The Welcome Table is the Department of Theatre Arts’ new production-based program dedicated to collaborations with artists of diverse heritages, the melding of artistic and critical practice, and community-academic partnerships. Directed by Dr. Lisa Jackson-Schebetta, The Welcome Table serves as a theatre-based forum through which the academy and the community can engage issues of diversity and social justice in our region, utilizing performance to mobilize the idea that difference is an inherent resource.

The second production in the program is Good Kids, written by award winning Naomi Izuka and commissioned two years ago by the Big Ten schools, who have agreed to release rights to us. The piece, inspired by the Steubenville rape case, addresses social media and sexual assault in an accessible yet relentless script that contends with the many incidents of campus sexual assault and rape throughout our nation. Learn more through our dramaturgy weebly, created by Pittsburgh alum Dr. Deirdre O'Rourke.

Good Kids is co-directed by Dr. Lisa Jackson-Schebetta and teaching artist Kimberly Griffin. The cast features 12 University of Pittsburgh undergraduates. Tickets are free to all Pitt students, $5 for all other students and $12 for adults.

This event is also sponsored by the Department of Theatre Arts, the Humanities Center, the Dietrich School Office of the Dean, the University Counseling Center, an American Association of University Women LAF Grant, and Nancy Welfer. For more information, read here or contact Lisa Jackson Schebetta at lisajsch@pitt.edu.

Images from the performances: