Apple Hill Playhouse was the name of both a theater company and a theater building, both located in Delmont, Pennsylvania.
The theater was established by Gerta Bendl [1] as a theatre space around 1956 in a pre-Civil War barn that was part of Martz Farm. It grew when Bill Loucks and a group from Pittsburgh Playhouse expanded the building and named it the William Penn Theater. It was renamed Apple Hill Playhouse when a trio of theatre practitioners associated with Mountain Playhouse bought the building in 1964; their first production was a one-woman show starring Totie Fields. In 1982, the theater was bought by Pat Beyer, who served as artistic director for the theater until its closure in 2020. [2] [3]
Apple Hill produced a "summer season" that ran from May to October. During the summer, children's plays were produced under the moniker Johnny Appleseed Children's Theater; many of the plays are staged versions of classic stories such as Snow White , Rumpelstiltskin , Aladdin , Sleeping Beauty , Jack and the Beanstalk and The Emperor's New Clothes . [2] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Apple Hill also produced seasons of adult programming, which included contemporary plays such as Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge , Rabbit Hole , and Suite Surrender as well as plays from earlier eras such as Butterflies Are Free and The Prisoner of Second Avenue . [3] [9] [10] [11] [12] The Apple Hill company produced and performed the courtroom drama Nuts in the Westmoreland County Courthouse. [13] Apple Hill has also performed many musicals over the years, including Evita, Sweet Charity , and And the World Goes 'Round . [14] [15] [16]
On July 23, 2020, Apple Hill Playhouse announced that it would close down, in part because of the impact of the coronavirus. The theater company itself will seek a new home. [17] The building was sold in 2021. [18]