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“The Legend of Georgia McBride” by Matthew Lopez, February/March 2019. 

The show had to be extended several times and was named to the list of top 10 shows of 2019

Post Gazette Review

There are so many things to celebrate about this barebones production, but what stayed with me through the weekend was the blue-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights stare of Andrew Swackhamer.

As Casey, a good-natured former high school footballer and failed Elvis impersonator, he is thrust into the spotlight of a drag queen show with mere minutes of preparation. In his eyes (and many costume changes), we see the transition from terror to Georgia McBride, the toast of Panama City’s drag scene.

The energy level hits on all cylinders when Shua Potter arrives onstage, with a commanding presence that comes from his day job as a drag queen and Liza Minnelli impersonator. As Miss Tracy Mills, the Pittsburgh native is a fount of wit and wisdom and a sparkling entertainer.

While Tracy knows where she stands as a performer and in life, other characters undergo life-altering transformations: David Conrad as a gruff bar owner who just wants to make money; Sara WIlliams as Casey’s practical, pregnant wife; and Justin Lonesome in two roles, notably as an aloof diva with a drinking problem. Mr. Lonesome gives one of his most passionate performances as he schools Casey about the lifestyle he is about to embrace.

For Casey, the route from Elvis to Georgia McBride means learning to move those long legs in sky-high heels, as well as wrestling with long-held precepts about what it means to be a man. The only thing missing in Casey’s morph to Georgia is eye makeup — I can only imagine what a little mascara could do for those big baby blues.

The lip-sync drag shows are uproarious fun. With just a few weeks prep time, Mr. Jordan has pulled together a cast and creative team of pros for a show that demonstrates the power that can emanate from that tiny Braddock stage. With music and makeup and wigs — oh, those wigs! — “Georgia McBride” is a glitz-wrapped portrait of a loving couple’s capacity for change and acceptance, and the larger-than-life people who help them along the way.

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barebones' 'Lobby Hero' challenges with 'What would you do?' scenarios

Post Gazette Review of Lobby Hero Winter 2018

If you have a conscience or believe in truth before loyalty, then “Lobby Hero” packs enough scenarios to keep you debating for days. And if you know that guy who believes he’s above it all, Kenneth Lonergan’s play provides insights into him, too.

The top-notch production at barebones’ Braddock theater is scaled at just the right size for the quartet of characters and their dilemmas to infiltrate your thoughts with the persistent question, “What would you do?”

Mr. Lonergan, a cinematic writer and Oscar winner for “Manchester by the Sea,” also is an award-winning playwright of “This Is Our Youth,” a dark comedy with a 1980s malaise.

“Lobby Hero,” written a decade later, has a cinematic quality to TV episodes of police procedurals coupled with family drama, but the dialogue here crackles, without a spare word. In two hours (including intermission), this foursome quickly gets under your skin, facing dilemmas that seem to be ripped from today’s headlines: abuse of power, misogyny, loyalty, truth, the blue wall of silence, gender roles, etc.

These four are in uniform as a newbie security guard (Gabriel King as Jeff) and his boss (Rico Parker as William), and a rookie cop (Jessie Wray Goodman) and her senior partner (Patrick Jordan). But put them in any workplace and the dynamic is just as fraught and ripe for a trenchant exploration.

An evocative lobby, designed by Mr. Jordan, is the domain of slightly goofy and chatty Jeff, the overnight security guard at a Manhattan apartment building. We all know a Jeff, and so does Mr. King, who gets him just right. Jeff is the kind of guy who says too much, and then says, “Just kidding,” although you know he wasn’t. His “captain,” the demanding William, is as annoyed with him as the rest of us, but he claims to see potential in Jeff and hopes he shapes up.

Mr. Parker’s William is determined to play it straight and continue to be upwardly mobile. He takes his job and the rules seriously, but is being sorely tested by a family problem.

The beat cops who pass through the lobby include Bill, a role tailor-made for Mr. Jordan, who seems to pick flawed, brutish roles for himself. Bill is a jerk who thinks he’s entitled to do whatever he wants because of how well he perceives his service as a police officer. He would be a buffoon if not for the power he holds as a decorated member of the force.

