Remake Learning Days to Offer Hundreds of Events in May

The Remake Learning Days Festival will offer more than 350 events - including Playful Pittsburgh’s Ultimate Play Day - in May. The three-week festival offers activities for children ages two to 17 as well as adults.

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From May 2 to 22, families can take part in a variety of events and celebrate learning. Activities include building a robot, coding an art spinner, directing a film, doing scientific work, exploring the outdoors, making music, printing inventions with a 3-D printer, and more.

The festival will include in-person and virtual events hosted by schools, museums, libraries, after-school organizations, child care centers, and tech companies.

There are a number of free activities as well as others that range from $1 to $50. Most of the events take place in Southwestern Pennsylvania, while a few others will be held in West Virginia. 

Ultimate Play Day - which is co-hosted by Playful Pittsburgh, Trying Together, and CitiParks - will take place during Remake Learning Days. The event emphasizes the importance and power of play for people of all ages. The free event will be hosted at the Activities Shelter at Riverview Park from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 18.

The festival will also include a performance of “Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About a Terrible Monster.” Color puppets and props will bring characters from Mo Willems’ book to life on stage.

For more information on the Remake Learning Days Festival, visit the festival’s website.

Buzzword Day at the Theater

The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Education department invites families to request complimentary tickets for a May performance of “Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About a Terrible Monster.” The production is based on Mo Williems’ books about the character.

How to Sign Up

Families can request up to four complimentary tickets for the Friday, May 18 performance at 10 a.m. 

The production will occur during the Children’s Theater Festival. The last day to register is Friday, May 10 by 5 p.m.

About the Show

The show tells the story of Leonardo, a terrible monster who tries to be scary - but isn’t. When Leonardo finds Sam, a scaredy-cat kid, it’s his chance to finally scare someone. Or, it could be the start of an unlikely friendship. The plot thickens when the pair meets Kerry and Frankenthaler, an even scaredier-cat and her monster friend.

“Leonardo!” uses hundreds of illustrated paper puppets, book pages, two-dimensional props, furry monster puppets, and songs to bring Willems’ books to life. Manual Cinema wanted to recreate the experience of holding one of the books, which are big, bold, colorful, and full of visual rhythm. Similar to all Manual Cinema productions, attendees are invited to watch the big screen like a traditional movie or watch the artists below as they create the story in real time.

How to Get to Ultimate Play Day on May 18

Playful Pittsburgh will host its annual Ultimate Play Day on Saturday, May 18 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Activities Shelter in Riverview Park. There are three bus routes that can drop participants off close to the event.

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Ultimate Play Day is a celebration of playfulness for people of all ages. The event – co-hosted by Playful Pittsburgh, Trying Together, and Citiparks as part of Remake Learning Days – celebrates the importance of play. 

A number of city organizations will take part in the event - including the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, Carnegie Science Center, Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, Fred Rogers Institute, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, and many more. A complete list can be found on Ultimate Play Day’s event page.

Directions

Participants driving to the event and taking 279 N should avoid Milroy Street. Instead of making the first left, continue on to East Street and take Baytree Street to the park. 

Three bus routes will drop participants close to the event. Riders can take Bus 8 from the Northside to Riverview Park. They can pick up this bus at Cedar, East North Avenue, or Federal Street. The closest stops to the park are Perrysville and Watson or Perrysville and Cherryfield.

Riders can take Bus 12 from the Northside. The closest stop to the park is East Street and Venture Street, which is about a mile walk to the event. Riders can also take Bus 15 from Downtown. 

More Information

If you have questions, contact Adam James Zahren, Program Director for Playful Pittsburgh, at adam@tryingtogether.org. 

To plan a route to Ultimate Play Day, visit Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s True Time System’s website.

Buzzword Day at the Theater

The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Education department invites families to request complimentary tickets for a performance of “Dog Man: The Musical.”

The production is based on the worldwide bestselling series from Dav Pilkey, the creator of “Captain Underpants” and “Cat Kid Comic Club.”

