Photos: First Look at Pittsburgh Public Theater's BILLY STRAYHORN: SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR

The world premiere jazz musical BILLY STRAYHORN: SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR is on stage September 19 to October 11 at the O’Reilly Theater in Downtown Pittsburgh. Check out all new photos below!

The cast features Broadway star and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” regular Darius de Haas as Billy Strayhorn, along with J.D. Mollison of Broadway’s Les Miserables as the incomparable Duke Ellington. 

Billy Strayhorn: Something to Live For kicks off the 2023/2024 season at Pittsburgh Public Theater and is written by Rob Zellers (The Chief) with Kent Gash (Paradise Blue, City Theatre) and directed by Gash, featuring music and lyrics by Billy Strayhorn and a nine-piece jazz band led by Yamaha-sponsored artist and jazz phenom Matthew Whitaker. 

Billy Strayhorn was one of the greatest composers, lyricists and arrangers in the history of jazz. His body of work includes standards such as Take the ‘A’ Train, Something to Live For, Day Dream and Lush Life. His body of work spanned Broadway, Film Music, every International Jazz Festival and venues as varied as Carnegie Hall and Canada’s Stratford Theatre Festival. He grew up poor in Pittsburgh, graduated from high school in 1933, then moved to New York where he settled in Harlem and joined the Duke Ellington orchestra. His 30-year collaboration with Ellington was one of the most prolific and groundbreaking in the history of American music. Strayhorn was also deeply committed to social and charitable causes, a strong supporter of the civil rights movement, and a personal friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. His life was tragically cut short; he passed away in 1967 at the age of 51.

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