Benedum Center

I, I love a black box space.

I think you can do so much more in a black box than you can with, say, something like the Benedum.

Mm-hmm.

And I'll just use that because that is such a, such a placeholder in so many of our collective minds-

You know, those chairs are not getting up and moving.

You can't rearrange them.

Uh, you know, you can't suddenly say, "Hey, I wanna have the stage in the middle of the Benedum and have the audience surrounding it," kind of, you know, arena style.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, I love.

Then at the Benedum Theatre, which is in Pittsburgh, I did 42nd Street and The Producers, and then Rock of Ages in Vegas, and now I'm doing & Juliet.

So yeah.

That's really cool.

Last week, all week, I was on a silent BIPOC retreat in the wilderness, about three hours north of here.

On September 23rd, 1980, Bob Marley, one of the greatest singer-songwriters, the reggae superstar, walked out onto the stage at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

With a single acoustic guitar, he sat down and he began to play a song that has been described not just as a ballad, but as a masterpiece.

The song was called Redemption Song.

And that was very important to, to getting this going.

I didn't, I didn't want to have, you know, um, a Benedum Theater.

I didn't wanna [laughs] have like a 600-seat theater that I couldn't afford.

I needed time for this idea to breathe and grow, and I think, I think that's very important.