Words from Marty

The 70s. It was the best of times…and it was worst of times. We witnessed Viet Nam, The Summer of Love, Woodstock, and Kent State. We got the arts out of the closet and out of our clothes. We marched in the streets for what we knew was right. We were the generation of Hair, The Boys in the Band and Kennedy’s Children. We boldly went where nobody had gone before.

Theatre went through more changes in our generation than at any other time in history. And we were in the middle of it all.

We were also the transitional group for the Playhouse. We went from everything to nothing and got us back to everything again. To be Pittsburgh and Point Park appropriate...we were the “bridge”.

The Playhouse, like the city it stands in, is a mixture of many things. It started as a rental hall, a synagogue, a few houses and a speakeasy. Many future stars would cross the boards of the stages there. Shirley Jones, Charles Grodin, and our very own John Amplas.

In this room there are those of us that remember the heyday of the Playhouse. When it was the cultural district of Pittsburgh, before there WAS a cultural district in Pittsburgh. When there was a thriving restaurant and bar. Each theatre in the Playhouse offered something different a Broadway musical, a new drama or something experimental. It was a self contained evening out…Dinner..a show and drinks in the bar afterwards.

There was the S n B, the Saybrooks, Isaly’s and Howard Johnsons. All of them gone. But here we are today; the group that held it all together. When the professional company died in 1973, there was a great deal of confusion as to what to do next. But like always, those that remained at the Playhouse and the powers to be at Point Park said…"the show must go on"…and so it did.

We remember the battles fought to keep the doors open and the lights on. Many of us remember when half of the playhouse was closed for a season.

We all put on many hats in the 70s. I’m convinced the only reason I was not tossed out of school for academic probation was that I knew how to handle a radial arm saw in the scene shop. Times were tough but we did some of the greatest theater ever done in this city. Those of us that survived the experience became theatre Green Berets…we could get in…get the show on…and get the hell out. And at times it did feel like we were all in the trenches fighting side by side.

The experience is branded on our souls and lives forever in our hearts. Although memories may fade…they never age. We are here for nostalgia, we are here for love and we are here once again for each other.

We are the Playhouse of the 70s.

Thank you.

Marty Schiff

August 7, 2010

Playhouse 70s Reunion