New Classics Presents Hangin’ Up My Heart 9/25

The New Classics Series returns on Sunday, September 25th at 7:00 p.m. with Michael Schwartz' play Hangin' Up My Heart, directed by Don DiGiulio and performed in the Henry Heymann Theatre at the Stephen Foster Memorial in Oakland. New Classics is a cooperative program presented by the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Theatre Arts and Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre. The series is intended to highlight new works and showcase up-and-coming playwrights.

The reading is free and open to the public, and will be followed by a talk-back with the cast and audience. The moderators will be director Don DiGiulio, and New Classics co-chairs Kellen Hoxworth and Melissa Hill Grande.

The reading will showcase the talent of actors from the University of Pittsburgh Department of Theatre Arts, including Adam Hubbell, Amanda Leslie, Celina Mauti, Dylan Meyers, Max Reusing and Benjamin Wahlberg.

Hangin' Up My Heart tells two (maybe three) love stories over the course of a rainy Memorial Day weekend at a public swimming pool in a small town in Tennessee. The lifeguards, and a couple of visitors, try to run away, settle down, start over, or just plain get started over plenty of beers and plenty of country music on the town's only radio station. By the end of the weekend, the characters might discover the healing power of love.

Author Michael Schwartz is an instructor, director, performer, playwright and dramaturg in the Philadelphia area. Other plays include Istanbul (Not Constantinople) and Say Hi to Rose Rabbit for Me, as well as a number of one-acts and 10-minute plays. Mike received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in Theatre Arts in December 2007. His book, "Broadway and Corporate Capitalism: The Rise of the Professional Managerial Class 1900-1920" was published by Palgrave Macmillan in July 2009, and was nominated for the Bernard Hewitt for Outstanding Research in Theatre History.

Director Don DiGiulio is the Artistic Director of No Name Players, with whom he has directed or been featured in numerous productions, most recently the Pittsburgh premiere of The Mistakes Madeline Made. Next up, Don will be producing No Name Players' fourth annual SWAN Day Celebration of Pittsburgh's Women Artists in March. Locally, Don has worked with City Theatre, PICT, PMT, Pittsburgh CLO, Unseam'd Shakespeare and Bricolage among others.

Kellen Hoxworth is a second-year master's student in the University of Pittsburgh Theatre Arts Department. He is an actor, director, and scholar. In his short time in Pittsburgh he has acted in productions of King Lear, Othello, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, and the crow: a moon-less girl's dream; he assistant directEd PittRep's Churchill in Short(s)? and will make his Pittsburgh directorial debut this fall with a PittRep lab production of Bedtime Stories by Charles Mee.

Melissa Hill Grande is the Associate Artistic Director and Director of Marketing for PICT. Her PICT credits include this season's Garden, and When the Moon has Set in the Synge Cycle. As a freelance director, Grande's local credits include No Name Players (SWAN Day), Bricolage (BUS 6), Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company (Theatre Festival in Black and White), Phase 3 Productions (Miss Julie, Swamp Baby, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Lion in the Streets) and Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks (Love's Labour's Lost, Much Ado About Nothing).

Persons who are unable to attend the reading in person will be able to view it online via LIPLO^TM (Live and in Person, Live and Online), a new internet technology pioneered by PICT Operations Director Stephanie Riso and Alex Geis. Geis of 21 Productions and videographer RAndy Griffith of RLG Creations will live-broadcast the readings, and viewers will be able to respond via live chat as they watch the performances on the LIPLO^TM website, www.liplo.com.

No reservations are required, and the reading is free of charge. 

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