It’s early July, 1933. Pittsburgh’s iconic Steelers NFL team is founded by Northside-native Art Rooney, beginning a legacy of record-breaking wins, nerve-racking losses, and a century of team spirit that first unites the city amidst one of the lowest times of the country — the Great Depression.
Along Rooney’s journey leading him to become founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers, he gathered many names, from “fraud” to his famed title of “The Chief.”
“The Chief,” a production starring Philip Winters, is an 80 minute monodrama by Rob Zellers and Gene Collier in which the audience receives countless personalized stories delivered by Winters as Art Rooney.
The production opens with Art Rooney sitting at his desk, taking a phone call and addressing the audience as if they were a person coming to have a casual conversation in his office at the Three Rivers Stadium.
The anecdotes told by Art were framed by different objects within his office, which he meticulously walked around and spoke about. The scene produced on stage was designed (by Scenic Designer Vivian Lipchak and Lighting Designer Nathan G. Philips) in a way that authentically replicates the warm lighting, wood-planked walls and picture-frame-covered shelves of Art Rooney’s real Three Rivers Stadium (all the way down to the well-known carved Superbowl key).
Listening to Art talk feels like getting one-on-one life advice from The Chief himself as he tells the story on how he came to be the famed Steelers founder and raised them up from the ground, where they began as the “Same Old Steelers.”
Starring actor Winters did an impeccable job portraying the famous Art Rooney. For a one-man show, Winters thoroughly was able to keep the attention of the audience for the entire 80-minute duration of the production. With a cigar in his mouth, Art tells it to the audience like it is — between brief calls to his wife about a later commitment.
Winters portrays the humble wit of the founder Art Rooney with each word, anecdote and cock of his cigar.
Art talks about the painstaking lows and thrilling highs of both the course of his life and the beginning of the Pittsburgh Steelers. From gambling and bar fights to the famed catch of player Franco Harris which won the Steelers their first Superbowl, Art covers it all.
“The Chief” truly is a love letter to Pittsburgh: a theatrical retelling of the historical and personal context behind how the Steelers came to be and how Art Rooney earned his title as The Chief. It is clear that the monodrama was created for both Steelers fans and people who enjoy calling the city of Pittsburgh their home.
“The Chief” was an impressive and memorable production that honors the memory of Steelers founder Art Rooney.
