Playshop Theatre

About the Playshop Theatre

The Playshop Theatre at Allegheny College was inaugurated by Alice Huntington Spalding in 1929 with her production of Dear Brutus in Arter Hall. In the intervening years, the Playshop has produced over 500 plays including classic works by Shakespeare, Molière, Shaw, Williams, O’Neill, Miller, Wilder, and Coward, contemporary playwrights such as Sam Shepard, Tom Stoppard, Suzan-Lori Parks, Wendy Wasserstein, Tina Howe, Tony Kushner, Caryl Churchill, and Paula Vogel, and musicals including  The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Pirates of Penzance, and Carousel, as well as original works by faculty, students and visiting artists. In 2009 we moved into our new home in the Vukovich Center for Communication Arts. The Playshop season is now performed in the Gladys Mullenix Black Theatre.

Gladys Mullenix Black Theatre

The award-winning Gladys Mullenix Black Theatre, featuring a 40-foot Proscenium stage with technical systems and architectural features designed to support professional-level learning, both on-stage and backstage.

The horseshoe shape of the theatre’s seating, along with its balcony, creates a closeness and synergy between audience and actor. And the technical aspects of the theatre (including the catwalk, lighting grids, and pipe grids) are innovatively exposed, providing a unique behind-the-scenes perspective to teachers, learners , and spectators alike.

The Gladys Mullenix Black Theatre on campus is named in the honor of Gladys Black, ‘54, a trustee of Allegheny College. In 2015 she received the Alumni Medal, the college’s oldest and most prestigious alumni award. Her generous financial support of the College directly touches the lives of countless students. She has been a generous supporter of the College’s general endowment fund. She funded the Gladys Mullenix Black Theatre in the Vukovich Center for Communication Arts in 2006. Earlier, she replaced seats in the Playshop Theatre in Alden Hall in 2001, donated a gift for renovating dormitories in 2000, and supports the Annual Fund every year. Gladys was a member of the President’s Society, Timothy Alden Council, and William Bentley Legacy Society.

Show Details

For Reservations or Questions contact the Box Office at (814) 332-3414.

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