For more than a century, steel mills on the banks of Pittsburgh's three rivers ranked the region as one of the largest steel capitals in the world until the industry collapse in the 1980s.
Quantum Theater called for a reimagining of the classics in ways never before seen, setting Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, King Lear, amid the grandeur of Carrie's blast furnaces and highlighting Pittsburgh's history as an industrial giant.
The rusting metal structures of blast furnaces, according to the artistic director and founder of the theater troupe Carlla Boss, are ideal for staging the dark tragedy of the bard, which tells about grief and madness, destroyed family values, and about the powerful king who has been defeated.
The Carrie Furnaces are the last surviving structures of what was once the turbulent heart of the Homestead Iron and Steel Works, which produced the steel used in the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge and other places of worship in the United States. The stoves along the Monongahela River were built in the 1880s and operated until 1982.
Only furnaces # 6 and # 7 remain intact today. They are among the oldest surviving blast furnaces in operation in the United States prior to WWII and are National Historic Landmarks.
They were also the site of one of the most dramatic labor conflicts in the country. In 1892, a labor dispute at the Homestead took on a fierce character when striking workers fought armed guards, a major episode in the history of the country's labor movement.
After the first act in the shadow of a blast furnace, spectators armed with lanterns walk a quarter mile on foot to a garden among a circle of trees, where nature took its toll among the destroyed buildings of the factory. The action takes place among thickets, reproducing, according to the director's idea, the English countryside. In the twilight of the stone-ring glade, spectators deeply experience the exile and madness of the king.
Carrie Blast Furnaces are located on Carrie Fernane Boulevard in Rankine, Pennsylvania. Directed by Richer Reddick. An open-air performance ticket costs 40 USD. Events run from May 10 to June 2, 2019
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