Latest News & Insights

Work is nearing completion on a $10,000 restoration project of an original beveled, leaded glass window that graced the facade of an Erie building on State Street built in 1899. Erie artist John Vahanian restored the half-moon-shaped window, and a crew from Erie-based Schutte Woodworking built a new custom-made mahogany frame for it.

Confirmation processes have garnered much mainstream public attention in recent years, and a moment in this process is encapsulated in An American Daughter, the Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Wendy Wasserstein (who died in 2006, only 10 years after penning the work).

Telemarketing employees plan and scheme in the latest production by Ernest Hemmings. Local performer Kelly Pryke Rodland both acts and directs in the upcoming production of "The Proletariat," premiering at PACA starting this weekend.

The Performing Artists Collective Alliance's facade features windows that for decades have been boarded up at the five-story downtown structure. That's about to change.

A redevelopment project is now getting underway in Downtown Erie. This Tuesday, windows were delivered for the 120-year-old building on State Street where PACA is located.

The days of old, boarded-up windows will soon over at the PACA Building. Tomorrow, new windows will be delivered. They should all be installed by the end of the month.

The 64-year-old drama depicting opioid addiction feels surprisingly fresh in this well-acted local production. Seeking to inform rather than just entertain, PACA's "A Hatful of Rain" is a striking drama that reflects the ongoing national (and, sadly, local) opioid epidemic.

It's a Wonderful Life is about second chances. Sometimes these come after a dark, personal turning point on a bridge, and sometimes they come after a well-received local theatre run — they don't always have to be a bad thing, now do they? This year, Ken Falkenhagen returns with his one-man interpretation of the quintessential holiday film, This Wonderful Life, which graced the Performing Arts Collective Alliance (PACA) stage in 2016.

In 2014 PACA was able to complete phase I of its build-out to include necessary components that ensure that our artistic programming could continue to grow and expand beyond its initial stage.

Either way, Erie's own Performing Artists Collective Alliance, or PACA, is bringing yet another unique theatrical release to the stage with a brief two-week run of Gorey Stories, "a musical collage of Goreyana" (to quote Mel Gussow in the New York Times c. 1977), based on Gorey's illustrations and poetry, which have been adapted into 18 playlets by Stephen Currens and set to music by David Aldrich.

This autumn the Performing Arts Collective Alliance (PACA) is bringing some of the finest examples of 20th century theater to Erie, and the upcoming Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is no exception. Director Mark Tanenbaum is on a roll, following up his production of Equus with this Edward Albee classic.

In 1971, playwright Sir Peter Shaffer was talking to a friend who had attended a dinner party, at which the topic of conversation included a disturbed young man who had used a spike to blind 26 horses. The friend relayed this gruesome anecdote, but failed to expound on the details. Shaffer wrote in 1973, "…it was enough to arouse in me an intense fascination."