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TJ ARTScast Creates an Arts Education Pod to Spotlight Arts Opportunities In and Around Pittsburgh

As podcasting surges to new heights around the globe, one grassroots non-profit arts organization in the South Hills has seized this popular medium as a way to reach new audiences.

TJ Arts launched the TJ ARTScast in March of 2015 with its first episode, featuring an interview with Pittsburgh theater critic and August Wilson expert Christopher Rawson on his memories of the famed Pittsburgh playwright. Since then, each episode has featured local luminaries across the arts such as visual artist and former Steelers player Baron Batch, Pennsylvania Poet Laureate Sam Hazo and actor Tom Atkins, to name just a few. Co-hosts Dawn Walters and Jay Suszynski lead in-depth conversations with the guests, while the podcast also includes supplemental reporting from Jessica Cook in Pittsburgh and Julia Malecki in Washington, D.C.

Says TJ Arts Founder and Chair Karen Suszynski, “The Pittsburgh area has been widely acknowledged as an artistic destination, drawing dilettantes from around the country to our city’s many wonderful venues. Through inspiration from Phenomenon Post’s Mark Fallone, we created TJ ARTScast as a vehicle to showcase the breadth of talent here, as well as to inspire listeners to investigate or pursue the arts on a personal level.”

Hosted by Dawn Walters (TJHS 1979 alumna) and Jay Suszynski, two long-time TJ Arts volunteers and West Jefferson Hills residents, the TJ ARTScast features monthly in-studio interviews with artists and arts professionals from Pittsburgh and the broader Western Pennsylvania region. Contributing reporter Jessica Cook (TJHS 2004 alumna) files on-location interviews with her “City Snapshot” report showcasing the deeper fabric of Pittsburgh's art scene, while Julia Malecki (TJHS 2005 alumna) offers her monthly “Big Picture” on artists and arts education from our nation's capital.

"Our arts ed pod community is growing," says TJ ARTScast director Mark Fallone, a veteran Pittsburgh-area television director and producer who provides the audio engineering and post-production direction of the monthly shows. "We're seeing stats that our listeners have downloaded episodes from as far away as France, China and even the Russian Federation," says Fallone.

The TJ ARTScast can be downloaded via iTunes, Stitcher and the organization's website www.tj-arts.org. Each episode is recorded at the post-production facilities of Phenomenon Post on Mt. Washington, where Fallone is employed, and is hosted on servers at Pittsburgh-based Libsyn.com, the pioneering and largest leading podcast network hosting more than 25,000 shows with 44 million monthly audience members.

Founded in 2009 by Thomas Jefferson High School retiree Karen Suszynski, TJ Arts is dedicated to supporting and encouraging the full expression of the performing and fine arts in the West Jefferson Hills School District and the communities it serves. Their guiding principle is that exposure to the arts during adolescence plays a significant role in forming the fabric of what young people become, enriching their lives and instilling a lifelong appreciation for artistic performance and creative expression. For more information, visit www.tj-arts.org, or find them on Facebook.

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