City of Asylum hosts a night of American Sign Language (ASL) and Visual Vernacular performances featuring Lisa McBee, and others. This is the second installment of our ongoing City of ASL series curated by ASL Poet Laureate of Allegheny County Mj Shahen.

Following their recent performance of "AKUTAGAWA," City of Asylum welcomes puppeteers Koryū Nishikawa V and Tom Lee, as well as Pittsburgh-based puppeteer David English, for an insightful conversation on the art of puppetry. This panel examines the ways in which puppetry can be a vehicle to express art and literature in addition to exploring cultural differences in the medium.

In her first visit to City of Asylum, Selby Wynn Schwartz shares her ode to The Poetess. Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, Selby’s debut novel, "After Sappho," connects a myriad of women inspired by the ghost of Sappho to wrest their freedom and desire from the page.

Nothing quite compares to that Friday feeling, and no one captures that feeling quite like Jason Kush. For this concert, Jason shares His latest project, "Finally Friday," expressing the communal feeling of relief and short-term survival that so often comes at the end of trying times.

Since the founding of AppalAsia in 2009, they have followed their passion for artistic collaboration between different cultures and disciplines beyond race, religion, and gender. In this performance, AppalAsia shares selections from a recent project in which the group was asked to develop original music for the 1919 silent film "Broken Blossoms."

Pittsburgh jazz scene legends Yoko Suzuki, Roger Humphries, Dwayne Dolphin, and Max Leake return to the Alphabet City stage for a special Valentine's themed concert celebrating the romance of John Coltrane’s "A Love Supreme."

Ukrainian theater company, Slovo. Theater Group returns (virtually) to the City of Asylum stage for a moderated discussion centering on the creation of their work "Mothermotherland." This program is a combination  "where are they now" and behind the scenes style discussion with the artists, moderated from the Alphabet City stage by Alexis Jabour.

In this exciting and inspiring reading, we welcome one of the most important poetic voices of our time, Mahogany L. Browne, to share her highly anticipated collection, "Chrome Valley." Simultaneously spanning the course of her own life while embodying centuries of virulent history, this collection pays solemn tribute to the women who came before her.

Co-presented with the University of Pittsburgh Press, we are excited to welcome Drue Heinz Literature Prize winner, Ramona Reeves, to Alphabet City. In this reading, Ramona invites us into a world of humor, hustle, and human tenderness.