His adoring partner is about to be awakened (thus the name Dawn?) to his true nature, and Ms. Goodman draws us into the pain of that realization and what it means for her future.

Director Melissa Martin navigates the very human responses as four lives are drawn into a murder investigation that tests their compassion and sense of what is right and just — and whether those two things are in alignment.

When Christopher Rawson reviewed the Pittsburgh Public Theater’s 2005 production of “Lobby Hero” that closed its 30th season, he wrote it was, “the kind of (gently) biting contemporary theater we associate more with City Theatre, Quantum or barebones.”

More than a decade later, barebones has its own theater and lobby, which provide a cozy home for a play about how we face life’s discomfiting choices.

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HIR by Taylor Mac spring of 2018. Promotional photo from Duane Rieder and design from Rob Larson. 

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Hir, from barebones productions, is a vicious, funny, must-see drama

The changing alliances of the characters seem like choreography

City Paper review from Michelle Pilecki

Start with family dysfunction writ large, stir in heaps of souring masculine privilege, spice with gender continuum, garnish with physical and verbal humor — and there you have Taylor Mac’s Hir at barebones productions’ Black Box Theater, directed by artistic director Patrick Jordan.

Pronounced “here,” hir is a non-gender-specific pronoun, objective case, and Mac makes quite an objective case in skewering social norms, especially the rigid definitions of male and female, sexually as well as socially. Pronouns are important. For the record, Mac prefers “judy” as a personal pronoun, as in “everybody in judy’s 2014 comedy has gotten the short end of the stick.”

The center of the family is, of course, the mother. Local legend Helena Ruoti bites into the role of Paige with glee: bubbling rage turned into rebellious creativity, while seeking refuge in an unplanned future. The long-suffering battered wife wreaks vengeance daily on her tormentor, now nearly a zombie after a stroke. At first, Arnold seems pathetic, worthy of pity. Douglas Rees bravely embraces the mockery, but he lets the character’s evil bubble up.

If mom and dad have been at war for decades, imagine the collateral damage to the kids, noncombatants in name only. Isaac — whose nickname is a revealing “I” — returns from the actual war in Afghanistan, with PTSD among other problems, to a “home” turned upside-down. Tad Cooley flashes through dismay and despair (not to mention hilarious exchanges with Ruoti) as he tries to dominate the battleground that is his family. And then there’s Max, whose transgendering status is behind the title. Liam Ezra Dickinson seems a bit old for hir (ze’s [correct non-gender-specific pronoun, subjective case] still just a kid, after all) but portrays the insecurities and self-explorations of a teen coping with way too much.

The changing alliances of the characters seem like choreography. It’s quite a tight production, if rather crowded in the first act. Jordan designed the set, masterfully managed by Brittany Spinelli. And let’s applaud the design team: technical director Douglas McDermott; Andrew Ostrowski, lighting; Angela Vesco, costumes; Carolyn Slothour, sound; and fight director Randy Kovitz.

Vicious, funny, madly topical — Hir can be discomfiting but stimulating, sometimes simultaneously.

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Rules of Seconds promotional artwork. Photo Duane Rieder 

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Rules of Seconds by John Pollono January/February 2018 Photos by Jeff Swensen. 

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Sharon Eberson’s Post Gazette Review of “Rules of seconds”

The audacious play “Rules of Seconds” takes aim and fires at what today we call “toxic masculinity” — in this case, tragically misplaced machismo in the guise of honor — and the indomitable women who prop up their guys and pick up after the messes they leave.

With vulgarity, violence and savage humor in abundance, this second-ever production of John Pollono’s play fulfills barebones productions’ founder and leader Patrick Jordan’s penchant for delivering the provocative and the profane.

It’s also a second thumbs-up for barebones and Mr. Pollono, following the wickedly funny “Small Engine Repair.”

In “Rules of Seconds,” the playwright goes back to 19th-century Boston but continues to channel the McDonagh/Mamet creed of there must be F-bombs and characters who are out for blood.

