‘Anne Frank’ teams with holocaust center
‘The Diary of Anne Frank,’ Prime Stage
The award-winning play is adapted from the World War II diary of teenager Annalies Marie “Anne” Frank, a German-born Jewish teen who kept a journal when she and her family hid in an attic in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation. She and her family were found in 1944, and Anne died a year later in a concentration camp.
The novelization of Anne’s journals, “Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl,” has been published in more than 60 languages, and the play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award.
Anne will be played by Madeline Dalesio, a 13-year-old Pittsburgh actress who played Helen Keller in Little Lake Theatre’s production of “The Miracle Worker” in 2014.
Director Wayne Brinda, co-founder of the literary theater company, is a Museum Teaching Fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., who conducts research using young adult literature and the theater to educate students about the Holocaust.
Pittsburgh author and Holocaust survivor Yolanda Avram Willis will meet with audience members on Saturday, which is opening night. Ms. Willis, of Oakland, last year published the book “A Hidden Child in Greece: Rescue in the Holocaust,” which describes her childhood as a Greek Jew during World War II. She was 6 when Greece was invaded, and her family then moved around Crete and Athens for more than three years, living in the homes of Christians who were willing to hide them.
Ms. Willis’ appearance was arranged with the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, which is partnering with Prime Stage for this production. During the play’s second weekend, an audience talkback session will be presented by Prime Stage board member Linda Hurwitz of Squirrel Hill, who is the daughter of Holocaust survivors
At the New Hazlett Theater, 6 Allegheny Square E., North Side. Friday (preview performance) through May 13: 8 p.m. FridaySaturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, with a postshow reception for Saturday’s opening night. Audio description via headphones will be available May 11, and a sensoryfriendly performance is 1 p.m. May 12. Tickets: $10 for Friday’s preview, then $12-$25 at www.primestage.com.
‘Avenue Q,’ Pittsburgh Musical Theater
Pittsburgh Musical Theater closes its first split season — between Downtown and the Gargaro Theater in the West End — with the Tony Award-winning puppet comedy “Avenue Q.”
PMT is in its evolving Main Street home for the musical that parodies a certain children’s TV series about a certain other street while covering the anxieties of a recent college graduate trying to find his way in the world. He lands in a neighborhood where money is in short order, but supportive friends are plentiful — and more than a little R-rated.
“Avenue Q” is directed by Stephen Santa, artistic director of Pittsburgh-based Jumping Jack Theater, which creates original works for audiences who would benefit from sensory- and autism-friendly strategies.
The show, which is part of PMT’s Rockin’ West End Series, runs Thursday through May 13 at the Gargaro Theater, 327 S. Main St., West End. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday (no performance May 10) and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $40 at 412-539-0900 or www.showclix.com.
‘Picasso at the Lapin Agile,’ Throughline Theater
The thinking-person’s comedy “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” by Steve Martin opens Throughline Theater’s ninth season this weekend.
Set in a bar in 1904 Paris, Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso have a chance encounter shortly before both will become known worldwide, Einstein for his theory of relativity and Picasso as the painter of “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” Other characters drop in on their discourse about genius, talent and love, including a mysterious (and time-traveling) “Visitor.”
Daniel Freeman directs for Throughline, with a cast featuring Jenine Peirce, Patrick Conner, Lee Lytle, Steve Gottschalk, Hannah Brizzi, Nico Bernstein, Chris Duvall, Stephen Ray, Sarah McPartland and Samantha Story-Camp.
At Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, 937 Liberty Ave., Downtown. Opens 8 p.m. Friday after a 7 p.m. party. “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” runs through May 12, 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (a pay-what-you-wish performance at the door), and 2 p.m. May 12. Tickets: $20, $15 for students, artists and senior citizens (opening night party an additional $10). www.throughlinetheatre.org or