After Andrew S. Paul was replaced as Artistic Director of Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theater earlier this year, he was invited by Mark Southers to co-found a new theater company, known as The Phoenix. Andrew Paul talks about the mission of this new company, its first two productions, and how this new company will fit into the Pittsburgh theater scene.

Raised in Squirrel Hill, Daniel Phillips and his brother Todd are the violinists of the Orion String Quartet, quartet-in-residence at Lincoln Center. They return for the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society to play Schubert's Death and the Maiden quartet, plus works by Haydn and Bartok. Daniel talks about the music, and his musical roots in Pittsburgh.

Artistic Director and conductor Thomas Douglas talks about the opening of the Bach Choir's "MASSive Season," beginning with a "Monster Mass" program that pairs William Byrd's a capella Mass for Four Voices and Anton Bruckner's expansive Mass in E minor with the Carnegie Mellon Wind Ensemble.

Conductor Maria Sensi Sellner has founded a new company, Resonance Works, that will stage the first Pittsburgh production of Verdi's Macbeth in 27 years. A Western PA native, Ms. Sellner is Interim Director of Choral Studies at CMU, where she will lead the annual Holiday Concert.

OBIE-award winning director Christopher McElroen stages the world premiere of Measure Back for the Pittsburgh International Festival of Firsts. It traces the history of war, with Homer's Iliad as a starting point, and employs video and cellphones to create a dialog about what provokes war, and how we experience war in our living rooms.

City Theater Artistic Director Tracy Brigden directs the 2013 Tony Award-winning Best Play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang, on stage through November 3rd. Ms. Brigden talks about Durang's comedy, and City Theater's November Hamburg Studio Theater offering, Jessica Dickey's "Charles Ives Take Me Home."

Pittsburgh's Microscopic Opera Company brings George Romero's horror classic to the stage in a world premiere opening on Halloween. “Night of the Living Dead” has been adapted by composer Todd Goodman and librettist Stephen Catanzarite. Todd Goodman talked with QED's Stephen Baum during rehearsals for the opera.

Pittsburgh's Office of Public Art has launched a website to catalog public art, galleries, theaters and more throughout 13 western PA counties. Venues, artists, and the public can use the web site to discover art places, select favorites, and build shareable art tours. Office of Public Art director Renee Piechocki discusses PittsburghArtPlaces.org.

For Thornton Wilder's classic “Our Town,” Pittsburgh Public Theater's Ted Pappas assembled a cast of 24 -- all with personal ties to our town of Pittsburgh, including Tom Atkins as the Stage Manager. Pittsburgh natives Erin Lindsey Krom and Patrick Cannon talk about their roles as Emily Webb and George Gibbs, the young couple at the center of "Our Town."

Latonia Moore sings the title role in Pittsburgh Opera's Aida to open the company's 75th season. This was Ms. Moore's breakthrough role at the Metroplitan Opera in 2012. She tells the story of her Met debut and of Aida, the captured Ethopian princess caught in a love triangle with the Egyptian princess Amneris and the Egyptian general Radames.