A splendid cast of 10 is led by Robin Walsh, whose regal strength shines through even from the depths of humiliation, and stage and screen veteran Cotter Smith, an even-tempered gentleman who wears his menace as a high-priced mantle.

As directed by Melissa Martin, the production captures the play’s cinematic flair while still living up to the barebones name, with minimal but effective props and scenic elements on the newly completed Braddock stage.

For openers, we are schooled in the world of upper-crust men who settle their differences by the 18th-century Code Duello, developed in Ireland and usually involving pistols. In late 19th-century Boston, about 80 years after the infamous Burr-Hamilton duel, “The law affords no remedy that can satisfy a true gentlemen. Honor can only be restored by the spilling of blood,” we are told by a narrator (Jack Erdie), who pops up to keep us abreast of the rules.

Any offense, however trivial it may seem to everyone other than the offended, may be met with a challenge. And any man of honor must oblige.

A businessman known for settling scores this way is the notorious Walter Brown (Mr. Smith), who is about to buy the shipping company owned by the Leeds family: Ms. Walsh as Martha and the versatile Connor McCanlus as her pampered, anxious son, Nathaniel.

Mr. Brown strides into their home as if he owns it.

What could possibly go wrong?

The play takes its time with its setup as two servants of Mr. Brown discuss their lowly places within his realm and his attachment to an expensive pair of boots. It is time well spent. Before Mr. Smith ever steps onstage, his coachman (Wali Jamal) and boot black (Dave Mansueto) give you an idea that he’s a man easily angered. He has been announced, so that even his gentlemanly overtones are tinged with warning signs.

Mr. Smith does not overplay his hand as he reminds Martha of a previous meeting, years earlier, when she spurned his advances. When Nathaniel accidentally spills tea on Mr. Brown’s prized boots, everything that can possibly go wrong, does.

Nathaniel heads off to find his hotheaded brother, James (Patrick Jordan), who has been banished from his home but for what, well, that is for a later tale. For now, Nathaniel “Wings” Leeds is in need of a second, to guide him through the rules and hopefully help stop him from being killed in a duel.

We get an early demonstration of by-the-book honor when James faces off against a doctor (Donald Chang) who has killed a bird beloved by the townsfolk and who refuses to say he was at fault.

Without revealing the outcome of this and other potential showdowns, note the pullout for Steve Tolin FX in your program.

Nancy McNulty as obscenity-spewing Hannah, a servant of the Brown household, has a connection to the Leeds family that ups the personal ante for her as the duel approaches.

Ms. McNulty has the most pronounced and consistent accent as a fiery Irish lass.

Seemingly anachronistic language and the actors’ variety of deliveries push comparisons between gender attitudes of today and the past, but evocative costumes by Robert C.T. Steele and the wood-lined rustic setting help root the production.

Newly minted Pittsburgher Mr. Smith, a familiar face on stage and screen, makes his local stage debut and continues as a recurring character on the Pittsburgh-filmed Netflix series “Mindhunter.” He is joined in the “Rules of Seconds” cast by Mr. Erdie, who played the serial killer Richard Speck in an episode of the series, but here, he is a stately presence as he relates the rules and jumps into the action as a surgeon serving Mr. Brown.

The code of honor is expressed with comic emphasis as they pertain to each phase that takes the Leeds family headlong toward the faceoff between Mr. Brown and Martha’s beloved son.

In the intimate space, sound and light are all, and on Saturday night, there were sound problems that pulled the punches on several powerful second-act moments. However, it did not stop the guffaws and gasps.

The backdrop, with open slits of what might be cabin wood, gives lighting designer Andrew Ostrowski an opportunity to mix it up between natural and harsher light, bringing the subject matter of men abusing power and women’s struggle to overcome into glaringly sharp focus.

