1886, Andrew Carnegie says I have a $240,000.

I want to build a library and a music hall, and somebody just needs to find the land, and we'll make it happen.

And because he was originally a resident of the City of Allegheny, and at that time Allegheny and Pittsburgh had not merged yet.

So the current building, the Carnegie Library and Music Hall, which is now the New Hazlett Theater, was the first of 2500 libraries and similar institutions that Carnegie funded throughout the world.

And it was 1889, the building was finished, and it was a focus to kind of enlighten people about the importance of philanthropy and the importance of educational and higher institutions being a benefit to society.

And so it was apparently, Benjamin Harrison and Andrew Carnegie were side by side on the stage to say, here's a brand new building.

This building was originally an organ hall.

So there's a giant pipe organ that actually spanned the whole width of the building in the auditorium.

The Jehovah's Witnesses, the pastor who founded that organization often preached here.

And the Jehovah's Witnesses often come and check out the building during the week.

It's pretty frequent, actually.

But the building fell into disrepair in the middle of the century, and money was raised through the city to prevent it from being demolished and to renovate it.

And that.

happened in the 60s and 70s.

And that is when, the other half became the Carnegie Library and this became what is The Public Theater.

The two visionaries, Joan Apt and Margaret Rieck, who, along with Ben Shaktman, founded the Public Theater.

We had the opera, the CLO was in existence, but they wanted a regional theater because at that point, Bill Ball and the American Conservatory Theater had left Pittsburgh and gone to San Francisco, and there was no self producing regional theater in Pittsburgh, and they felt it was important that there be one.

The theater hired Peter Wexler, who was not only a designer, he was an architect, but he designed not only the stage setting for different plays, he designed the entire seating arrangement so that initial season, with three levels of scaffolding and these very uncomfortable chairs were all part of Peter Wexler's design.

And it was designed that way because we were not permanent inhabitants of that building at the time.

We had, an agreement, a rental agreement that we could be in that space for three shows.

And then we had to take everything we owned and move it out of there.

And it was an empty space again.

But there came a point where the city said to the Public Theater, you can have more time and be a more permanent resident, so you don't have to keep disassembling everything and taking it away.

And that might have been our third season, and they went from three to five, to five shows, and then later to six shows.

So, the season expanded and expanded over time, to the point when the city said, you are the only inhabitant of the building at this point.

So it was the Allegheny Theater until 1980, when it was renamed the Hazlett Theater in honor of Theodore Hazlett, who who had been a longtime president of the Andrew Mellon Foundation Charitable Trust.

Because of his love and respect of the arts and his work in the arts, it seemed appropriate that the theater would be renamed for him.

And then the public was there until, 1999, 2000.

Our last show was the first show of our 25th season.

The Cultural Trust approach the Public Theater about moving downtown because they were going to be building this building, the O'Reilly theater and they wanted an anchor in this space.

A permanent theater company that would help draw more people into the cultural district, along with the Benedum and the Byham, along with the symphony and the opera and everything else so that everything was sort of centralized.

And then the interior of this theater was designed to model the Hazlett.

This theater does have the capability of thrust work or being, seen on four sides.

So there's some malleability here even.

But that was all because of what we were doing at the Hazlett.

And then our second show was the first show in this building, which was August Wilson's premiere of King Hedley II.

But at that time, when we were leaving the Hazlett Theater, we were conscious about making sure that it was still a viable theater.

Lighting equipment and sound equipment, draperies, everything was left in place so that it wasn't an abandoned shell, and that an inhabitant could come in and still operate it as a theater.

And that was sort of the birth of the New Hazlett.

Our mission is really to, create innovative and dynamic art through collaboration.

And we do that every day.

Collaborating with those artists, providing them with a lot of resources to help them enrich Pittsburgh's cultural community.

We have what we call resident companies.

And there are four of them who do their entire performance seasons with us.

