Save the Date 

Momentum Festival 2026

Festival Details 

What: Momentum Festival: New Plays at Different Stages 
Where: City Theatre, 1300 Bingham Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15203 
When: December 6 – 14, 2026 
Tickets: Admission to Momentum is free. Tickets can be reserved beginning on November 30th through City Theatre’s website. 

Festival Schedule: 

Tuesday, December 8 - 7pm 

New Work Slam

Back by popular demand, the New Work Slam will kick of the 2026 Momentum Festival! The event features excerpts of work in development from writers across the Pittsburgh region. Come experience a sampling of local scripts and songs as well as getting a special preview of artists & shows being featured in the 2026 Momentum Festival.

Friday, December 11 - 7pm

The Boy Who Lived Among the Stars and The Girl Who Looked Up

by Emma Y. Lai 

Directed by Lauren Katz  

Laurie is a boy who can walk on the stars through people’s dreams. One day, he arrives in Saya's dream, only to have the stars and himself fall out of the sky! When Saya wakes up, suddenly Laurie is there in her room with her and the two must solve the mystery of the fallen stars as they journey their way through a flooded, blacked out city.. The Boy Who Lived Among the Stars and the Girl Who Looked Up is a fantastical romantic comedy and modern folktale about allowing oneself to love and feel with your whole heart.

Saturday, December 12 - 7:30pm

(this smoky city) our sunlite’s grove 

by a.k. payne  

Directed by Monteze Freeland 

At the edge of an old U.S. mill town, Diamond and Edi Ya work in an amusement park dripping with ghosts. Carrying stories of the places their grandparents could not enter and memories of long summers spent riding coasters and losing childhood, these chosen kin try to make sense of grief in a place of lost dreams. Commissioned through City Theatre's Kemp Powers Commission Fund for Black Playwrights. 

Sunday, December 13 - 1pm 

Swallowing Beyoncé

By Ayibatari Owei 

Directed by Marco Rivera 

April 28, 2025: A day that’ll never be forgotten for its sheer iconicness. A day that taught friends and enemies to embrace their differences. The day that Beyoncé commenced her Cowboy Carter Tour. Swallowing Beyoncé is a dark comedy about a Black, queer (and toxic) friend group desperately trying – last minute – to buy pit tickets to Beyoncé’s Fourth of July show. This should be easy, yet when jealousy flares, this simple mission becomes a Sisyphean task. Relationships fragment, and, mysteriously, are forgotten; but don’t worry, this story has a happy ending. :) 

Sunday, December 13 - 7pm 

Rift  

by Gabriel Jason Dean 

Directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh. 

A work of fiction, Rift is inspired by actual events in the life of playwright Gabriel Jason Dean. It follows two brothers—one a progressive novelist, the other a convicted murderer and high-ranking member of a white supremacist prison gang–who are united through their traumatic childhoods. Now adults, these men navigate the edges of their brotherly bond. Are they truly so different? Is it possible to love someone whose beliefs you hate? Rift is a story of estrangement, ideological divide, and the fight to change our world. 

Monday, December 14 - 7pm 

The Break  

by Michael Kooman and Chris Dimond  

Directed by Daina Michelle Griffith 

Music Direction by Rick Edinger 

This brand-new rock musical is a spicy rom com with a healthy dose of heart. Sam and Charlie have been together since freshman year of college. They love each other…but do they? As the marriage question looms, it’s time to find out what’s holding them back. The two agree to take a 30-day break to date other people and at the end of the month they’ll finally tie the knot…or will they?