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The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, January 26th- February 5th, 2017 at the ACE Hotel Pittsburgh. Original promotional artwork (photo by Duane Rieder, design by Rob Larson) 

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“One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest” Time Lapse Set Build Out

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Pittsburgh City Paper Review, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Stuart Shepard 

Mad Good

James Agee described Humphrey Bogart’s portrayal of Hemingway’s Harry Morgan as “Nietzsche in dungarees,” and you get a similar sense of ironic grandeur with Patrick Jordan’s portrayal of Ken Kesey’s Randle McMurphy — another madman in blue jeans.

What barebones productions’ cast and crew achieve with Dale Wasserman’s 1963 adaptation of Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is stunning on every level. 

The drama about life in a psychiatric ward is slick, lyrical and raw: Imagine a Living Theatre production performed on Broadway. The entire cast is so strong, even the minor roles seem big.  

We enter the ward — surrounded by barbed wire — and are addressed not as the audience but as patients. Tony Ferrieri’s set in the New Hazlett Theater is like an art installation, except better. With its surreal vanishing point focused on a single, ominous door, you feel like you’re sitting inside a Renaissance perspective painting by Brunelleschi.

Director Melissa Martin’s blocking has the actors moving so organically you lose the impression of a proscenium stage. The energy created from this — and the crisp pacing — becomes palpable. Elevating the catatonic Ruckly (John Gresh) like a crucified Christ during the mock wedding scene is divine.

The combustion of Jordan’s fiery McMurphy and Kim Parker Green’s icy Nurse Ratched is portended by the acrid smoke filling the theater, preshow. Green lets Ratched’s diabolic soul emerge through her crisp, uniformed persona like the horns growing slowly under her hair as the play evolves.

Leandro Cano’s mesmerizing poetic interludes as Chief Bromden counterbalance the parts of the action ready to tear loose, with an extraordinary sense of pathos.

Sound designer Dave Bjornson’s contribution to the power of this production is enormous, as is Andrew Ostrowski’s lighting. Synergistically their efforts create the presence of a force as demonstrable as any character on the stage.

Randy Kovitz’s Harding is exquisitely paranoid, and he rocks the house with the line, “We are psycho-ceramics, the crackpots of humanity.” Nick Lehane plays the stuttering Billy with a relaxed sensitivity, absolutely avoiding the clichéd pitfalls of this doomed character.

To barebones’ credit, we leave this performance with more questions than answers, and the suspicion that anyone can be a madman in dungarees.

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One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest April 21st- May 7th 2016. Original promotional artwork (photo by Duane Rieder, design by Rob Larson) 

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“Small Engine Repair” by John Pollono Promotional Flyer. November 2015. (Design and Photo by Rob Larson) 

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Small Engine Repair By John Pollono Review. 

By Sharon Eberson / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On its surface, “Small Engine Repair” is a vulgar, wickedly funny venting of male pride, or in this case, a pride of New England males, three childhood buddies reunited to share the graphic details of their gloomy lives.

Think of that surface as a bubble and get ready for the shock waves when it bursts.

The barebones production of John Pollono's intimate play, presented in the company’s evolving black box theater in Braddock, drops you into a familiar machine shop, with a believable display of posters, parts and tools, and a Red Sox pennant to place it in New England. The audience should be ready to strap in for a bumpy 70 minutes of testosterone-fueled dialogue, leading to an outrageous conclusion that is definitely not for the prudish.

Before the words and the booze start to flow, Frank (Patrick Jordan) moves through his shop, placing several packages with purpose. Arriving on the scene are first Packie (Gabe King), who sleeps in his 91-year-old grandmother's basement, and then Swaino (Brendan Griffin), who sleeps around. Both men look up to Frank, who owns the gathering place of the title. Almost out of habit, Swaino taunts Packie mercilessly. The former high school jock in tight jeans delights in calling his friend a leprechaun, which Packie takes as an insult to his Irish heritage.

And that's about the only thing that can be repeated in polite company.

Frank also is a loving father of unseen teenager Crystal. He has raised her while her mother roams in and out of their lives. Although we know from the start that Frank has had to lure his pals to his shop with deceit, we learn that they have been there for him in times of need — particularly where Crystal is concerned.

