PICT Classic Theatre in talks for new home

By Bob Karlovits / Trib Total Media

Pict Classic Theatre is losing its home in Oakland, but its artistic and executive director believes it is near to finding a new one.

Alan Stanford will not give any hint where the new home might be because, he says, “everything is under negotiation.”

Pict is being forced to leave the Stephen Foster Memorial in Oakland, which houses the smaller Henry Heymann Theatre and the larger Charity Randall Theatre, because of expansion work planned by the University of Pittsburgh for 2016.

Photo by Suellen Fitzsimmons

“We have certainly benefited from the relationship with the University of Pittsburgh,” Stanford says. ”But this change is an opportunity to reshape some of our plans in ways that we believe our audience will enjoy.”

The theater company, which has traditionally planned its season for January through December, will switch next year to a fall-to-spring season. One of the three larger productions for this fall — George Bernard Shaw’s “Saint Joan,” which was scheduled for September — will be moved and open the 2016-17 season at the new location. “Saint Joan” will be replaced by “Educating Rita,” Sept. 3 to 19.

The September show, along with the other previously announced shows of this season — “The Tempest,” Oct. 7 to 24, and “Oliver Twist,” Dec. 2 to 19 — will be performed in the Charity Randall Theatre at the Stephen Foster Memorial.

Two additional plays will be performed at the new site after the final shows of the current season, including “Pride and Prejudice,” which recently finished to well-received performances in Dublin and Hong Kong.

The second play, as well as dates for both, have not been decided while negotiations continue, Stanford says.

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