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These two Pittsburgh actors are featured in “Jitney,” playing into September, 2022, in the theater in the back of August Wilson House in the Hill District. The interview is a stimulating, smart discussion, especially of the father-son emotions of Booster (Berry) and Doub (Timbers), as well as in the many other August Wilson plays they have done for the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre.

Art is often characterized as a “labor of love”—working artists are often challenged with professional precarity yet expected to commit entirely to their craft. Grants, residencies, galleries, and museums support such cultural workers but often overlook the unique needs of and demands faced by one important group: parent artists. 
In this panel, Alisha B. Wormsley and Lenka Clayton, two Pittsburgh-based mothers and working artists, address the unique needs of parent artists in different ways. Moderated by Bunker Projects’ board member Tara Fay Coleman, an artist and mother herself, Wormsley and Clayton discuss how they navigate these roles in their studios, homes, and the residency programs they run.

Along with an active career on film and TV, Russell Hornsby has starred in five August Wilson plays, most notably in Denzel Washington’s “Fences” (both on Broadway and on film) and in the title role in “King Hedley II” at the Signature Theatre. His compelling interview is one of the most thoughtful, insightful in the 33 sessions of the Actors Talk August series. Register to see it (just your zip code required) and send the link to August Wilson fans among your friends!

Celebrating and recognizing arts and cultural workers, especially those who tend to be under the radar and forgotten about, the #notwhite collective has featured speakers from southwestern PA as well as national leaders in the arts.
October’s conversation features Shey Rivera.
The #notwhite collective is a group of thirteen women artists whose mission is to use non-individualist, multi-disciplinary art to make our stories visible as we relate, connect, and belong to the global majority.

Each year we gather at Alphabet City to honor an international writer or artist who has overcome efforts to limit their creative freedom. This year’s honoree is Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk.

Rico Parker has strong spiritual ties to the work of August Wilson. He has acted in only three of the plays, but in “King Hedley II,” he played one of the most difficult, complex lead roles in unusually difficult circumstances. Hear his thoughtful responses to the personal connections that make such work possible. Register to see it (just your zip code required) and send the link to August Wilson fans among your friends!

The #notwhite collective in-dialogue series features conversations with BIPOC, AALANA, indigenous, and immigrant artists and arts administrators. The series reimagines the past and present history of the arts sector by engaging and presenting the wealth of experience, strategies, and tactics of the global majority, notwhite descendants, inheritors of colonialism, indigenous, and immigrants who navigate a predominantly white arts sector. 
November’s conversation feature ROSIE GORDON-WALLACE (6:00 PM) and DOMINIQUE ENRIQUEZ (7:00 PM)

How powerful is food, really? Can it bring people together in times of joy and strife? What’s the role of food in diasporic communities? What stories can be told through food?
Franco-Palestinian chef Fadi Kattan ponders these topics and more in what’s sure to be an engrossing evening of contemplation, exploration, and celebration. 

City of Asylum hosts a night of American Sign Language (ASL) performances in the third and final installment of our City of ASL series curated by ASL Poet Laureate of Allegheny County Mj Shahen. April’s performance features Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner, in addition to two Pittsburgh-based performers. 

To live is to tell stories. Embracing that truth, Story Club Pittsburgh (created by the former producers of The Moth Pittsburgh), organizes and hosts a monthly nonfiction storytelling series at City of Asylum. 

A celebration of Ukraine featuring mesmerizing videos created by Ukrainian refugees and Pittsburghers of Ukrainian descent, a music performance, and a captivating dance showcase by Kyiv Dance Ensemble.

Story Club Pittsburgh (created by the former producers of The Moth Pittsburgh), organizes and hosts a monthly nonfiction storytelling series at City of Asylum. The theme for February 2024 is Stuck in a Loop.