Black & White theater fest's plays vary in quality
Faced with eight short plays, it's natural to pick favorites. But the pleasure of the seventh annual Theatre Festival in Black & White at Pittsburgh Playwrights is variety. These are simple black box productions, and the acting and playwriting varies, but each play offers something to enjoy.
As curated by artistic director Mark Clayton Southers and coordinator Ja'Sonta Roberts Deen, the festival presents plays half by black playwrights with white directors and half vice versa. The characters and actors are black, white or whatever else as each story requires. The goal, to get black and white theater artists to work together, and audiences, too, recommends it as one of Pittsburgh's distinctive theater events.