Point Park shows off playhouse
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Point Park University opened the school year with a Downtown growth spurt, adding a city block with the opening of the new Pittsburgh Playhouse.
Operating since the 1970s from its aging facility in Oakland, Point Park’s Conservatory of Performing Arts has built a reputation on the high-impact success of graduates in all fields of entertainment. Students now have a facility to match their creative ambitions, in the form of the $60 million, 90,400-square-foot complex that includes three theaters, a sound stage and 91 rooms.
For now, the public can check out the activity inside the playhouse through windows onto Forbes and Fourth avenues. The doors open to outsiders next month, for a gala on Oct. 13 and the first student production, “Cabaret,” starting Oct. 26 in the 92-seat black box Rauh Theatre.
Senior Will Bureau of Frederick, Md., is part of the first production and helped Point Park president Paul Hennigan conduct first-look tours for members of the media Wednesday. He used the word “amazing” a few times as he described the opportunities now available for his final year at the university.
“Having it connected to the campus is a huge thing,” he said. “And it’s right Downtown, where everything is happening, and the spaces themselves are gorgeous, so it’s very motivating.”
A new student project this year will be the filming of what Mr. Hennigan called “a live comedy show,” and when he said it would be looking for a distributor, he was only half joking. The sound stage that can hold three sets also gives Point Park commercial opportunities to entice films shooting in the city.
The largest space for live performances in the playhouse is the PNC Theatre, with a 550-seat capacity. Designed by the Cleveland firm DLR Group, the theater is both open and intimate, with asymmetrical curved tiers featuring wood imported from Africa. “What we said to the architect was we want warm and inviting. So that’s wood, and the striation is what drew us to this wood,” Mr. Hennigan said.
The theater has a different look from almost every angle and includes one of the region’s largest backstage areas, with load-in space and prop-shop access unheard of in Oakland.
The physical space of the playhouse, created over 28 months, includes unseen factors such as acoustically isolated rooms, so that, say, a musical theater rehearsal won’t be disturbed by the nearby noise of set builders. What can be seen are the ways the playhouse integrates architectural elements of the century-old structures that are part of the complex. Those include the stained-glass restoration in the ceiling of the former Stock Exchange Building, panels that now shine light on the school’s costume designers.
“I think what we’ve created here is a national laboratory for students and educators and professionals,” said Ronald Allan-Lindblom, artistic director of the playhouse. “We have the opportunity here to mix business students with performing students and be as entrepreneurial as we are creative.”
Kim Martin, the playhouse’s production stage manager since 1999, called the complex “a gift,” and added, “it offers so much to so many people — it will involve the entire Point Park community and it bridges the two sides of Downtown.”
The other side is the Pittsburgh Cultural District, with Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s long reach as a property owner and programmer. Trust president and CEO Kevin McMahon is a Point Park trustee “and has been involved with the project from the beginning,” Mr. Hennigan said.
Bridging the Downtown cultural divide from the Allegheny to the Mon was very much a part of the playhouse discussion and was expressed best by one of the building’s architects, Mr. Lindblom said.
“It was created to become the intellectual loitering space for Downtown Pittsburgh,” he said.