Feb 20, 2026 By Brad Hundt 3 min read

Crystal Manich remembers the fear.

She remembers the safety drills, the whispers, the sense of panic that would arise at the sight of a student in a trench coat.

Manich was a junior at Mt. Lebanon High School in April 1999, when the mass shooting happened at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., that left 15 people dead and more than 20 injured. The horror of the massacre riveted the country, and was of particular interest in Mt. Lebanon, which had a demographic makeup similar to that of Littleton.

Then, just a year later, a Mt. Lebanon man went on a shooting spree across Allegheny and Beaver counties that left five people dead and one person injured. On the verge of graduation, it shook Manich and her classmates even further.

“People were very scared,” Manich remembered. “There were fake threats and rumors going around. Tensions were really high.”

Manich used some of those long-ago experiences in writing the libretto for “Time to Act,” a world premiere opera that is being presented by the Pittsburgh Opera starting Feb. 28 at the Bitz Opera Factory in the Strip District. A collaboration with composer Laura Kaminsky, “Time to Act” touches on issues surrounding trauma and school violence as a group of students gather to stage a production of Sophocles’ “Antigone.”

With “Time to Act,” “I wanted to place myself back in that moment,” said Manich, who is also directing the production. The sense of trepidation surrounding school shootings has lingered – and arguably, intensified – in the years since Columbine. It now hangs over the school days of young people today “and that was something I wanted to explain in the piece.”

Manich first started working on “Time to Act” in 2018 in Puerto Rico, which she now calls home. By 2022, she had penned a couple of drafts and had an online meeting with Kaminsky, and work on the opera began in earnest.

“We started reconstructing what the story should be,” Manich said. “She really wanted to work on this with me.”

A resident of Peters Township when she was a child, Manich’s family eventually moved to Mt. Lebanon, and she credits the high school’s arts program for fueling her interest in theater and opera. She worked in the school’s television studio, co-hosted a weekly movie review program that was carried on a community public access channel and aspired to be an actor. However, she served as an assistant director on a production of the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” and discovered that she had an aptitude for directing.

From there, she attended Carnegie Mellon University and began a varied career that has encompassed work not only in opera, but also musical theater, plays, and with Cirque du Soleil. It has taken her around the world, from Argentina to Australia and beyond. Her resume includes work on productions of “The Marriage of Figaro,” “Aida,” “Macbeth,” “Carmen” and many more. She has also directed a feature film, “The Copper Queen,” and will be directing the Pittsburgh Opera’s production of “Falstaff,” which will be presented in April and May.

She is also writing another new opera, “Triangulo,” which is being billed as the world’s first mixed martial arts opera.

Now that she has directed many, many more productions since that production of “Fiddler on the Roof” at Mt. Lebanon High School all those years ago, what does it take to be a good director?

“I think you have to be a collaborator,” Manich said. “A dictator isn’t a good director.”

For more information on “Time to Act” and performance times, go online to pittsburghopera.org.