History

The Hazlett Theater, located at 6 Allegheny Square in the Allegheny Center area of the Northside, was built in 1889 as the Carnegie Musical Hall and was dedicated by President Benjamin Harrison. The Theater is part of a historic landmark, designed in a Richardson Romanesque style, which also houses one of the first Carnegie Free Libraries in the country.

In 1967, community activism prevented the demolition of the building and funds were secured for a renovation of the theater space, featuring a flexible stage and intimate audience chamber with movable scaffold seating.

The Hazlett Theater was re-named in 1980 in honor of Mr. Theodore L. Hazlett Jr., a prominent civic leader who worked with Mayor David Lawrence, authored much of the city’s smog legislation, and was an enthusiastic supporter of the arts. The Hazlett Theater was home to the Pittsburgh Public Theater for 24 seasons, from 1974 until 1999. The neighborhood business community enjoyed considerable traffic from the Public Theater audiences and suffered considerable losses when PPT moved to the O’Reilly Theater in the Cultural District in 1999.