The Youngstown Playhouse will host a musical concert, featuring Youngstown Playhouse Alumni – Maureen Collins, Mary Jo Maluso, and Rick Blackson. The concert will take place Saturday, March 8 at 7:30pm on the mainstage at The Youngstown Playhouse. Ticket prices are $25 plus $4 handling fee and can be purchased by calling the Experience Your Arts Box Office at 330-259-9651 or at youngstownplayhouse.org.

This concert serves as a fundraiser for the Youngstown Playhouse’s 100th Season Gala to be held June 21, 2025. The performance pays tribute to the beloved Carpenters who sold over 100 million records, making them one of the best selling groups of all time. The concert will include virtually every significant chart-topping record of the Carpenters’ brief but iconic career from the early 70’s until Karen’s tragic and untimely death in 1983.

Maureen Collins became involved with the Playhouse as a third grader! Her love of musical theater brought her back year after year. It was the Playhouse’s staging of Annie that paired her with Tod Hancock. This duo’s performance of the song “Easy Street” quickly became renowned and they would later go on to name their professional theatre company, Easy Street Productions.

Mary Jo Maluso first came to the Youngstown Playhouse to play the leading role of Maria in West Side Story while a student at Youngstown State University. Maluso began her career as a news anchor and show host at Channel 33 and during this time, while cast as Guinevere in Camelot, she met Todd Hancock, who played the role of Lancelot. While studying voice in New York and being an opening act for many national performers she returned to the area to perform at the Carousel Dinner Theatre. Once back in the area she was reacquainted with her friends from Easy Street Productions and joined them for several of their shows. It was there that she met Rick Blackson and collaborated with him to form Beyond Broadway Entertainment. Blackson joined the Playhouse to serve as assistant Music Director with Collins for the 1984 Youngstown Playhouse production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. As these past performances brought Maluso, Blackson, and Collins together, Close to You: A Musical Tribute to the Carpenters brings them together again on the same stage.