How to Sign Up

Families can request up to five complimentary tickets to the 2 p.m. show on Saturday, April 13. The last day to register is Friday, April 5 by 5 p.m.

About the Show

The show follows the story of best friends and long-time comics creators George and Harold. Now in fifth grade, they decide to become more ambitious by writing a musical based on their favorite character, Dog Man, a crime-fighting sensation who is half-man, half-dog.

Dog Man, who loves to fight crime and chew on furniture, must save the city from Flippy the cyborg fish and his army of Beasty Buildings. He must also catch Petey, the world’s most evil cat, who has cloned himself to exact revenge on Dog Man.

This epic musical adventure features the hilarity and heart of Dav Pilkey’s beloved characters. The show was written by Kevin Del Aguila and Brad Alexander, who collaborated on the Emmy-winning series “Peg + Cat” on PBS as well as TheaterWorksUSA’s “Click, Clack, Moo” and “Clifford the Big Red Dog” on PBS and Amazon. Jen Wiseman is the play’s director and choreographer.

The show, which is recommended for ages four and above, runs for approximately an hour. It will be performed at the Byham Theater, located at 101 6th Street in Pittsburgh. For more information, call the box office at 412-456-6666.

April Playful Pittsburgh Partner Highlights

Playful Pittsburgh has many amazing partners across the city and each month we would like to take a moment to spotlight our tier 2 and 3 partners and all the work they are doing to contribute to play equity. 

Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse:

The Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse (PCCR) is a non-profit that inspires creativity, conservation, and community engagement through reuse. Located in Wilkinsburg, Homewood, and Point Breeze, they operate a non-traditional art supply shop where the community can donate used art and craft supplies, as well as shop for craft supplies. In addition, PCCR facilitates hands-on creative programming that educates the public about the benefits of reuse for the environment, community, and self.

PCCR values play because it is the basis for problem-solving, creativity, relationship building, and many other skills we use constantly! And having fun is good for our brains. At PCCR, they are playing constantly - Whether it's being creative with program participants, having fun and engaging staff meetings, or just curating our space to inspire creativity through fun signs and displays - it's everywhere!

How to Connect with the Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse:

To connect with The Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse, visit their website or connect with them on Instagram or Facebook. 

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh: 

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is an organization guided by its mission of literacy, exploration, and community connections. Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is a destination space for information, technology, community building, social connection, and fun.

At Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, we believe that play is a powerful and necessary part of life. Play drives learning, growth, innovation, and happiness—for children, teens, and adults, through all ages and stages of life. By offering play and playful opportunities and sharing the different ways that play can be incorporated into daily life, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh supports community members in designing their own play and playful experiences.

How to Connect with Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh:

To connect with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, visit their website or connect with them on Instagram or Facebook.

United Nations Designates June 11 as International Day of Play

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution to create a new International Day of Play. The day will take place on June 11 every year, beginning in 2024.

A Global Effort

The adoption of the resolution on March 25 follows a global effort led by a coalition of organizations - including Right to Play, a nonprofit with a mission to use play to empower children to rise above adversity. 

The coalition’s goal was to spotlight the importance of play in children’s lives, learning, and development. It also aimed to call attention to the need to protect and support children’s right to play.

Global research surveying more than 25,000 children across 36 countries revealed that as many as 73% of children don’t believe adults take the benefits of play seriously, according to Right to Play. 

“Play is powerful,” said Susan McIsaac, President and CEO of Right to Play International. “Through play, children explore and understand the world, learn how to collaborate and empathize with others, build the confidence to claim their rights, and develop a lifelong love of learning.”

Adam James Zahren, Program Director of Playful Pittsburgh,  applauded the UN resolution.

“I think the designation of an official International Play Day is essential because it showcases the necessity of playing for children and adults alike,” Zahren said. “Play is important for physical, emotional, and social development. It reduces stress and builds relationships. I’m thrilled to hear this news.”

Convention on the Rights of the Child

This is not the first time that the United Nations has recognized the importance of play. In 1989, the UN approved the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This international treaty set benchmarks against which a nation’s treatment of its children could be measured. One of its tenets was that “every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child, and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.”

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