This weekend and next, a production of the lauded one-act play Danny and the Deep Blue Sea will take the stage at the Richard E. Rauh Studio Theater. If you read the show’s program, you may recognize the name of a number of Pittsburgh-based theater artists — performers Shannon Donovan and Michael Patrick Trimm, director Kelly Trumbull and more.

You will not, however, find the name of a theater company. There is none.

Why Danny and the Deep Blue Sea Is Fueling Pittsburgh’s Independent Theater Movement

Danny and the Deep Blue Sea is an independent production by a group of Pittsburghers, independent of any organization or presenting body. It’s a growing trend; last month’s production of Hamlet: The Bad Quarto, also staged in the Rauh, was an independent production, as was last month’s production of Sixty-Nine Seventy.

“The kind of work we wanted to make wasn’t really being produced by other people,” says Becca Smith, a producer on the show. “We thought, well, if we want to see this kind of art being made, we should be the ones to make it.”

The rise in independently produced productions coincides with a period of uncertainty for larger regional theaters. In Pittsburgh as well as elsewhere, mid-sized theaters are struggling to remain viable, even with the benefit of large donor and subscriber bases.

“Small, independent makers have a place in this city — and have a place to create, and can do really meaningful work,” Smith says. “We get to make our own rules [about] how we’re doing things.”

The original staging of Danny and the Deep Blue Sea was off-Broadway in 1983. The play, by Pulitzer Prize-winner John Patrick Shanley, follows a chance encounter between two equally troubled characters at a dive bar in the Bronx; a successful 2023 Broadway revival starred Aubrey Plaza and Christopher Abbott. “It’s become a piece that has become used to show off acting chops,” Smith says.

More importantly, she says, it’s a story that’s newly resonant in an era of growing isolation. “It’s a deep dive into some raw and real human emotions that are very relevant today … It’s a really intimate production; it’s invigorating.”

Performances Continue Through July 2026

Danny and the Deep Blue Sea opens Thursday (July 9) at the Rauh, which is in the basement of the Cathedral of Learning, and then continues through July 19 (with performances Thursdays through Sundays). Scott believes that the tenacious, do-it-yourself spirit of the production translates onto the stage — and that the audience will also find themselves in the spirit of the project.

“We’re excited to get people back in the room — and [we want to] emphasize, get off of your phone and get in the room and get messy with us.”

Story by Sean Collier
Photos Courtesy of the Producers

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