Carnegie's Holiday Season Now Runs Through Two Stages on Main Street
October 29, 2026
October 29, 2026
"I always said if I hit the lottery I would buy a theater. I didn't hit the lottery, but I bought a theater anyway," Claire DeMarco told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette this fall. In June, the retired BNY Mellon IT executive from Kennedy paid $390,000 for the 7,000-square-foot building at 25 W. Main St. The paper described the award-winning theater as "on the verge of closing this year."
That purchase is a big reason Carnegie's holiday evenings are booked. The borough's calendar has dated a market and Small Business Saturday for November, and its December events are still to be announced. Around those, Carnegie Stage and the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall have scheduled live performances for most weeks between now and December 20.
Through the summer, Main Street's evenings were built around a set monthly date. On its Second Fridays page, Visit Carnegie describes the series as running May through September, and the page now closes with "We'll see you next year."
The Carnegie Borough calendar lists what the borough has scheduled for the holidays:
Both dated events happen during the day, and the December gatherings are still waiting on dates. The evening calendar comes from the two stages.
Carnegie Stage is small. The Post-Gazette describes 96 seats around a thrust stage, room for concessions in the lobby and rehearsal rooms on the second floor. Erika Cuenca, who worked for more than 15 years with former owners and operators Hans and Virginia Gruenert, still runs the theater day to day. DeMarco told the paper she "wouldn't have bought the theater if Erika Cuenca didn't agree to stay on." According to OnStage Pittsburgh, DeMarco owns the building through an LLC called Performers Have a Home, Cuenca operates through her own company, Heartful Work, and the venue still does business as Carnegie Stage.
The theater matters to Main Street because of who uses it. The Post-Gazette reported that Kinetic Theatre, Throughline Theatre Company and Pittsburgh International Classic Theatre have all made Carnegie Stage their home. None of these companies owns a building of its own. They need a room, and Carnegie has one. Kinetic's August production of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," directed by Andrew Paul, sold out many of its performances, according to the same article. PICT's "Refugee Rhapsody" closed its October 9 to 25 run there just last weekend.
"Spaces for artists are dwindling, and it's vital for theater artists to have a home where they can go," Cuenca told the Post-Gazette.
The biggest booking of the season is a holiday show with a dark streak. Kinetic Theatre is staging Martin McDonagh's "The Lonesome West" at Carnegie Stage from November 19 through December 20, 2026. Andrew Paul directs again, and the cast is Joseph McGranaghan, Jack Lafferty, Corey Rieger and Lexi Casey.
The play follows two brothers, Valene and Coleman, who cannot share their late father's house without fighting over almost everything. A local priest, Father Welsh, tries to make peace between them. Kinetic calls it "an outlandish and irreverent PG-13 Holiday show for the whole family." Some practical details from Kinetic:
That run spans five weekends. It covers Small Business Saturday on November 28, and it closes the weekend before Christmas.
Carnegie Stage has one long run this season. The Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall has the opposite: a different act almost every week, and some of its events land on the same nights as Kinetic. Here is the season in order, with both venues side by side:
At the library hall, the longest gap is between The Little Prince on November 22 and Emmet Otter on December 6. "The Lonesome West" plays straight through that stretch at Carnegie Stage, and the borough's Carols & Lights evening could still be scheduled there once it gets a date.
DeMarco bought the theater partly because of what surrounds it. "I think the theater will bring more people to Carnegie," she told the Post-Gazette. "There is free parking available near the theater in the evening, and it helps to have restaurants and shops nearby where people can have dinner or a coffee before or after a performance."
The newest restaurant on that walk is Lucatino Italian Taverna at 106 E. Main St., which opened earlier this year. WPXI reported that it comes from Rico Lunardi, the owner of Slice on Broadway. A run of more than four weeks at the 96-seat theater, plus a jazz night or musical at the library hall nearly every week, keeps people coming downtown after dark, which used to be the job of Second Fridays.
The ownership change has already brought back one event. The Pittsburgh New Works Festival had a six-year run at Carnegie Stage under the Gruenerts, then moved to the 150-seat Genesius Theater at Duquesne University in 2019. According to the Post-Gazette, the festival will return to Carnegie Stage next year, running late August through September. If Second Fridays comes back next year on its usual May through September schedule, the festival will overlap the series' final month, putting new one-act plays and the monthly street event on Main Street in the same weeks.
If you live near the 25 W. Main St. marquee and wonder how a busier downtown affects what your home is worth, LaRocca Real Estate Team keeps track of Carnegie's Main Street as closely as its sales. Ask for your Complimentary Home Valuation, and we'll show you how your block compares.
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