And that is Prime Stage Theatre, Front Porch Theatricals, Kente Arts Alliance, Texture Contemporary Ballet.

And we serve as a producing partner, but we also help them access resources that it might be difficult for small organizations to get on their own.

A couple of the companies were, involved with the New Hazlett before I came.

One was, Prime Stage Theatre.

They were, in fact, actually in the New Hazlett space before there was a New Hazlett.

And they were performing, by renting the space from the city.

We started because we found that there was a niche in Pittsburgh that needed to be filled.

Which was basically between children's theater back then and more adult theater.

so this is an opportunity for them to see dramatic work, not just musical work.

And that's how Prime Stage was formed.

We were here for three years.

And then of course, then the city came in and said, well, we're going to close you down.

And then three years later after the renovations and it became the New Hazlett Theater, we were invited to come back.

So we've been here since about 2006, about 19 years.

One that stands out the most is when we did the world premiere production of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

It's an incredible book.

And being able to look at what we can do, how we can bring that book to life especially the moment when they go through the, Fort Pitt tunnels.

And how do we do that in the space?

Right.

So I think really, The Perks of Being a Wallflower was a very special production for us.

And we've had audiences say to us they love the space, they love the theater, they love coming to the Hazlett Theater.

So it really, enhances our mission and enhances our production and enhances the experiences for the audience.

So our, flagship, program here is the Community Supported Art performance series, which we call the CSA.

And, we choose our season in the spring, and we spend a year with those artists.

Generally, there's 3 to 5 lead artists, in a residency.

So they learn what it's like to make a piece of work for our stage.

My name is Anna King Skeels.

And I'm a playwright and an actor.

I think the first CSA production I saw was Himbos by Brian Pope, and one of my friends was in it as well.

And so I kind of got this like inside look, a little bit of having a friend on the team.

- And for many of them, because they're emerging artists, this is the biggest space they've been in.

And I was looking at it.

I was like, that would rock.

I'd really like to be able to put a show on in this beautiful theater and, the year that I was graduating college, I was like, let me put in my piece.

Let's see what can happen.

We document it for them with photography and videography.

So my CSA project was called My Sister's Lipstick.

It's a play about two siblings that are going through a loss in the family and being kind of vaulted into adulthood.

One of the siblings is really locking myself up in their apartment, not going into the outside world, finding these kind of, like, fantastical childhood memories to hide within.

And then their sister is trying to get them to come back out into the real world with her and and go on with their lives and find their future.

And, moderated talkbacks and, actual written reviews so that they can take all that material and move forward with the work and maybe do it somewhere else.

Sometimes that means branching into other cities.

That's something I want to try out and see what can happen.

Not just me, but a lot of the artists in the town really feel this is one of the best theaters in the city, because it allows for imagination.

It allows for intimacy with the audience.

It's just a great theater.

I will tell a little secret.

After the the closing performance of How I Learned to Drive, which was our last show in this space.

The director, some of the cast members and some of the crew, did a little time capsule.

What?

Did a little time capsule, and tucked it away .

Oh my, somewhere.

Somewhere.

I won't say where.

Wow.

Okay, there's a little time capsule there just to say this happened.

I think that the support is like second to none.

I think it's a beautiful program that helps get rid of the fences that are in the way of being able to do whatever show you want to do, by handing you some of the things that you need.

We want this to be your third place, you know, we we ultimately want the New Hazlett to be a place that, you know, you can see something that's interesting no matter what it is.

I mean, maybe you start out as I only come for the musical theater, but then we continue to connect with you and invite you to dance performances, fashion shows, any number of other things that we do, concerts.

So we really want folks to feel like what's going on at the New Hazlett?

I need to go see it.

- And one time I was fixing a clog in the bar area, and Bill Gardner came up with a stack of scripts and threw them on the thing.

He said, these are all the plays we're considering to do next year.

Have a look.

All right.

This is the guy with the monkey wrench in his hand.

But he knew your background.

And boy, did I read the scripts.