O’Reilly Theater

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. Sitting on the former site of the Lyceum Theater, one of the city’s many vaudeville houses demolished after the 1936 St. Patrick’s Day flood, the O’Reilly is the fourth theater project of The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and the fifth Cultural District theater. The O’Reilly is the Trust’s only newly constructed theater and was created with two purposes: to create a downtown home for the Public Theater and to create additional venues for theater, music and other performances. Designed by world-renowned architect Michael Graves, the O’Reilly Theater is also the only downtown performance venue that features a thrust stage, surrounded by the audience on three sides. The theater features 650 seats and state-of-the-art theater technology. The O’Reilly Theater was built at a cost of $25 million. Major gifts to the O’Reilly Theater include a naming gift in honor of Dr. Anthony J. O’Reilly from Mrs. Chryss O’Reilly and current and past senior executives of the H.J. Heinz Company, and the Helen Wayne Rauh Rehearsal Hall, named in memory of the Pittsburgh actress by her son, Richard E. Rauh. The ground breaking for the O’Reilly Theater was held on April 23, 1997. On Monday, July 27, 1998, public officials and supporters of The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and the Pittsburgh Public Theater gathered at the theater to celebrate the tradition of “Topping Out” the O’Reilly Theater. On Thursday, December 9, 1999, amid a standing-room-only crowd of dignitaries, corporate and foundation leaders, significant donors and staff of The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and Pittsburgh Public Theater, the O’Reilly Theater was dedicated and officially opened. For further information, please visit PPT.org