Suzi Starheim

Audience members can find themselves taking an active role in tonight’s Family Entertainment Series performance. This is the Pittsburgh Opera’s “Opera Improv Trunk,” and it allows audience members to take part in making a finished “Opera-on-the-spot” improvisation alongside Pittsburgh Opera teaching artists.

As the opening of Chautauqua Theater Company’s production of “Three Sisters” approaches, the production team finds itself finishing an evolving set of needs for the play. Production Manager Joe Stoltman said while this is his third time working on a production of “Three Sisters,” each time has presented different challenges. For this production, directed by Brian Mertes, the team has responded to aspects of the show that have changed during rehearsals.

Brian Mertes, well-known theater and television director, looks at things differently than traditional directors. This might be evident to audience members who come to see the Chautauqua Theater Company’s 2011 Season production of “Three Sisters” that Mertes is directing. The play, which takes place in a provincial town in Russia, follows the search for meaning and happiness in life by three sisters — Irina, Olga and Masha — as they long to go back to their hometown of Moscow.

The Chautauqua Theater Company costume shop is accustomed to the process of constructing garments for plays, but a modern twist on Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” has made this time a unique blend of Victorian and modern styles. Olivera Gajic, designer of the costumes for the production, said she has worked with Brian Mertes, director of the production, approximately a dozen times on past productions, and nearly half of those times involved Chekhov plays. This has allowed them to develop a comfortable system for getting the design of costumes fitted with each play and character.

Chautauqua Theater Company is hard at work preparing for its performances for the 2011 Season. This season’s list includes Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters,” the New Play Festival and William Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost.”