• Money worries are common in theater, short of the big commercial hits that are the exception, not the rule. Not-for-profits that presume to mix art and entertainment have to scramble for earned and contributed income. But there's still been concern within the past month over news of financial shortfall in two important local theaters.

• The more dramatic story was from Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre, where a dispute about how to respond to an accumulated deficit of $100,000 led to multiple resignations from the board of directors, which has now been reshaped. The deficit began with a $200,000 loss in 2005, when the Schenley Plaza reconstruction severely cut attendance; that's been reduced, but it remains a concern, measured against an annual budget of $1.3 million.

I'm told one result will be a small reduction in next year's plans. PICT has certainly been ambitious this year: first "King Lear," then a three-play Oscar Wilde festival and now a four-event, seven-play John Millington Synge festival ("Playboy of the Western World" plus three programs of paired one-acts), with Conor McPherson's "Dublin Carol" to come in December. That's as many shows as City Theatre does on twice the budget, and it's more than the Public Theater does on, what, six times as much?

But get this: in the aftermath of the battle within its board, artistic director Andrew Paul has just announced, not a cutback, but an added show: McPherson's one-man "St. Nicholas," a comedy about an obsessive theater critic, starring Martin Giles, which will join the season-closing "Dublin Carol" for six (mainly) late-night performances in December. That's a McPherson mini-festival on top of the big ones for Synge and Wilde.

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Podcast: On Stage

Since January, I've been discussing current theater for 10-12 minutes most weeks with PG podcaster David Bear. In the 23rd edition, on line later today, the subjects are "Annie Get Your Gun," "Playboy of the Western World" and "Wonder Bread Years."

Find it via the On Stage logo on the Podcast page.

Last week, we talked about the completed PG Critic's Choice group trip to the Shaw and Stratford festivals and "Smokey Joe's Cafe," with a preview of the Synge Cycle. Each week's edition goes online on Thursday or Friday; if there's no change some week, it means I've been out of town.

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Paul believes, you see, in fighting your way out of a deficit by forging straight ahead. More power to him, and thanks to his lead angels, Philip Chosky and Richard E. Rauh.

• The second financial story concerns City Theatre, which after two years in the black had disappointing income on several programs in the fiscal year just ended, amounting to a deficit of about $75,000 (less than three percent of its annual budget of $2.9 million). The main shortfall was in the populist programming in the Hamburg Studio, which produced a profit but not as much as budgeted. Rather than let the deficit take hold, City took swift action and cut three (out of 24) staff positions, as we reported Tuesday.

I don't know just what to make of it all. Obviously City's board draws a tight fiscal line; it seems to be in good hands. The younger PICT is still learning how to balance its astonishing outpouring of art with the commerce that's needed to back it up.

Some say that as the population of the city continues to shrink, arts organizations will have to retract, but I'm sure that if we really value our busy theater scene, we can still support it at its current level.

H.S. Musicals

• Last week we heard about the CLO and Nederlanders joining to start the National High School Musical Theater Awards. Anything that promotes theater seems a good idea to me, and giving a leg up to talented teenagers, too. But I have all kinds of questions. For example, how can a single actor, several months after a show has had its brief run, be judged on that performance? It seems to me the competition will inevitably move toward a star-search focus. But the CLO thinks not, and more power to them as they figure out how to proceed. If they had to spell out every detail in advance in order to satisfy a querulous critic, they might never get off the ground at all.

Rat Pack

• "The Rat Pack Is Back!" is another oldies show, recycling not just the material but the personas of Frank, Dean, Sammy and Joey Bishop. It opened at Heinz Hall Tuesday, when I was reviewing "Annie Get Your Gun" at the Benedum. But it started at 7:30, so I was able to slip in for the first 20 minutes, which, after grainy film clips of the RP's glory days in Vegas, turned to Tom Wallek's Joey Bishop stand up. It's in that confident, raunchy style you associate with Vegas before it went family-oriented; it plays off the audience a lot; and the audience, which didn't look quite like what I usually see at Heinz Hall, ate it up. I enjoyed it, too, but I had to leave just as Dean Martin (Johnny Edwards) began to warble.

So this isn't a review. But I can tell you the show lasts about 90 minutes and is not the same as "The Rat Pack -- Live at the Sands" which originated in England and played at Heinz Hall in December, 2006 -- that one didn't include Bishop but added the three Burelli Sisters.

