The Cheap Seats program is available to University of Pittsburgh students, faculty, and staff with a valid Pitt ID. Each person can purchase up to four tickets for all shows (with a few noted exceptions), and you can take non-Pitt people. You must be going to the performance yourself and show your Pitt ID.
Your tickets will be waiting for you one hour prior to the performance at the appropriate venue. Again, be prepared to show your valid Pitt ID at the Will Call box office. All sales are final. No returns, no exchanges.
Pitt Arts works with arts organizations to ensure that the best available seating is offered for a low price. Individuals with special needs should contact the arts organization directly in order to purchase tickets and ensure accessible seating.
Pittsburgh Cultural District Offerings
To purchase discounted Pittsburgh Cultural District offerings online, click here.
The Pittsburgh Cultural District includes:
- Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
- Pittsburgh Opera
- Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre
- Pittsburgh Cultural Trust
- Pittsburgh Public Theater
- Pittsburgh CLO
To purchase student tickets online for City Theatre, click here.
To purchase faculty/staff/other tickets for City Theatre, click here.
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
All performances at Heinz Hall, Downtown Pittsburgh
Click here to purchase discounted tickets! Be sure to click on the appropriate PROMO CODE for discounted tickets.
Bernstein and Sibelius
March 15 - 17, 2024
Students $10, $15, $20 & $25; Faculty/Staff $16.69 - $66.74 with fees
Hear the chirping of artic birds in Rautavaara’s concerto featuring recordings of nature’s vocalists alongside one of Sibelius’ best-known symphonies, showcasing his Scandanavian roots. Bernstein also takes the wisdom of Plato and translates his ancient dialogue into a conversation between violin and orchestra, featuring violinist James Ehnes
Hilary Hahn Plays Carmen Fantasy
March 22 - 24, 2024
Students $10, $15, $20 & $25; Faculty/Staff $16.69 - $66.74 with fees
Hilary Hahn brings the spice of Ginastera's Violin Concerto and Sarsate’s Carmen Fantasy to life. Crack the code of Elgar’s Enigma Variations on the latter half of the program, where the composer playfully depicts the personality of his various friends throughout each movement along with a deeper puzzle that has yet to be solved.
The Voyage: Thibaudet Plays the “Egyptian"
April 5 & 7, 2024
Students $10, $15, $20 & $25; Faculty/Staff $16.69 - $66.74 with fees
Often used to depict hauntings and Halloween, Bach’s famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor opens the program, followed by Saint-Saëns’ glorified travelogue in his “Egyptian” piano concerto. Hear sounds of the Nile and other nods to the Middle East, played by the glamorously virtuosic Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
Fascinatin' Rhythm: A Gershwin Celebration
April 12 - 14, 2024
Students $10, $15, $20 & $25; Faculty/Staff $16.69 - $68.69 with fees
Celebrate George Gershwin’s 125th birthday with the PSO Pops! Featuring popular Gershwin favorites like "Someone To Watch Over Me," "I’ve Got Rhythm" and "They Can’t Take That Away From Me." Singing sensation Sydney McSweeney highlights the orchestra with "Strike Up The Band" and "Rhapsody in Blue!"
Let’s RACH!: Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Piano Concerto
April 19 & 21, 2024
Students $10, $15, $20 & $25; Faculty/Staff $16.69 - $66.74 with fees
Experience one of the biggest works in classical music as Leif Ove Andsnes performs Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto. Then Liszt’s depiction of Dante’s Divine Comedy will lead the listener through the complexity of Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso in this Pittsburgh premiere.
Beethoven Symphony No. 9
April 25 - 28, 2024
Students $10, $15, $20 & $25; Faculty/Staff $16.69 - $66.74 with fees
Experience the grandeur of Beethoven 9, and celebrate the 200th anniversary of the premiere, which took place in May 1824 in Vienna. Also, hear the world premiere of a new work by Canadian conductor and composer, Samy Moussa.
Pittsburgh Opera
Click here to purchase discounted tickets! Be sure to click on the appropriate PROMO CODE for discounted tickets.
La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi
March 16, 19, 22 & 24, 2024
Benedum Center, Downtown
Students $11 - $36; Faculty/Staff $11 - $46
A courtesan among the elite, Violetta Valéry knows that she will die soon so she lives life to the fullest. Only the love of the doting Alfredo can sweep her away from these sensual delights. Violetta and Alfredo’s love threatens to bring shame to his family and ruin his sister's marriage prospects. As her illness worsens, will love slip away as well?
The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson
April 27, 30, May 3 & 5, 2024
Byham Theater, Downtown
Students $11 - $33; Faculty/Staff $11 - $40
In 1943, the National Negro Opera Company is set to perform on a floating barge to evade racially-segregated venues. But when bad weather threatens—pushing the performance to a segregated performance hall—visionary impressaria Mary Cardwell Dawson must find a way forward.
Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre
Click here to purchase discounted tickets! Be sure to click on the appropriate PROMO CODE for discounted tickets.
Spring Mix with the PBT Orchestra
April 5 - 7, 2024
Benedum Center, Downtown
Students $26 for all seating; Faculty/Staff $22 - $86
The spring mixed repertory program will be fresh as a daisy, featuring pieces selected by Adam W. McKinney in his new role as PBT’s artistic director, including a commissioned world premiere by Pittsburgh-based choreographer, Jae Man Joo. Also lighting up the Benedum stage will be the vibrant colors and high energy of Helen Pickett’s sparkling Petal and the exhilarating piece George Balanchine declared “everything I know about classical ballet in thirteen minutes,” his exuberant and joyous Allegro Brilliante.