Into the trio’s love-hate drink gathering walks Chad Walker (Carnegie Mellon University's Casey Cott), a confident preppy and college jock. As we get to know Chad, we begin to understand Frank’s motivation for the gathering. The revelation isn't the end of the shocks to come.

On opening night Friday, director Rich Keitel already had his cast in the groove of guys with a history who know how to push each other's buttons. Mr. Jordan is a tightly coiled Frank, quick with a quip or to anger, while Mr. Griffin preens with pride as an obnoxious skirt-chaser. Mr. King, a CMU alumnus out of New York, displays just the right amount of quirks as a nebbish who knows his way around technology but is an easy target for teasing.

You wouldn't think it to look at this group of misfits, but technology plays a role in their evening, just one of the ways Mr. Pollono pulls the sequence of events toward its unwavering conclusion.

“Small Engine Repair” entertains with the kind of lowbrow funny that leaves you laughing, even though you may hate yourself for it, and thinking about how far you would go to help a friend.

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American Falls by Miki Johnson (Barebones Black Box Theater Inaugural Production) May 2015. 

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Promotional Image for American Falls by Miki Johnson. Performed in the Barebones Black Box Theater May 2015 (poster and photo by Rob Larson) 

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Post-Gazette Article by Sharon Eberson 5/14/2015

Patrick Jordan knew what he wanted. It was the where that was proving elusive.

More than 10 years as a theater nomad had him longing for something more permanent for his barebones productions. He was close a few years ago to that dream of a small venue for intimate works, a space that could also be used by the community and where he could teach classes, but the deal fell through at the last minute.

While he searched, he was producing two-show seasons at the North Side's New Hazlett Theater and earning a living as an actor in movies, TV shows, commercials and local stage productions; last year, he was crowned the Post-Gazette's Performer of the Year. All the while, he was a frequent visitor to Braddock, as a volunteer and "cheerleader" for community efforts led by his friend the mayor, John Fetterman.

Mr. Jordan brought together the mayor and another pal, restaurateur and chef Kevin Sousa, one dream led to another, and now, finally, his theater company has a place to call home.

The building at 1211 Braddock Ave. will house Superior Motors, Mr. Sousa's restaurant that will face the Edgar Thomson Plant. Out back, alongside the parking lot with the large brick oven, a ramp leads to the barebones black box theater.

Barebones opens its doors to the public first, with the drama "American Falls" by Miki Johnson, a University of Pittsburgh graduate. On Fridays and Saturdays, a premium-price ticket will get you a selection of small plates by Mr. Sousa in addition to the play, about the life, death and growing pains of residents in an Idaho town.

"The show will fit," Mr. Jordan says as he walks carefully through the space, still in varying degrees of readiness two weeks before opening night. In this case, "fit" has two meanings -- the scope of the production and the cast of eight will fit neatly inside the venue, and the theme is a fitting way to christen the theater.

"It takes place in a town with struggles similar to this one. The show should only run about 60 minutes, but it's like a full meal during that time. And that's also good, because no one can go to the bathroom during the show," he says, laughing.

Mr. Jordan is flitting from spot to spot as he speaks, walking on the smooth red-tinted floor. Walls on the three-sided area that will become a stage are being covered in wood, and, near the entrance, he sidesteps dangling plastic sheets that are destined to make way for a wall.

The actor, director and artistic director has been in construction mode of late. He has been working with crews from Clear Story, a Pittsburgh firm specializing in the design and production of exhibition, theatrical and cinematic venues. With the electric wiring in place, they are lining the stage-area walls with hemlock panels for a rustic cabin-in-the-woods look.

As Mr. Jordan points to small spaces that will be for dressing rooms, bathrooms and storage, and he points out a challenge at every corner.

"There are no right angles anywhere. This is where [actress] Cary Anne Spear will be during the play. Stand here and I'll show you," Mr. Jordan says, directing a visitor to face what will be the seating area that is confined on three sides by those paneled walls. Eventually, the areas will be reversed, but for now patrons must cross the stage to get to the theater's 50 seats.