PICT's Synge Cycle

• PICT's biggest undertaking of the year is well launched with a solid "Playboy of the Western World" (review yesterday), and the first of three programs of shorter plays starts tomorrow. I've been asked in what order I'd recommend you see them -- a choice I don't have, since I have to review each program as it opens. You don't have infinite choice, either, since they have limited performances. But in the best of all worlds, I think I'd leave the masterpiece, "Playboy," to last. And among the others, I'd leave "Riders to the Sea" (Program A) to next to last, since it's the most perfectly formed.

But you tell me. Send me your thoughts as to how seeing one program informs a subsequent one, and I'll gather such responses either here or in my notoriously irregular online On Stage Journal.

More Annie Oakleys

• To supplement our Sunday list of Annie Oakleys, Patrick Sheldon (who sang for the CLO in the '80s) writes from NYC: "I have a trivia tidbit you missed: Ginger Rogers played 'Annie' -- in Pittsburgh no less! I am pretty sure it was at The Twin Coaches, I think in the early 1960s. The reason I remember, in addition to being attracted to the business since childhood, is that the nightclub burned down during her run. I still remember the Pittsburgh Press coverage -- big star, big fire. Thought you'd get a kick out of that."

• PG info specialist Steve Karlinchak recalls that "when Barbara Cook was in concert at the Byham a few years ago, she said the best Annie Oakley she ever saw -- and she played Annie in touring productions and stock -- was Reba McIntire. She said McIntire made her forget Ethel Merman's performance."

• And Janice Brehm wrote to ask if Doris Day should be added to the list of Annie Oakleys. I think Day only did it for a 1963 recording with Robert Goulet. But in the course of Web research, I learned Day is a member of the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame, along with Lillian Gish, Phyllis Diller, Gloria Steinem ... and Oakley.

• In related news: at the opening night party for "Annie Get Your Gun," the CLO presented the ninth-annual Julia Deberson Award to CLO ensemble member Ward Billeisen. It recognizes professional skill, high work ethic, optimistic attitude, the ability to work well with others and, above all, a passion for one's work.

CMU in the biz

• Don Wadsworth reports lots of CMU alums busy in the biz:

Three are in Broadway's "Rent," which is in its final year: Telly Leung ('02), Renee Goldsberry ('93) and Michael McElroy ('91). Leung is also in the coming revival of "Godspell," rehearsing days while he does "Rent" at night.

Three are in the New York Public Theatre's "Hair" in Central Park: Andrew Kober ('06), Patina Miller ('06) and Tommar Wilson ('99).

Cast by Signature Theater in the Broadway-bound "Ace" are Emily Skinner ('92), Jim Stanek ('94), Dan Rothman ('01) and Christianne Noll (CMU Music), along with Pittsburgher Flo Lacey.

CMU grads playing comic book characters in major motion pictures this year are Patrick Wilson ('95) in "The Watchmen" and Gabriel Macht ('94) in "The Spirit."

Billy Porter ('91) is directing Kristolyn Lloyd ('07), Vanita Harbour ('91) and Leslie Odom ('03) in "Once on This Island" at UCLA's Freud Playhouse.

The Call Board

• Bricolage goes classic: Shakespeare's most mordant satire, "Troilus and Cressida," will be the fifth in Bricolage's Staged Reading Performance Series, this Sunday and Monday at 8 p.m. at its home at 937 Liberty Ave. (seating limited, reservations recommended). I suppose this is one of the lesser-known of the Bard's works, but it's a powerful anti-war statement. As Bricolage says, it's "a bitterly satirical, thoroughly modern exploration of politics, brutality, vanity, double standards, and doomed love played out against the background of a senseless war which no one seems to know how to end." Modern indeed.

I'm looking forward to it, knowing the play well, having acted in it in 1960, when it was the inaugural production in Harvard's new Loeb Drama Center. Featured at Bricolage are Tony Bingham, Ken Bolden, Lissa Brennan, Don Degiulio, Rob Gorman, Daina Griffith, Diana Ifft, Joseph J.J. Jackson, Chris Josephs, Brett Kennedy, Dan Krell, Doug Mertz, Ron Siebert and Dereck Walton.

Cultural District news

• I think this qualifies as theater-related: The Renaissance Hotel is closing its Prelude Wine Bar, over which Phil Real amiably presides. Tonight's the final night, if you want to say goodbye. It'll be replaced by a martini bar, without Phil; he's looking for work in the wine trade, preferably in Pittsburgh, "although I might be willing to sell out to lucrative Hollywood screen writing offers."

The bottom line

• Paid admissions at city's pro theaters for the week ending July 20: