Pittsburg, PA
“Trouble In Mind” a historic play makes its way to Pittsburgh’s Cultural District this month
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – The work of black, female playwright Alice Childress is now on the stage at the Pittsburgh Public Theater.
“Trouble in Mind” is making its Pittsburgh debut and we’ve got the story of how this play in a play came to be.
It’s a produced rooted in the reality of the 1950s – an interracial cast of eight in a rehearsal studio are preparing for a fictional play called “Chaos in Belleville” about a woman who opposes a lynching.
Hope Anthony plays Millie Davis, a woman unhappy that the roles she takes on are based on race.
“Ideas of theater and art, it really imitates what we have gone through,” she said.
Unlike Anthony’s character, and everyone else in the play, Wiletta Mayer – the black, female lead speaks out against the productions’ acts that offend her racial pride, specifically the ending.
Garbie Dukes plays Sheldon Forrester and he criticizes Willetta for disrupting rehearsals with her objections.
“I hope people take away that we should be kinder to one another, we all come from different walks of life, they all intersect,” Dukes said.
Justin Emeka is the director of the play within a play and it made its debut in Pittsburgh at the O’Reilly Theater in the Cultural District this week.
“What the play is about, and what the history of the play is about mirror each other,” Emerka said. “The play itself actually had a hard time trying to get to Broadway because the producers wanted the playwright to rewrite the ending.”
Alice Childress wrote “Trouble in Mind” in 1955 and it made its debut at Greenwich Mews Theater on the west side of Lower Manhattan and was a success. Producers were impressed and like many playwrights, Childress wanted to see her play on the ultimate stage: the pinnacle of American theater, Broadway.
“They asked her to rewrite the play to make it more happy and she rewrote it like 15 times and it got to the point where she couldn’t even recognize her play,” Emeka explained.
In that moment, Childress put the pen down, giving up the chance to be the first black, female playwright to show on Broadway.
Instead, that ended up being Lorraine Hansberry with “A Rasin in the Sun” in 1957 just two years later.
Childress died in 1994 but her dream of getting to the bright lights of Broadway did not.
Sixty-six years after writing the play, it was truly destined for its moment, debuting on Broadway in 2021.
Now, it’s Pittsburgh’s turn and it hits the stage with the ending Childress always envisioned and believed in.
Pittsburg, PA
Man’s body found underneath trailer behind former Shop ‘n Save in Carrick
Pittsburgh Police detectives are investigating after a man’s body was found underneath a trailer behind the former Shop ‘n Save store in the city’s Carrick neighborhood.
Pittsburgh Public Safety said late Monday night that detectives from the Violent Crime division responded to the area of Amanda Street and Wynoka Street in Carrick after a man’s body was found around 8:30 p.m.
Public Safety said the man’s body was found underneath a trailer and that he was pronounced dead by medics at the scene.
A photo provided by Pittsburgh Public Safety shows officers surrounding a taped off area and what appears to be a refrigerated trailer parked at the loading dock along Amanda Street behind the former Brownsville Shop n’ Save, which closed its doors last month.
No details surrounding the circumstances of the man’s death were provided by Public Safety, who said that the cause and the manner of the man’s death will be determined by the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The man’s identity has not been released.
Public Safety said the investigation into the man’s death is “ongoing.”
Pittsburg, PA
Record number of peregrine falcons counted in Allegheny County
In the early 1960s, the peregrine falcon population declined so sharply that the raptors weren’t even nesting in Pennsylvania. But now, the National Aviary says a record number have been counted in Allegheny County.
The National Aviary says six peregrine falcons were recorded in the county during the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count. The nation’s longest-running citizen science project collects data on bird populations for ornithologists, the aviary says. It also plays a role in guiding conservation action, like what was needed to bring peregrine falcons back from the brink of extinction.
Because of the use of DDT, peregrine falcons were no longer nesting in the state of Pennsylvania by the early 1960s, the aviary said. But after the harmful pesticide, which negatively affects reproduction rates in birds, was banned in 1972, conservation efforts have helped the peregrine falcon rebound. It was removed from the federal endangered species list in 1999 and Pennsylvania’s list in 2021.
The record number of peregrine falcons in Allegheny County is thanks in part to the nest on top of Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning in Oakland. For the past two years, biologists with the Pennsylvania Game Commission have banded chicks born in the nest. Three were banded last year, and two the year before that.
People can watch Carla and Ecco raise their family in the nest on a livestream camera run by the National Aviary. Carla laid her first egg of the breeding season on March 16 last year, so the aviary says the start of another season isn’t too far away.
Pittsburg, PA
Police investigating two late-night McKeesport shootings
Police are investigating two shootings that happened less than 30 minutes apart on Sunday night in McKeesport.
Two men were injured in the shootings that happened at two different locations.
Allegheny County Police said that the department’s Homicide Unit was requested and responded to assist in the shooting investigations.
According to police, officers were first called to the area of Lysle Boulevard and Huey Street, where a man was shot just after 10:30 p.m. on Sunday night.
KDKA’s news crew at the scene saw the outside of the Sunoco gas station along Lysle Boulevard lined with crime tape and what appeared to be blood on the front door of the store.
Police also had an area taped off around the intersection of nearby 5th Avenue and Huey Street. The man who was shot in the area was taken to the hospital in stable condition.
Police said they are also investigating a shooting that happened in the area of an alleyway behind Madison Avenue, where another man was shot Dispatchers said the second shooting happened around 25 minutes after the first.
The two shooting scenes in McKeesport are located around 1/4 of a mile apart.
At the second shooting scene, KDKA’s news crew at the scene saw police taping off an alleyway between Madison Avenue and Petty Street.
Officers at the scene were shining flashlights and looking into a black sedan that had its flashers on. The man who was shot in the area of Madison Avenue was taken to the hospital in stable condition.
Police didn’t specify if the two shootings are believed to be related.
-
World5 days agoExclusive: DeepSeek withholds latest AI model from US chipmakers including Nvidia, sources say
-
Massachusetts6 days agoMother and daughter injured in Taunton house explosion
-
Denver, CO6 days ago10 acres charred, 5 injured in Thornton grass fire, evacuation orders lifted
-
Louisiana1 week agoWildfire near Gum Swamp Road in Livingston Parish now under control; more than 200 acres burned
-
Oregon4 days ago2026 OSAA Oregon Wrestling State Championship Results And Brackets – FloWrestling
-
Technology1 week agoArturia’s FX Collection 6 adds two new effects and a $99 intro version
-
News1 week agoVideo: How Lunar New Year Traditions Take Root Across America
-
Florida2 days agoFlorida man rescued after being stuck in shoulder-deep mud for days
