{"id":173742,"date":"2026-04-23T11:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T11:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/173742\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T11:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T11:12:07","slug":"a-troupe-departs-but-carnegie-stage-space-might-live-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/173742\/","title":{"rendered":"A troupe departs, but Carnegie Stage space might live on"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is WESA Arts, a weekly newsletter by Bill O’Driscoll providing in-depth reporting about the Pittsburgh area art scene.\u00a0Sign up here to get it every Wednesday afternoon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since 2012, when it relocated from Washington, Pa., off the WALL Theater has occupied a big storefront on West Main Street, in Carnegie. There it staged 79 works, including this month\u2019s Pittsburgh premiere of Jennifer Haley\u2019s drama \u201cBreadcrumbs.\u201d<\/p>\n

When that show closed this past Saturday, it marked the conclusion of off the WALL\u2019s run of producing vibrant independent theater<\/a> here. But there\u2019s hope it\u2019s not curtains for the venue known as Carnegie Stage<\/a>, which though small has become an increasingly important part of Pittsburgh\u2019s theater scene.<\/p>\n

The troupe was founded in 2007 by businessman Hans Gruenert and theater artist Virginia Wall Gruenert with a focus on highlighting contemporary plays by women playwrights and creating opportunities for women artists.<\/p>\n

The venue is a black box, with about 75 seats, but artistically it punched above its weight. Some of the plays were by locally based playwrights; others were contemporary critical favorites like Paula Vogel\u2019s \u201cHow I Learned to Drive,\u201d Sarah Kane\u2019s \u201c4.48 Psychosis,\u201d Sarah Kosar\u2019s \u201cMumburger,\u201d Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogart\u2019s \u201cThe Musical of Musicals: The Musical\u201d and Lisa Kron\u2019s \u201cWell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many, perhaps most, of these plays wouldn\u2019t have otherwise been staged in Pittsburgh. Neither would most of the small touring productions off the WALL hosted \u2014 even as some of its own, including Virginia Gruenert\u2019s \u201cShaken and Stirred\u201d and \u201cMother Lode,\u201d went on to stages in New York City. Gruenert frequently performed in off the WALL shows, including \u201cBreadcrumbs,\u201d in which she acted with Erika Cuenca, the troupe\u2019s associate artistic director and another Carnegie Stage favorite.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, \u201cMother Lode\u201d made its Icelandic premiere at a theater in Reykjavik. \u201cBreadcrumbs,\u201d too, is headed to Iceland, and that\u2019s no coincidence: The Gruenerts quietly left the U.S. for that country in 2020 \u2014 as Hans Gruenert puts it, \u201cduring the first Trump term,\u201d seeking somewhere \u201cwhere culture is a little more appreciated.\u201d (Gruenert, who was born in Germany, has dual citizenship in the EU.)<\/p>\n

The couple sold the Carnegie Stage building but is still leasing the space. That lease expires in early 2027, putting Pittsburgh at risk of losing not only off the WALL\u2019s own offerings, but a rental space for other small local companies and productions.<\/p>\n

Indeed, just in recent years, Carnegie Stage has hosted shows by troupes like Throughline Theater Company (\u201cUncle Vanya\u201d), PICT Classic Theatre (\u201cFirst Lady\u201d<\/a>), and Kinetic Theatre, including the latter\u2019s Pittsburgh premiere of famed playwright Martin McDonough\u2019s dark comedy \u201cHangmen.\u201d Other local theatrical highlights of 2025 included a staging of Jen Silverman\u2019s \u201cWitch\u201d by an ad hoc group of local artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love being there,\u201d says PICT development and relationship manager Carolyn Ludwig. PICT has staged four shows at Carnegie Stage, and in May alone will use the space for both a two-day fundraiser (a staged reading of \u201cThe Winter\u2019s Tale\u201d<\/a>) and its Bards from the Burgh reading series.<\/p>\n

Kinetic founding artistic director Andrew Paul agrees with Ludwig that Pittsburgh has a dearth of small and mid-sized theater spaces. Carnegie Stage is less expensive than most venues in the city proper, and both Paul and Ludwig said Carnegie\u2019s business district, with its taverns, restaurants and nearby spots like the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, complements their theatrical offerings well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel at Carnegie we have a place in the community,\u201d Ludwig says.<\/p>\n

While Paul says a few longtime Kinetic supporters refused to drive to Carnegie, Ludwig says PICT\u2019s patrons, most of whom live in Pittsburgh\u2019s East End, have proved willing to travel the extra 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Hans Gruenert has some good news: a promising potential buyer for the Carnegie Stage building who wants to keep it a theater.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s somebody who everybody in Pittsburgh knows,\u201d he says. Gruenert says a closing is expected within weeks.<\/p>\n

A new owner would face some challenges, including keeping prices low enough for the kind of troupes that want to work there: Gruenert says off the WALL lost money on its rentals. But in a time when larger and more established theater companies are consolidating to survive<\/a>, better one theater more than one less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is WESA Arts, a weekly newsletter by Bill O’Driscoll providing in-depth reporting about the Pittsburgh area art…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-173742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-pittsburgh","9":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","10":"tag-pittsburgh-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}