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 Since
2003, Thomas Sokolowski, director of The Warhol, and Jane
Werner, executive director of
the Children’s Museum, have beenworking with the
Northside Leadership Conference and other organizations
to ensure that the 116-year-old Hazlett remains
a vital part of the city’s performing arts community.
The Hazlett was the home of the Pittsburgh Public Theater
from
1974 until 1999, when the Public moved Downtown to the
O’Reilly Theater.
After the Hazlett went dark in
1999, many in the local arts community wished the theater,
owned by the City of
Pittsburgh, could be resurrected for other performing arts
groups. Few, however, had the resources to make that happen.
Enter Werner and Sokolowski, whose organizations had formed
an informal partnership fueled by, among other things,
their shared interest in giving the city—and, more
specifically, the North Shore—a performing-arts venue
for smaller arts groups, and a historic one, at that. Together
they helped raise $2 million to renovate the theater. They
anticipate the theater will reopen as The New Hazlett Theater
in the fall of 2006.
“
There had been the notion in the community that there wasn’t
enough performance space for small arts organizations and
other theater groups,” Sokolowski recalls. “The
Hazlett property was bandied about, but then came the questions:
is it worthy of being saved, and who could save it?” The
answer to the first was a resounding “yes.” And
the more Sokolowski and Werner talked, the more they realized
that they could spearhead the process.
“
We thought the Hazlett was really important for the development
of the North Shore community,” Werner says. Having
just expanded their own home to the tune of $29 million,
Children’s Museum officials had a vested interest
in the continued revitalization of the North Shore, she
notes. And the Hazlett is almost literally in the Children’s
Museum’s backyard.
“
It would have been a shame to have the Hazlett mothballed,
and we felt it was a worthwhile project,” Werner
says.
The 10-member board of directors for The New Hazlett
Theater has Werner as president and Sokolowski as secretary/treasurer.
Others on the board include Deborah McClain, executive
director of the Northside Leadership
Conference; Dolly Ellenberg, vice president of development
for Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh; and representatives
from PrimeStage Theatre, Attack Theatre, the University
of Pittsburgh, KDKA-TV, Goulston & Storrs law firm,
and the City of Pittsburgh.
Key funders for the project
are The Heinz Endowments, The Grable Foundation, the Richard
King Mellon Foundation,
the Buhl Foundation, an anonymous
foundation, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Like
the last soldier standing on a battlefield of death, the
Hazlett has a proud and determined history. Built in 1889,
it was dedicated by President Benjamin Harrison as part
of the Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall. By
1967, it had virtually shut down due to serious deterioration,
but was resurrected in 1974 to serve as the Public Theater’s
home. Since its closing in 1999, the Hazlett has managed
to withstand the razing that has befallen other impressive
buildings on the North Shore.
The
beautiful performing-arts space was home to the original
Carnegie Hall.
The theater features a thrust
stage, which projects into the audience and is surrounded
on three sides by the audience.
Its arrangement, good acoustics, and intimate setting
have long been popular with patrons and artists alike. Getting
The New Hazlett to this point has been a laborious process,
but both Werner and Sokolowski say they can see the light
at the end of the tunnel.
“
Jane Werner was the pit bull in all of this,” Sokolowski
says, praising Werner’s vision and determination.
For
her part, Werner said she’s pleased not only
with what the partnership will have accomplished for the
Hazlett but also the doors it has opened for the future.
The
board, foundations, and others who have worked on the Hazlett
project are “a really great group of people
and concerned citizens,” she notes. “They have
a real passion for the arts and for Pittsburgh—and
they’re interested in making it a city that’s
constantly moving forward. We’ve all gotten to be
good friends.”
In fact, Werner adds, she and Sokolowski
recently collaborated on another project, resulting in
an exhibition of Andy
Warhol’s art that opened at the Children’s
Museum of Manhattan in November. The Warhol also has loaned
artworks to the Children’s Museum and collaborated
on other projects.
Werner said she and Sokolowski share
the belief that a museum should be a place for experimentation,
like a laboratory. “The
Children’s Museum is more like a laboratory and I
think that’s how The Warhol thinks about itself.
It’s a good collaboration.”
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(c) 2005 CARNEGIE Magazine. All rights reserved.