Black and gold get top billing next week at Pittsburgh Public Theater when, on Sept. 5, the company celebrates its momentous 34th season with a black- and gold-themed birthday party starting at 6 p.m.

Why momentous?

That's for Ted Pappas, the artistic director, to tell us.

Maybe it's because the new season lineup includes a play by Eugene O'Neill ("A Moon for the Misbegotten"), a play by August Wilson ("Radio Golf"), the musical revue saluting legendary songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb ("The World Goes 'Round") and a one-woman vehicle about advice columnist Ann Landers ("The Lady With All the Answers").

Maybe it's because the University of Pittsburgh Press will soon publish "The Chief," the Gene Collier-Rob Zellers play that offers itself as a tribute to Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney. "The Chief" has been staged at the Public five times counting its premiere in 2003, and, with Tom Atkins in the title role, it broke box office records every year. On Sept. 16, the play returns for a limited engagement.

So, whatever reason Pappas & Co. have for using it, momentous is the word. Also, each guest at the black-and-gold party will receive a copy of "The Chief" signed by Collier and Zellers. Call 412-316-1600 for more information.

Go green

Oz watchers, start counting the days, the hours, the minutes. "Wicked," the Stephen Schwartz musical that isn't your grandma's "Wizard of Oz," arrives at Benedum Center one week from tonight and stays through Oct. 5. That's two weeks longer than the show ran when it visited Pittsburgh the first time, in February 2006.

Excited?

I'm guessing "yes" if you jumped aboard the show's bandwagon a long time ago, and I'm hoping so, too, if you're among the interested ones yet to discover the whole "Wicked" experience. I say "I'm hoping so" because a friend recently told me, "I grew up with 'The Wizard of Oz' ... I'm a purist ... I don't think I'll like it."

Well, no, a purist might not like this very imaginative re-invention of L. Frank Baum's classic fantasy since Winnie Holzman's libretto, wittier than the Gregory Maguire novel on which it's based, takes two characters known for decades by readers and moviegoers (those characters being the good witch and the bad witch) and sends them on a journey that begins when both are students at a university for the magically gifted.

In other words, leave your preconceptions at home. If you can't, if you won't, don't go.

After three and a half years on the road, the touring "Wicked" now stars Carmen Cusack as Elphaba - better known as the unpopular Wicked Witch of the West - and Katie Rose Clarke as the good-doing Glinda.

The production also has Myra Lucretia Taylor, who broke through a color barrier when she joined the cast. She became the first African-American actress to play the young witches' mentor, Madame Morrible, a role previously filled by Carole Shelley, Rue McClanahan, Carol Kane, Miriam Margolyes and Jayne Houdyshell in New York, Rondi Reed and Barbara Robertson in Chicago, Harriet Thorpe and Susie Blake in London, Jo Anne Worley in Los Angeles and Alma Cuervo on tour.

Actor/playwright

You know Chris Bondi as an actor. Lately, he's a fine Nick in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" at Off the Wall Theater. Did you also know that he's a budding playwright? His new one-act, "Only Lightning, Only Rain," premieres Sept. 18 during the third weekend of the 18th annual Pittsburgh New Works Festival at Open Stage Theatre in the Strip District.

Gemini Theatre produces Bondi's play, one of 12 in the main-stage series, and the other participating companies include Apple Hill Playhouse, the Rage of the Stage Players, the Theatre Factory, CCAC South, the Heritage Players, McKeesport Little Theater, the Summer Company, the Baldwin Players, Cup-a-Jo Productions and mimeradio.org.

The month-long festival begins Sept. 4 and will, if tradition has its say, end with an awards presentation at a restaurant or club. Visit PittsburghNewWorks.org for all the details.

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