Walldogs

Hatch Arts Collective premiered Walldogs, a new play and art-making event at Artists Image Resource on Pittsburgh’s North Side. Investigating the many ways that humans have made their mark on the walls all around us, Walldogs was produced by Nicole Shero, directed by Adil Mansoor, and written by Paul Kruse. Performances were held over two weekends, July 25 – 26 and August 1 – 2 at 8pm. Walldogs starred Mallory Fuccella and Parag S. Gohel, and featured art-making events led by Katie Kaplan and Saric Feng, Pittsburgh-based visual artists.

Walldogs was the second full-length play produced by Hatch Arts Collective. It weaves together four stories that explore what it means to mark a wall with text and image. A 1930’s wall sign painter, or “walldog,” buys advertising space on a rural woman’s home. Two teens tag an abandoned wall. A hipster street artist gets a lesson in economics. And, as in the biblical account, a drunken King Belshazzar seeks the meaning of the writing on the wall from Daniel. What does it mean to write on a wall? What can it tell us about ownership, gender, expression, and value? Saturated with sharp humor and coded references, Walldogs probes a simple action that humans have performed since we learned to draw.

Walldogs was made possible thanks to The Heinz Endowments.

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City Paper by Gwendolyn Kiste
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