There is still a lot left to the imagination as Mr. Jordan describes building his theatrical dream house.

He recalls when he first shared his vision, most people thought it was an impossible dream.

"There was a hanging furnace that was about 4 feet wide, 8 feet deep ... and it was a waste oil-burning furnace, and no one could see past it. And it became this awesome space.

"We had to fix a couple of things and tweak a couple of things," he continues. "We are doing all the permanent stuff now, the wood, obviously we are wired for electric, everything is up to code. ..."

Zoning and building codes, grant writing and check writing have all been a part of Mr. Jordan's days and nights while he is taking on jobs to pay the bills and directing "American Falls."

"I've wanted to do this show for about two years," he says. "I read the script when she did the first production down in Texas with Catastrophic Theater. Jason Nodler, who is the artistic director down there, he directed 'The Grey Zone' for us years and years ago. So I was up all night and talking to him ... and we had a docket of shows laid out. 'Streetcar [Named Desire]' was happening, 'Steady Rain' was happening ...."

"American Falls" became part of the plan for 2015 but with a catch.

When "Streetcar" opened at the New Hazlett in November, "We didn't have a home for it. And then this all worked out," Mr. Jordan says.

He notes that the space where he is standing "would have been ideal" for last year's other show, the two-hander "A Steady Rain." He has devised a game plan for "American Falls' " cast of seven because, on his mile-long list of responsibilities, he is the designer of this, well, barebones production.

"I love the playwright; I love the play," he says, surveying his unfinished surroundings, seeing what no one else can see as he looks into the not-too-distant future. [Ms. Johnson is] super excited about the town of Braddock and to be a part of what's going on. She's also super excited to be the inaugural production of a new theater."

Another playwright who is a favorite of Mr. Jordan's is newly minted Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Adly Guirgis; barebones produced two of his New York City plays, "Jesus Hopped the A Train" and "The Mother****** With the Hat," before Mr. Guirgis won the drama award last month for "Between Riverside and Crazy."

When it is suggested he must have good taste in his choices, Mr. Jordan gives an aw-shucks look but notes that barebones also did Tracy Letts' "Killer Joe" before the playwright won the Pulitzer for "August: Osage County."

When Mr. Guirgis won, "I was so excited, I messaged with him on Facebook to congratulate him. He's surprised and shocked -- he sees himself as a guy who never left the neighborhood."

Mr. Jordan is just settling into his new professional neighborhood, and he's already feeling right at home.

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Post-Gazette's announcement that the 2014 Performer of the year in Pittsburgh was barebones productions Artistic Director Patrick Jordan. 

By Christopher Rawson and Sharon Eberson / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Post-Gazette Performer of the Year for 2014 is Patrick Jordan, who scored big in two plays by his own company, barebones productions. In “A Steady Rain,” he paired with David Whalen (Performer of the Year in 2007), for a taut, spare drama about two Chicago cops, originally played on Broadway by Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman. And in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” perhaps the most elaborate production mounted in barebones’ 11 years, he played the iconic role of Stanley Kowalski.

As an actor, Mr. Jordan has made his mark in edgy contemporary plays, guilty pleasures laced with unsettling humor. His own roles are often dark, wry around the edges, such as Roma in “Glengarry Glen Ross,” the title character in “Killer Joe” or the furious, befuddled Jackie in “The Mother****** with the Hat.” This year, his Denny in “Steady Rain” seemed frank and funny to start, but dark, scary passions gradually emerged. As Stanley, though, Mr. Jordan’s chief achievement was a defensive normality that gave his climactic assault on Blanche an enigmatic (if still horrifying) twist.

In 2014, he also played a vigorous, straightforward Macduff in “Macbeth” (PICT) and the frantic/comic Defendant in David Mamet’s “Romance” (Kinetic), while acting in several movies, as well; and at year’s end, he even performed as groom in his own wedding. It was a good year. 

But in addition to all this, Mr. Jordan’s chief claim on our admiration remains his artistic directorship of barebones, which he founded and sustains with unwavering imagination and energy.