The O'Reilly Theater is a 650-seat theater building, opened on December 11, 1999, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Located at 621 Penn Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh's Cultural District, the O'Reilly Theater is actually a three-part building: The 65,000 square feet (6,000 m2) theater (with a 150-seat rehearsal hall), a large parking garage called Theater Square, and the adjacent 23,000 square feet (2,100 m2) Agnes R. Katz Plaza.
The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust built the new theater, designed by architect Michael Graves 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 building site of the Penn Avenue theater's history began in 1866 with the construction Mercantile Library Hall, a multipurpose library, lecture, and music hall. It evolved into the Bijou, Lyceum, Academy, and Variety, Pittsburgh's vaudeville houses, and then was razed and paved into a parking lot after the 1936 St. Patrick's Day flood.
The O’Reilly was built by Turner Construction Company, opened on December 11, 1999, with the world premiere of King Hedley II, by the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright August Wilson.
Famous quotes containing the word theater:
“In the theater of confusion, knowing the location of the exits is what counts.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)