Two Pittsburgh staples are coming together to produce a new "collaborative multi-genre experience" at The Oaks Theater.
Playwright Amy Hartman and singer-songwriter John Vento (formerly head of the Nied's Hotel Band) teamed up to make a stage version of Vento's latest album, Love, Lust and Other Wreckage. The musical of the same name plays for two nights, Sept. 13 and 14.
Written by Hartman, the collaborative project "tells the simple story of one man’s struggle to trace back the fracture his life has become. He bounces inside a crooked journey of heartbreak, his own cruelty, and lust for an insatiable compulsion to create music. After losing all, he must climb out from under the wreckage he’s created. This struggle leads him into a dark world of chaos, love, and discovery. But only for the high price of forgiveness."
Those themes — heartbreak, love, and loss — were taken directly from the introspective, rock- and blues-fused album. Listen below for a taste.
Love, Lust And Other Wreckage was inspired by Vento's love life and how it was affected by his love for the stage — so it's fitting that the story is now being told on a stage.
"The beginning aspects of it were all built around relationships, and the many facets," says John Vento in a press release. "The good and the bad ... and the ugly."
Pittsburgh music veteran turns album into two-night multimedia production at The Oaks Theater
