Richard S Rauh and Helen Wayne lead the formation of a seven-person executive board including Leon Falk Jr. and Charles Rosenbloom, creating the non-profit Pittsburgh Playhouse in December 1934.
[14] The executive board would oversee the financial and administrative affairs, both hired directors and stage managers, and a cast that would embody the community.
[14][13] In December 1935, the group hosted its first theatrical production, The Wind and the Rain in a newly rented vacant building on Craft Avenue which would become their long term home.
His staging more challenging works such as From Morning to Midnight lead to an "art versus box office" argument with the executive board and led to Gallende's firing in 1937.
Supporting the establishment of the Pittsburgh Symphony and a dozen other social/cultural organizations by his parents, Enoch and Bertha, Richard Solomon Rauh (1893-1954) was heir to a substantial fortune from his family's men's clothing business.
Shortly after graduating in 1933 from Carnegie Mellon with a degree in performance, Helen Wayne became a founding member of the Pittsburgh Civic Playhouse, where Richard S Rauh (1893-1954) first saw her.
Since its creation in 1949, the Playhouse Jr. has remained an educational opportunity for children to receive professional instruction on acting as well as perform on an actual stage.
[14] In 1965 William Ball joined with the Pittsburgh Playhouse and founded the American Conservatory Theater with support from Carnegie Mellon University, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
[19] The change was dramatic, the plays were considered controversial, and Ball lost support of his Pittsburgh backers regarding the direction of the theater company.
[20] Long time supporters of the playhouse preferred the community, regional theater model of light comedies such as those featuring amateur actress and co-founder Helen Wayne Rauh in contrast to outside, professional actors.
[17][21] Ball and the ACT departed Pittsburgh, touring their productions after the 1965–1966 season, eventually finding a permanent home for the company in San Francisco in 1967.
[18][22] Attendance and subscriptions had dropped off significantly and the ambitious seasons had increased expenses and driven away corporate support, leaving the Playhouse in a tenuous financial position.
The financial crisis and the perceived reduction in community support for the theater lead the Playhouse's executive committee to not extend Hancock's contract for the 1967–1968 season.
[23] As part of the purchase, Point Park also acquired the Playhouse School, which grew into the University's musical theater program, now ranked among the Top 10 colleges represented on Broadway.
Shortly after, the Playhouse rented a 19th-century German social club building at the corner of Hamlet Street and Craft Avenue in the Oakland neighborhood.
[27] The original Pittsburgh Playhouse complex had many limitations, including being a converted set of buildings located far from the Point Park University campus.