Apple Hill Playhouse
Apple Hill Playhouse was both a theater company and a theater building in Delmont, Pennsylvania. It began around 1956 when Gerta Bendl opened a small theatre in a pre-Civil War barn on Martz Farm. The company grew after Bill Loucks and a group from Pittsburgh Playhouse expanded the space and named it the William Penn Theater. In 1964, a trio connected with Mountain Playhouse bought the building and renamed it Apple Hill Playhouse, with their first production being a one-woman show by Totie Fields. In 1982, Pat Beyer bought the theatre and served as artistic director until it closed in 2020.
Apple Hill ran a summer season from May to October. The children’s plays were produced under the Johnny Appleseed Children’s Theater and often adapted classic stories like Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Jack and the Beanstalk, and The Emperor’s New Clothes. For adults, the company staged contemporary works such as Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge, Rabbit Hole, and Suite Surrender, as well as older plays like Butterflies Are Free and The Prisoner of Second Avenue. Apple Hill also produced and performed the courtroom drama Nuts in the Westmoreland County Courthouse, and put on musicals such as Evita, Sweet Charity, and And the World Goes ’Round.
On July 23, 2020, Apple Hill Playhouse announced its closure, partly due to the coronavirus, and said it would seek a new home. The building was sold in 2021.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 04:43 (CET).