PITTSBURGH — We've already seen western Pennsylvania stand in for small-town New Jersey this summer in the AppleTV+ dramedy "Cha Cha Real Smooth" and Pittsburgh's most prominent landmarks lovingly rendered in the Prime Video teen rom-com "Anything's Possible." Now, Pittsburgh cinephiles can catch their hometown transformed into 1940s-era Rockford, Illinois, during the height of Peach fever.
That's right: Amazon's long-awaited television adaptation of Penny Marshall's 1992 sports movie classic "A League of Their Own" is upon us. Co-creators Abbi Jacobson and Will Graham spent quite a bit of last summer and fall filming the show's eight-episode first season in the Steel City.
Pittsburghers may not even recognize how the production turned East Carson Street into downtown Rockford, the Greensburg Amtrak stop into Rockford Station, or the baseball fields Amazon and Sony built in Ambridge and on CCAC Boyce's campus. Yinzers might also go full Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme when they spy familiar sights like Aliquippa's Morrell Field, downtown's Benedum Center and the Carrie Blast Furnaces in Swissvale and Rankin.
"There's so much of Pittsburgh in the show, and we're so grateful to Pittsburgh for helping us create this world that in a lot of ways, a lot of people haven't seen on screen in this way," Graham told the Post-Gazette. "This is a show that really is celebrating working-class, industrial America during World War II, which is something we were incredibly excited to do."
Playing ball in the 'Burgh
Though Graham had never been to Pittsburgh before, his father spent six months here undergoing basic training during the Vietnam War and he had seen photos of his parents living in the area. He was struck by Pittsburgh's "incredibly vibrant major league and Negro Leagues history," which he honored in the show via a brief homage to Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords star Josh Gibson.
Graham still can't believe they were allowed to build an entirely new ballpark at CCAC Boyce — that has already become the home field of CCAC's baseball team — to serve as the Peaches' home stadium. There were multiple instances of walking onto fields across the region and being told they would've been perfect for a 1940s-set show before their renovations years prior, Graham said. Eventually, everyone decided it would be more prudent to just build a stadium themselves.
"We wanted it to really feel inviting, warm and right," Graham said. "Being able to build on Boyce field and the fact that also now people are playing in that stadium, it felt sort of right to us on every level."
One of the actors who got to play on that field was D'Arcy Carden, who many viewers may recognize as Janet from NBC's "The Good Place" and Natalie on HBO's "Barry." She plays confident and sultry Peach slugger Greta Gill, who forms a fast and intense bond with Jacobson's Carson Shaw. For her, getting to put on a Peaches uniform and play ball in that specially constructed stadium "was like floating outside of my body looking down."
"It was sweaty and dirty," she said of filming in the Pittsburgh heat. "Makeup wasn't getting touched up as much as you wanted to. Everyone sort of leaned into it. We wanted the baseball to look real. ... It helped it feel more real."
This was also Carden's first time in Pittsburgh, which she recently joked with Jimmy Kimmel has earned the tagline, "It's actually really cute!" She and a lot of her "League" castmates lived in the Strip District and bonded as both a team and filming family by going to concerts and riding bikes along the river.
Carden said she and her fellow Peaches practiced three times a week for months leading up to shooting the pilot and underwent "an intense sort of baseball camp" before arriving in Pittsburgh.
"We bonded as a baseball team before we bonded as cast," she said. "It felt like a baseball team, and a side thing that we were also on the show."
More than Peaches
Also involved in those pre-filming baseball shenanigans was Chanté Adams, a Carnegie Mellon University graduate who carried a storyline parallel to the Peaches' quest for success. Adams plays Max Chapman, a Rockford resident trying to make her dreams of playing professional baseball come true without ruining her relationships with her parents and best friend, Clance Morgan (Gbemisola Ikumelo).
Pittsburgh "is like my second home," Adams said, and shooting "A League of Their Own" here was a real "full-circle moment" for the 27-year-old. Her knowledge of western Pennsylvania came in handy a few times during production, particularly when they needed to find local folks to fill specific roles. She enlisted former CMU professors Don Wadsworth and Tomé Cousin to serve as a dialect coach and help out with intimacy coordination on set, respectively.
