Pittsburgh - Yo’ Mama! a provocative new comedy about modern motherhood, opened to sold out crowds at last summer’s Three Rivers Arts Festival. Because of the strong audience response to this debut production by local playwright, Heather Arnet, the Center for Creative Play will present a return engagement of Yo’Mama! from April 29th through May 15th in their performance space located at 1400 S. Braddock Avenue in Regent Square.

“The Festival was the perfect venue to workshop the first production this past summer. But audience response was so overwhelmingly positive we knew we wanted to bring it back for a longer run. Presenting the play at the Center for Creative Play provides us with the ability to produce a three-week run in a beautiful performance space and the unique ability to offer babysitting services on premises to our audience members on Saturday nights.” Said Arnet.

The Center for Creative Play, located just off Braddock Avenue in Regent Square, is a national leader in inclusive play and play environments. Known locally to parents in Pittsburgh as the best place to take the kids on a snowy day, the Center houses a beautiful state of the art multi-purpose performance space where concerts, family and adult entertainment are presented. When asked about Yo’ Mama, Mara Kaplan, Chief Executive Officer and Founding Parent of the Center was understandably enthusiastic, “We are very excited to partner with Heather in presenting Yo’ Mama! We are thrilled to be able to offer theatrical programming in our performance space. We want to encourage local artists, arts patrons, and parents to use our space as an entertainment destination in the evenings.”

This collaboration takes site-specific theatre to a whole new level. Yo’Mama!, written and directed by Arnet after the birth of her son, includes choreography by Mary Miller and features Janis Burley Wilson, Carla Delaney, Vanessa German, Melissa Martin, Tonia Steed, and Adrienne Wehr, as new mothers in a post-natal yoga class who share honest, humorous, sexy, and irreverent tales of parenthood as they move continuously in and out of yoga postures. As the Center for Creative Play is a popular destination for parents and families and as its downstairs neighbor is Fitness Yoga – where people can take pre and post-natal yoga classes – the play is easily at home in its new location. In addition to new cast members, the play also includes new music and dance sequences and some minor rewrites so Arnet encourages those who were able to see it at Three Rivers Arts Festival to come see the show again.

YO’ Mama! runs April 29 – May 15, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 2pm. Tickets are $15. For reservations call ProArts ticketing at 412-394-3353 or visit www.proartstickets.org. For Information about KidsVIP Babysitting services for Saturday evening performances at the Center for Creative Play call (412) 371-1668 xt. 1013.

This project was made possible through the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA), a state agency. It is funded by citizens of Pennsylvania through an annual legislative appropriation, and administered locally by ProArts. The PCA is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

About Heather Arnet

Heather Arnet was recently honored with an award for "Art and Activism" from the Thomas Merton Center in recognition for her work incorporating peace activism and social justice with theatre arts. Arnet, a CMU graduate, recently produced International Lysistrata Project founder Kathryn Blume’s one-woman show “Accidental Activist” at the Andy Warhol Museum on March 3, 2004 and was the organizer of the Pittsburgh Lysistrata Project at The Quiet Storm Café in 2003. Arnet directed Yo’Mama’s debut at Three Rivers Arts Festival in 2003, directed Beth Amsbary's Priestess of Plenty at the Frick Historical Museum in 2002, and performed in and directed her play Superheroes, Artists, and Other Fly Things at the Making A Scene Event in downtown Pittsburgh in 2001. Prior to moving to Pittsburgh, Arnet participated directed for the NYC International Fringe Festival and New York New Playwrights Festival, directed an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Salome for the Chelsea Playhouse, and directed the world premiere of her collaboration with Joyce Carol Oates, I Stand Before You Naked, II at the Harold Clurman Theatre on 42nd Street. Arnet’s work explores social, political, and cultural themes, through the presentation of new theatrical performance forms and stories with emphasis on multidisciplinary artistic collaboration.

About Mary Miller

A professional dancer and choreographer since 1968, Ms. Miller is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Mary Miller Dance Company which is about to begin its 19th season. Renowned and appreciated for her sense of humor and directness in her dance, Ms. Miller’s audiences eagerly await her perspective on the issue at hand. She has dealt with serious topics, such as grief in In the Silence, Veiling; with esoteric subjects, such as in Clouds, Angels and Constellations; and with imaginative subjects, as in Love Duet, in which the man gets pregnant and the woman subsequently leaves him. Ms. Miller’s creativity has brought audiences to Flush at the Fulton, a performance sponsored by the Kohler Co. which sported five toilets on wheels, and has dealt very pointedly with violence in a way accessible to all audiences with Cows With Guns, a part of the five-year Peace 2001: A Journey into the Millennium series. No stranger to collaboration, Mary Miller has worked with a wide variety of artists, including poets, composers, fiber artists, writers, sculptors, students and schools and a robotics expert. She has collaborated with other dancers, including the year 2000 installation of the Peace 2001 series, Our World: One People, Many Faces, in which she collaborated with UMOJA, an African dance company, and Sriashi Dey, an Odissi dancer.

The Center for Creative Play

The Center for Creative Play™ is a national leader in inclusive play and play environments. Started in 1995, by 5 parents who wanted a place where all children are welcome, the Center for Creative Play operates a unique play environment in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that has become a national model. The Center for Creative Play, a multidimensional organization, shares this expertise by providing training and technical assistance that is resulting in the creation of Center for Creative Play Environments™ throughout the country. The Center also designs products that promote inclusive play, including an award winning musical CD collection, Time to Sing!™. For more info go to: www.center4creativeplay.org

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