Very Honorable Mention

Marie Nugent-Head, Development/fundraising. Her talent was not only finding money but also presenting Pittsburgh Public Theater in a most elegant and reasonable light when very few believed we’d get beyond a first season. Boulie gave credibility to the cause among non-local funding sources.

Edith Oliver Rea, first casting and outreach program director, Didi was born and bred to the challenges of producing quality theater.

Cynthia J. Tutera was the theater’s first bookkeeper, accountant, keeper and trustee of our money-in- and-out.  She was the best possible partner in managing to keep within our committed budgets. As of the 30th year of the theater, Cindy was still there.

Joan Apt and Margaret Rieck, co-founders who contributed their homes, their kitchens, their money, their talents for fundraising, community relations, subscription development and judgment regarding all things theatrical. Loved every (almost) minute working with them and getting to know them and their families. They were brilliant collaborators.

Art Cowles, Jr. who was on the Board of Directors for most if not all of my era; and who was on the side of going further, stretching our fundraising, engaging best possible administrators, personal cheerleader and jazzman.

George Anderson was chief theater critic for Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and always dealt us a square hand. Best was he could write with such enthusiasm for the art of live theater whether he loved it, liked it, or disliked it.  I don’t think hate was ever taken out of his writer’s file. A jazzman.

Pete Flaherty, Louise Brown, Carol Brown—Mayor, Parks and Recreation Director, and regional arts leader respectively: They gave us our own space to be born in and to grow. These three were the true midwives of PPT.

Peter Zeisler was the president of the Theatre Communications Group of New York and the godfather of every regional theater that opened during his extensive tenure in the 1970s and 1980s. TCG was the organization that protected regional theaters and let them develop into a movement throughout the country.  Peter visited Pittsburgh many times and usually brought along other theater leaders because he saw the PPT model as one that succeeded against a history of failure.  Peter became a friend.

Richard Caligiuri, the Mayor of Pittsburgh in 1979, who presented himself on stage at the opening of our fifth anniversary season, to praise our work, pledge his continued support and challenge us to keep our promise that by 1983 steps would be achieved leading to building a new, larger Pittsburgh Public Theater in the center of downtown Pittsburgh.

Managing Directors 1975-82
In order of appearance

Raymond J. Hanley, Karl Gevecker, Thomas Bodanetsky, Howard J. Millman, Dennis Babcock.

Stage Managers 1975-82
In order of appearance

Margaret Peckham, David Rosenak, Douglas R. Berman, Roy W. Backes, Mimi Jordan Sherin, John Wells, Penelope Sharp, Patricia Hannigan, Jere W. Lamp, John J. Mulligan, Lois J. Kier,