The O'Reilly Theater is a 650-seat

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communi ...

building, opened on 11 December 1999, in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

. Located at 621 Penn Avenue in

downtown Pittsburgh Downtown Pittsburgh, colloquially referred to as the Golden Triangle, and officially the Central Business District, is the urban downtown center of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located at the confluence of the Allegheny River an ...

's Cultural District, the O'Reilly Theater is actually a three-part building: The theater (with a 150-seat rehearsal hall), a large parking garage called Theater Square, and the adjacent Agnes R. Katz Plaza.Special Report on the O'Reilly Theater
. - ''

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving Greater Pittsburgh, metropolitan Pittsburgh in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the fi ...

''. - 5 December 1999. - Retrieved: 23 May 2006. The

Pittsburgh Cultural Trust The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust (PCT) is an American, nonprofit, arts organization that was formed in 1984 to promote economic and cultural development in Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The "Trust" has focused its work on a fourteen-square block ...

built the new theater, designed by architect

Michael Graves Michael Graves (July 9, 1934 – March 12, 2015) was an American architect, designer, and educator, and principal of Michael Graves and Associates and Michael Graves Design Group. He was a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Group and ...

P.A., to create a downtown home for the Pittsburgh Public Theater theatrical company, as well as to create additional venues for theater, music, and other art performances. The O’Reilly venue features a thrust stage surrounded by the audience on three sides. To pay for the $25 million cost of construction, gifts to the project included a naming gift in honor of Dr. Anthony O'Reilly from Mrs. Chryss O'Reilly and several current and past senior executives of the

H.J. Heinz Company The Kraft Heinz Foods Company, formerly the H. J. Heinz Company and commonly known as Heinz (), is an American food processing company headquartered at One PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was founded by Henry J. Heinz in 186 ...

. The O’Reilly was built by Turner Construction Company, opened on 11 December 1999, with the world premiere of King Hedley II, by the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

winning playwright

August Wilson August Wilson (né Frederick August Kittel Jr.; April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". He is best known for a series of 10 plays, collectively called '' ...

Pittsburgh Mercantile Library

The site of the O'Reilly Theater was previously occupied by the Mercantile Library Hall, which was completed in 1870. The four-story building housed a

subscription library A subscription library (also membership library or independent library) is a library that is financed by private funds either from membership fees or endowments. Unlike a public library, access is often restricted to members, but access rights ca ...

, a 1,500-seat auditorium, and commercial space. The

Joseph Horne Company The Joseph Horne Company, often referred to simply as Joseph Horne's or Horne's, was an American department store chain based in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The store was one of the oldest in the country being founded on February 22, 18 ...

department store was a tenant of the building before completing its own building one block to the west in 1893.

Lyceum Theater

The Library Hall was remodeled in 1886, reopening as the Bijou Theater. The Bijou was replaced by a succession of vaudeville and burlesque houses—the Lyceum, Academy, and Variety—and then was razed and paved into a parking lot after being damaged in the 1936 St. Patrick's Day flood.

Teddy Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as Teddy or T.R., was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. Roosevelt previously was involved in New York politics, including serving as ...

spoke at a national convention of the Order of the Moose at Lyceum Theater on his visit to Pittsburgh in July, 1917.

References

External links

O’Reilly Theater homepage1915 image of Lyceum TheaterModern comparison to historic Lyceum site
{{Pittsburgh Theatres in Pittsburgh Tony O'Reilly family Michael Graves buildings Theatres completed in 1999 1999 establishments in Pennsylvania New Classical architecture in the United States

Pittsburgh Mercantile Library

Lyceum Theater

See also

References

External links