February 1 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Date:
Cost:
Free
Time:
Address:
1300 Bingham StreetPittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15203
JO VAN GOGH
Written by Kate Isabel Foley
Directed by Aurelia Clunie
at City Theatre’s Lillie Theatre
This event will now take place on Sunday, February 1st at 5:00pm at the Lillie Theatre.
In the wake of her husband Theo’s unexpected passing, 28-year-old Johanna van Gogh is left behind with nothing but her infant son, 200 of her brother-in-law’s paintings, and her husband’s dying wish: to make Vincent van Gogh a world-renowned artist. As Johanna sorts through the paintings in her attic, she uncovers the stories of the little-known women Vincent painted, which leads her to learn what kind of mother and businesswoman she wishes to be. A story about love, legacy, and reinvention.
Join the Center for New Work for this rescheduled staged reading from our fall Momentum Festival with City Theatre Company! Launched in 2003, the Momentum Festival: New Plays at Different Stages is at the heart of City Theatre’s mission to lead the new play development conversation on both a national and local level. It celebrates some of the most exciting playwrights in the country through a weekend of workshops, readings, and artist panels. This year, in collaboration with the CMU Center for New Work, the festival returned in 2025 to share four new works from both the City Theatre and CMU artistic communities.
CAST & TEAM
Olivia Ruhnke | Johanna van Gogh-Bonger
Von Nishan Markarian | Theo van Gogh
Rusty Daniel | Ensemble
Logan Yao | Ensemble
Jakai-Nyasia Norfleet | Ensemble
Ace Lillard | Ensemble
Valeria Peterson | Stage Directions
Courtney Vanauken | Dramaturg
Ella McCullough | Stage Manager
Aurelia Clunie | Director
Kate Isabel Foley | Playwright
Kate Isabel Foley is a bisexual playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. Her storytelling plays with whimsy, queerness, mental health, womanhood, and reinterpreting the stories we thought we knew—sometimes all at once. Kate’s dark reimagining of Peter Pan, Captain Darling, had its world premiere in 2024 at the Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. Kate is a current Dramatic Writing MFA student at Carnegie Mellon University. You can visit her website at kateisabelfoley.com.
Aurelia Clunie is a first-year MFA director and John Wells Fellow at CMU. New works credits include The American Unicorn (Long Wharf Theatre), The Poppy (DePaul University), I Choose You, Baby (InVersion Theatre at The Tank) and Good Meeting (Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater); ReImagine: New Plays in TYA Advisory Council founding member; produced six cycles of Hartford Stage’s Write On Young Playwrights’ Competition.
