Pittsburgh: Past, Present, Future

Pittsburg: Past, Present, Future is an innovative, new storytelling project under the guidance of the Pittsburgh Community Market, which will culminate with a live, pop-up theatre at Pittsburgh Yards on Saturday, October 30 at 7:00p as a part of the City of Atlanta’s Elevate Festival.

NOTE: This event is outside in a field. Please bring your own lawn chairs or picnic blanket. Heck, you can even bring a picnic basket and enjoy it in style.

Led by artists Tron Banks (Tronzai Media) and Shannon M. Turner (StoryMuse), intergenerational pairings of older, “legacy” residents and newer residents will tell stories about the Pittsburgh neighborhood’s past, this extraordinary current moment in which we now find ourselves, and the stories they’d like to come true in the future.

Pittsburgh has endured profound transitions from Black independent economic thriving in the early twentieth century, through a down cycle of poverty and violence, and now extraordinary growth and change. The BeltLine opens a new section there in mid-October, causing a lot of conversation, some fear about how the neighborhood might be negatively impacted by gentrification.

Tron Banks, co-lead artist, activist, as well as Founder/Co-Director of the Pittsburgh Community Market, says: “Through bringing legacy and newer residents together for meaningful conversations through storytelling, we hope to ease tensions around the redeveloping Pittsburgh Community and inspire hope in the bright future before us.”

“Storytelling has a fundamental power,” said Shannon M. Turner, Founder & Creative Director of StoryMuse (and co-lead on the project). “It transmits embedded values and has the ability to set the course for where we’ll go. Past generations lived through times that are the stories we tell each other now. The stories we tell today help us shape our future.” Pittsburgh: Past, Present, Future is the first project of StoryMuse’s longer-term storytelling initiative, Live. Work. Space.

The culminating performance--a free, live, outdoor, pop-up theatre at Pittsburgh Yards on Saturday, October 30 at 7:00p--is a part of the City of Atlanta’s Elevate Festival.

Host or Publisher Pittsburgh Community Market