'Matilda' actor embraces gender flip for role, working with kids

TribLIVE: David Abeles has discovered it's fun to be bad. He plays Agatha Trunchbull, headmistress of Crunchen Hall, who rules with an iron fist and lives by the school's motto: “Children are maggots.” “She is a monster,” Abeles says. The actor is performing in the national touring company of “Matilda the Musical,” which runs from May 31 to June 12 the Benedum Center, Downtown, as a joint presentation of PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera.