open up a pathway to freedom. This is a play with music (and, yes, visual art). See Art of Wise in the theater at PPTCo’s Madison Arts Center. 8 p.m. 3401 Milwaukee St., Upper Hill District. (M.V.)  

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