It isn't explicitly spelled out, but Graham said it's safe to assume that Max's ultimate goal is to one day make a Negro Leagues roster. Adams was immediately drawn to the "passion, resilience and determination" Max displays throughout Season 1 of "A League of Their Own" on both athletic and personal fronts.
"She's going to get knocked down nine times, but she's going to get up 10," Adams said, referencing lyrics from the 2018 Cardi B song "Get Up 10."
Though Max's arc was often kept entirely separate from the Peaches' journey, it was equally important in terms of spotlighting what the Black women who weren't allowed to play in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League were able to accomplish. Adams felt the responsibility of representing both Black women in sports and anyone living in that era who "had to claw their way" to a goal that always seemed just out of reach.
"There's a lot of weight there when it comes to playing Max," she said. "At the end of the day, it was a challenge I was more than happy to take on."
Max also spends a lot of Season 1 figuring out how she wants to present herself to the world with the help of Bertie, her out-and-proud uncle played by transgender actor Lea Robinson. The former Western Kentucky University basketball player and longtime coach said that their past experiences with athletics, particularly "the ideas of chosen teammates and family," informed a lot of their passion for a project like this.
Robinson spent most of their screen time opposite Adams, who they described as "one of the sweetest, kindest, most generous people I've ever met." The way Robinson sees it, Bertie's main function was to create an environment of acceptance and inclusion for Max so that she could begin forging her own path forward.
"I feel really blessed and grateful that this character exists, this show exists and I had an opportunity to be a part of it," Robinson said. "I really hope people can relate, see themselves and I hope folks are moved."
'Special connection to the city'
It's been a whirlwind of a month for Jacobson, who has been promoting her magnum opus while also basking in well-wishes after her recent engagement to "For All Mankind" star Jodi Balfour went public earlier this week. Everyone had nothing but glowing reviews of what Jacobson is like as a showrunner. Adams said that watching Jacobson go to work "set the perfect example for how I hope to be one day" in a similar role.
"She's just so good at what she does," said Carden. "It's so fun to watch one of my oldest, best friends absolutely be a boss. She does it her own way. She's still the same Abbi I met 15 years ago. She just has more confidence and really knows what she's doing."
When Carson and Greta meet, it seems like their dynamic will consist mostly of Greta trying to get Carson out of her shell. As the season progresses, Greta's steely veneer is slowly broken down to reveal the fears that motivate her aloof and transitory lifestyle. Carden said it was a "scary role" to take, but both Jacobson and Melanie Field, who plays Greta's best friend Jo De Luca, helped put her at ease.
"I do feel like Abbi and I were really moved by this relationship and really loved these two women and wanted to honor them and their relationship," she said.
The tone of their storyline, like much of what transpires in Season 1 of "A League of Their Own," was inspired by the movie's mix of absurd comedy and genuine emotion, according to Graham. He never thought of this series as a reboot, but rather as an opportunity to take some of the DNA from Penny Marshall's film and look "at a whole new range of stories through that lens."
A few episodes of Season 1 were written or co-written by Graham, and he also directed one that features a harrowing sequence indicative of the prevalent attitudes toward minorities in the show's time period. It's no secret that the series features much more LGBTQ+ representation than the movie did, and Graham said that "the creation of a queer community" in the show's first four episodes was always going to lead to moments of both ecstasy and agony.
"We wanted the show to have the all feelings real life does," he said. "Sometimes it's absurd, and sometimes it's heartbreaking. And you're with all the characters on that ride. One of the things I want this show to be is a lifeline for queer people ... or people who feel like outsiders in any way."
Now that the first season is making its debut, those involved just hope audiences appreciate the scope of their ambitions and that Pittsburghers especially enjoy how their city was used to bring this updated "A League of Their Own" to life.
"I'm so happy we were able to throw in little Easter eggs of Pittsburgh and from the movie and all these little things," Adams said, "so people know we see them, we filmed in Pittsburgh and that this show has a special connection to the city."
