Benedum Center Gets New Seats

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Twenty-five years have passed since the old Stanley Theater was re-born as the Benedum Center.

Twenty-five years of wear-and-tear on the theater's 2,881 seats, and now stage hands are in the midst of a three-and-a-half week refurbishment.

Operations manager Jacob Bacharach says the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust aims to retain the aesthetics of the originals: "To keep everything looking as if it's brand new, as if it's 1927 and the Stanley Theater just opened."

The $450,000-project is a blend of restoration and replacement.

"We are effectively dis-assembling every seat, replacing every seat cushion with a new seat cushion, replacing every back with new padding, refurbishing and fixing some of the mechanical portions of the seats, the springs, the brackets and the standards that hold them in place."

Three of the seats will be eliminated to make room for sound and light boards in the back of the auditorium. Cushions that audience members will be sitting on come fully formed from a large seating company in Michigan.

The project will be completed January 26th, just in time for a performance the following day.