A & E

The beginning of a new year always is a time to look ahead. As 2009 begins, we offer our wishes for the Pittsburgh arts community.

The comedy scene lost a vital venue when Slapsticks Comedy Loft closed in December. We'd like to see comic and promoter David Kaye find a new club.

We'd also like to continue to see the two Gabs -- Gab Bonesso and Gab Cody -- continue to flourish with their disruptive comedic style.

Pittsburgh also would be well-served if some of its best-known comics got some well-deserved national television exposure. In an ideal world, Steel City mascot Jim Krenn, co-host of the WDVE Morning Show, would get a spot on Comedy Central. Comedian, actor and Swissvale native Billy Gardell would land a television gig that would stick. And Fox Chapel native Eddie Ifft would be able to finish his documentary "America: The Punchline."

Finally, we'd like to see a third permanent comedy venue to go with the Funny Bone Station Square and the Pittsburgh Improv at the Waterfront in Homestead.

-- William Loeffler

The absence of a recital series for touring world-class musicians is the biggest gap in Pittsburgh's otherwise-ample range of classical music choices. But hearing the immense repertoire of great sonatas and lieder performed in concert by such artists isn't likely to happen in the near future.

More practical hopes are that the Mendelssohn Choir will strengthen the ranks of its male singers, that Manfred Honeck will increase the number of weeks he conducts the Pittsburgh Symphony, and that Yan Pascal Tortelier will be on the Heinz Hall podium more than once a season.

-- Mark Kanny

The success of Terrence Orr's version of "The Nutcracker" whets the appetite for seeing other creations by Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's artistic director. But I'd also like to see another program drawing upon the vast repertoire created by George Balanchine. And more live music would be an improvement.

Similarly, I'd like to see Dance Alloy Theater's artistic director Beth Corning create another new work to supplement presentations of other dance pieces and choreographers she values.

The touring groups brought to town by Pittsburgh Dance Council are shrewdly chosen for stylistic variety, but recently, those groups have been small ensembles. I hope to see larger companies again, recalling unforgettable visits by Paul Taylor Dance Company and the Joffrey Ballet.

Finally, I hope the conceptual and physical daredevils of Attack Theatre will continue to allow their imaginations to run wild.

-- Mark Kanny

Some things I'd like to report on for local theater in 2009 that probably won't happen:

• An anonymous donor comes forward with money to restore August Wilson's Hill District house and turn it into a resource center for the area's aspiring playwrights.

• Area theaters band together to create a monthlong local playwrights' festival. In addition to theaters big and small mounting productions of local playwrights living or dead, the festival would offer discussions, and staged and seated readings. Museums and lobbies would create exhibits celebrating the history of the area's theater activity, playwrights, actors, designers, etc.

• Following the lead of the Broadway League's Kid's Night Out on Broadway program, area theaters designate a night when youngsters, ages 6-18, can see a show for free when accompanied by an adult. Theaters offer special backstage tours and how-they-do-that lobby displays aimed at educating and entertaining the next generation of theater audiences.

-- Alice T. Carter

Since the closing of Jay's Book Stall in early 2008, Pittsburgh lacks a cozy, intimate bookstore, a place where the proprietor and customers know each other by name. Here's hoping that 2009 brings such a place -- a bookstore in Squirrel Hill, the South Side, Oakland, Regent Square or some other city neighborhood. A place that becomes a destination for readers, writers and poets, where the local literary set can gather, where visiting novelists and writers come by just to say hello.

-- Regis Behe

There are plenty of good music venues, but they are all on the smallish side. What the region needs is a new Stanley Theater (now the Benedum), the historic venue that hosted acts ranging from the Clash to Bob Marley to Bruce Springsteen. The Byham Theater (capacity: 1,300) comes close. But something larger, capable of holding, say, 2,500 to 3,000, would fill a vacuum that's been present since the Stanley closed in 1984.

-- Regis Behe

Country music these days just ain't what it used to be at its peak, back in the day when country meant country.

That being said, I hereby wish for the following, perhaps unrealistic, things to happen in country music in 2009:

• I wish that Tracy Byrd -- my all-time favorite male country artist, who embodies the meaning of country -- would schedule a Pittsburgh-area concert, or at least one in a 100-mile radius. So far, nothing is on the long, tall Texan's calendar.

• I wish that Chely Wright, one of my favorite female country singers, who deserves far more fame than she's been given, also would come to the Pittsburgh area. At least fans can look forward to another album, "Notes to the Coroner," in 2009.

-- Kellie B. Gormly

On the jazz scene, I'd like to see:

• A summer jazz festival. It could be only a weekend -- after all, Saratoga, N.Y., does quite well that way. But planners need to put together something first-rate. Pittsburgh deserves more than a gathering of the everyday masquerading as a festival.

• A concert by pianist Keith Jarrett and his trio. He did a memorable solo concert at Heinz Hall more than 20 years ago. It would be wonderful to see him again.

• Someone to take over the spot of Dowe's on 9th, Downtown, and turn it into a smallish concert hall that could hold more people than a club and fewer than most concert halls around here. Think of all the tweener-acts that could appear there in all genres of music.

• A jazz club with owners who have good business sense and are interested in bringing in top-flight talent from all brands of jazz. Walt Harper did it in the '80s. It can be done.

-- Bob Karlovits

First off, I'd love to see rest of the world discover some of the great music being cooked up here in Pittsburgh. That doesn't mean they need to get huge like Girl Talk -- just a little bit of notoriety outside the city, so they can draw a crowd elsewhere, and make enough money to be able to concentrate on their music. Some already have gotten there -- Don Caballero, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Grand Buffet, Anti-Flag, Wiz Khalifa, Modey Lemon and a few others are known quantities outside Allegheny County. Others are getting closer. ...

There are plenty of national acts for whom a Pittsburgh date is long overdue -- I'd love to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Tom Waits, Sigur Ros, the Flaming Lips, Portishead, Fleet Foxes, Beck, Radiohead, MIA, Magnetic Fields, Cat Power, and My Bloody Valentine, for starters.

-- Michael Machosky

Purely for selfish reasons, I'd like to see my neighborhood movie theater, the Squirrel Hill Theater on Forward Avenue, not be displaced by upscale condos. Expensive new condos can be a good thing if the neighborhood can support them -- but losing a neighborhood theater is never a good thing.

It also would be great to see any of the many now-derelict neighborhood movie theaters finally return. They add so much to a community. Imagine what a boost the central North Side would get with the Garden Theater as, say, an art cinema instead of an empty hulk or porn theater.

-- Michael Machosky

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