The Lovelace Theatre was a puppet theater in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania. The Lovelace Marionette Theatre was the first professional puppet company in the United States to stage performances on a regular schedule for audiences that assembled in a permanent theatrical venue dedicated to that purpose. This was the realization of her lifelong dream of owning and operating a professional puppet theater.
Since the early s the Lovelace Marionettes had strictly been a traveling troupe, performing in malls, department stores, schools and arts festivals in Western Pennsylvania , Ohio and West Virginia.
The company was based out of Ms. Lovelace's basement and later the East Liberty warehouse in the neighborhood of East Liberty. The new Lovelace Theatre catered primarily to birthday parties for children ages 4 to Lovelace, some of her adult children and a curious band of volunteers that she had trained, staged marionette plays from a repertoire of folk and fairy tales, fables and adaptations of various popular children's films.
The children's shows continued on weekend afternoons, and the adult programs played in the evening. In , when they outgrew the little theater on Ellsworth Avenue, the Lovelace Theatre took up residence for their final five seasons at the Carnegie Museum of Art , performing on Saturdays and Sundays in the seat film auditorium in the lower level of the Scaife Gallery.
Upon her retirement in , Margo Lovelace donated her entire collection of puppets and masks to the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh. In June Pittsburgh City Councilman William Peduto introduced a resolution which was unanimously approved by Council declaring July 24 to be "Margo Lovelace Day," to honor her "undiminished service to the Pittsburgh community," her "inspirational influence on youngsters, students, educators and audiences of many varieties," and her "numerous and diverse artistic accomplishments.
