The Greer Caberet Theatre

Performing arts venues are among today’s secular temples, and the Greer Cabaret Theater, located within the Michael Gravesdesigned Theater Square Garage in Pittsburgh’s Cultural District, is a cultural icon cherished by local theatergoers. Before the Greer embarked on its second decade, its operator, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, held a competition to transform its black box format into an intimate cabaret venue on a par with such New York venues as Joe’s Pub and 54 Below. In addition, the Trust sought to reconfigure its beloved Backstage Bar, dropping from 250 seats to 200 to support small-scaled musical acts while enhancing its popular food and beverage service, to integrate the lobbies for the box office and bar as a single, grand space, and to give the Greer visibility on the street, producing what Scott Shiller, senior vice president of the Trust, described as a “street to seat experience.” The renovation proposed by BR Design ushered patrons into a sleek, spacious lobby opening simultaneously to the theater and the bar, imparting a crisp, contemporary look to the cabaret beneath an orbital chandelier, and turning the bar into an illuminated, jewel like object to make evenings at the Greer sparkle in more ways than one.