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Sunday, June 02, 2002

By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic

Should the Top 50 Pittsburgh Cultural Forces include Pittsburghers who've moved away?

Probably not.

But why not? After all, once a Pittsburgher, always a Pittsburgher, right?

And what is a Pittsburgher, anyway? If Kevin McMahon and Tracey Brigden join the Top 50 within a year of their arrival, shouldn't David McCullough qualify, even though he chooses to do his writing somewhere else?

Or what about Mariss Jansons, who's here only about 10 weeks a year? Some years, August Wilson is here more than that, even though his residence is in Seattle.

And what to do with Christina Aguilera?

Rather than battle this out case by case, and then see a dozen Top 50 places pre-empted that could go to resident Pittsburghers, we instituted this separate Expatriates category.

Not that it put the issue to rest -- we still had to define ex-Pittsburgher. So we decided you can't just have been born here and then left as a babe, like F. Murray Abraham. You have to have been brought up here or lived here for a significant chunk of your life, no matter where you were born. College-only Pittsburghers don't count, either.

Nor do those in a confusingly mirror-image category -- Pittsburgh residents who have less cultural force here than elsewhere, such as novelists Albert French and K.C. Constantine, jazzman Nathan Davis and opera singers Vivica Genaux and Marianne Cornetti. They would have to make the main list in the Exporters category.

With these rules in mind, a couple of dozen candidates were proposed to the Arts and Entertainment staff. These Expatriates were then narrowed to a Top 10 (and then some), listed here in order of votes received, with notes on major achievements of 2001-02.

However you define, list, vote or quantify all this, it's clear Pittsburgh exports a lot of cultural talent.

1. August Wilson, great playwright, regularly staged throughout America. "King Hedley II" closed on Broadway last summer, and the ninth play in his cycle makes its debut next spring.

2. David McCullough, persuasive historian who changes the way we view ourselves. His "John Adams" won the Pulitzer Prize, and he seems like the only historian untouched by plagiarism charges.

3. Lorin Maazel, world-class orchestra conductor who, at 72, just won the New York Philharmonic post.

4. (tie) Antoine Fuqua, movie director who this year crafted Denzel Washington's Oscar-winning role in "Training Day."

4. (tie) John Edgar Wideman, feeling novelist and memoirist, author this year of "Hoop Dreams."

6. (tie) Annie Dillard, thoughtful memoirist and naturalist.

6. (tie) David Hollander, creator/writer/producer of "The Guardian," successful new TV series set in Pittsburgh.

8. (tie) Christina Aguilera, pop star with a voice that has staying power, who shared a Grammy this year for "Lady Marmalade."

8. (tie) Rob Marshall, Broadway director/choreographer who is directing his first big screen musical, "Chicago," due next Christmas.

8. (tie) Paul Taylor, choreographer and former Kennedy Center honoree.

Tied for No. 11 are jazz artist Ahmad Jamal, hall of fame painter Philip Pearlstein, cerebral comic Dennis Miller and Broadway composer Stephen Flaherty. Behind them come, among others, Todd and Daniel Phillips, founders of the Orion String Quartet; actor Michael Keaton; Jon Beckerman, creator of "Ed"; actress Ming Na; entertainment agent Eric Gold; and pianist Earl Wild.