Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre Tickets

The journey towards a legitimate ballet company began in 1965 when Nicolas Petrov was working at 'Pittsburgh Playhouse' as a choreographer. Coming from Yugoslavia, he already had a different idea of ballet in his mind than the Americans did, and by 1968, he had trained many of his students into performing in the traditional way. In many ways, this is what has led to the company's prestige today; because its foundation was laid on the very basis of pure ballet, as it is meant to be. Later on, there were a few more choreographers and directors who added their own knowledge of the discipline into the repertoire and diversified the company.

In its history, there have been a total of four creative directors who have responsible for heading the company into its definitive direction. After Petrov, it was Patricia Wilde who took over the ballet in the 80s. She was the former principal dancer at the 'New York City Ballet', which even today remains one of the highest honors for a dancer. When she took over the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre as the artistic director, the ballet reached a different level of success, this time on a nationwide level. They began to gain a reputation for their impeccable technique and for innovating and coming up with new, modern recitals instead of playing just classical ones. She introduced the original work of her mentor, under whom she herself had trained, George Balanchine. After she had retired, in the late 90s, the company was handed over to Terrence S. Orr, who like Wilde was the principle dancer at the 'American Ballet Theatre' in additional to being a ballet master. During his tenure, the signature style that he adopted was putting his own twists on traditional ballets. He wanted to recreate the pieces such that they would fit into the modern day. He would also encourage the choreographers to create dances to contemporary music so that they could be relevant and leave a mark on history for their own style as well. He wanted to truly expand the horizons and scope of ballet in Pittsburgh so that it could be known as the place where the art form was enriched. Since then, every year, the company puts forth over 50 performances. They also sell Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre tickets for the various tours that they do when they want to promote a particular production outside of the state. Moreover, they always want to reach as many people as they possibly can so that they can leave their mark in ballet history.

Currently, it is Terrence S. Orr who is serving as the artist director to the ballet. He has been working for the company for nearly 14 years now and has made several significant contributions that have led to its success. These consist of conducting 17 original recitals that helped the dancers and choreographers to elevate their technical ability even more. Once they were absolutely perfect in technique, they could take the risk to tweak and modify a ballet staple, 'The Nutcracker'. This became another one of Orr's contributions that was most noted. After its amazing reception, the PBT gained confidence to experiment with other classical ballets in the same way. Other than concentrating on the performance front, he is also particularly enthusiastic about teaching the art form to students all over the city. In this endeavor, he is assisted by his wife, Marianna Tcherkassky, who used to be the principle dancer at the ABT and is currently the ballet mistress at the PBT. She helps him in creating new ballets that would attract the modern minded audiences, and to train their existing roster of dancers so they too can achieve the high standards that the 'American Ballet Theatre' and other productions in New York have.