Cinderella with the PBT Orchestra
May 17 - May 19, 2024
Benedum Center, Downtown
Students $26 for all seating; Faculty/Staff $22 - $86
Will Cinderella dance her way to the royal ball and meet her prince before the clock strikes midnight? Get swept away by this entrancing rags to romance story, and fall in love with the classical choreography, magnificent costumes & sets and – of course – a fairy tale ending that’s just the perfect fit.
Pittsburgh Cultural Trust
Click here to purchase discounted tickets! Be sure to click on the appropriate PROMO CODE for discounted tickets. Please be advised that there is an additional ticket charge handling fee.
Shawn Farquhar in Déjà Vu - An experience to remember – Liberty Magic
March 6 - 17, 2024
Liberty Magic, Downtown
Students/ Faculty/Staff: $20.75 & $65
Shawn Farquhar presents his newest magic venture, Déjà Vu: An Experience to Remember, as part of Liberty Magic’s 2023-2024 season. It will be a “choose your own adventure” program in which various lucky members of the audience will guide the direction of the show. No two shows will ever be the same during his residency at Liberty Magic.
Grease - Pittsburgh Musical Theater
March 7 - 17, 2024
Byham Theater, Downtown
Students/ Faculty/Staff: $13.25 Balcony Seating
With a hip-shaking rock 'n' roll score featuring hits like "Summer Nights," "Greased Lightnin'," and "We Go Together," Grease celebrates Rydell High's class of 1959 in all their duck-tailed, bobby-soxed, gum-snapping glory.
Billy Kidd in Bridging the Gap – Liberty Magic
March 20 - 31, 2024
Liberty Magic, Downtown
Students/ Faculty/Staff: $20.75 & $65
Bridging the Gap is full of surprises. Don't blink! Billy Kidd, a trained escapologist, performs feats that nobody should try at home. Huge objects appear from nowhere, and small objects vanish right before your eyes. Audience participation and interaction make this international spectacle fun, exciting, and completely perplexing.
Ragamala Dance Company: Sacred Earth- Dentons Cohen & Grigsby Trust Presents
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Byham Theater, Downtown
Students/ Faculty/Staff: $15.75 - $30.75
Sacred Earth explores the interconnectedness between human emotions and the environments that shape them. The dancers create a sacred space to honor the divinity in the natural world and the sustenance we derive from it.
Mamma Mia! - PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh
March 26 - 31, 2024
Benedum Center, Downtown
Students/ Faculty/Staff: $34 - $94.25
Set on a Greek island paradise where the sun always shines, a tale of love, friendship, and identity is beautifully told through the timeless hits of ABBA. On the eve of her wedding, a daughter’s quest to discover the father she’s never known brings three men from her mother’s past back to the island they last visited decades ago.
Naathan Phan & Hayden Allcorn in History of Magic: Part 1 – Liberty Magic
April 3 - May 12, 2024
Liberty Magic, Downtown
Students/ Faculty/Staff: $20.75 & $65
It's finally here: Liberty Magic's first ever two-magician show... and it promises to be unlike any other program we've ever brought to you! History of Magic: Part 1 is a sketch comedy show featuring magic, singing, stage combat, sideshow, and more to satirize magic from its birth in 2700BC all the way up to modern day.
Blizzard - Bridge Theater Series
April 6 & 7, 2024
Byham Theater, Downtown
General Admission: $11
With "Blizzard," FLIP Fabrique takes you on a crazy, poetic and gentle journey in the dead of winter and invites you to lose yourself in a moment of complete wonder. With performers at the peak of their art and outstanding visual poetry, "Blizzard" promises to blow away everything in its path.
Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up In My Bones: Excerpts in Concert - Dentons Cohen & Grigsby Trust Presents
Tuesday, April 9, 2024, 8 p.m.
Byham Theater, Downtown
Students/ Faculty/Staff: $18.13 - $40.63
Terence Blanchard composed his second opera, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, based on the memoir of celebrated writer and The New York Times columnist Charles Blow. Not only is this a masterwork, but a cultural flashpoint. The message? That opera and classical music is for EVERYONE.
Rock 'N Remember Live! - Spotlight Productions
Saturday, April13, 2024
Benedum Center, Downtown
Students/ Faculty/Staff: $44.73 - $80.73
You will have the time of your life at this celebration of the greatest music of the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Company - PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh
April 16 - 21, 2024
Benedum Center, Downtown
Students/ Faculty/Staff: $34 - $94.25
This revelatory new production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s groundbreaking musical comedy, at once boldly sophisticated, deeply insightful, and downright hilarious.
It’s Bobbie’s 35th birthday party, and all her friends keep asking, why isn’t she married? Why can’t she find the right man and isn’t it time to settle down and start a family? As Bobbie searches for answers, she discovers why being single, being married, and being alive in the 21st-century could drive a person crazy.
Vertigo Dance Company - Pittsburgh Dance Council
Saturday, April 20, 2024
Byham Theater, Downtown
Students/ Faculty/Staff: $15 - $38.25
Founded by Noa Wertheim and Adi Shaal, Vertigo Dance Company has been sharing their work for over 30 years—providing audiences with unexpected and exciting journeys of unfamiliar territories. In Makom (Hebrew for "Place"), Noa Wertheim engages spirituality with existentialism, our inner world with life around us.
Pittsburgh Public Theater
All performances at the O’Reilly Theater, Downtown Pittsburgh
Students $16.50, Faculty/Staff $27.50
Click here to purchase discounted tickets! Be sure to click on the appropriate PROMO CODE for discounted tickets.
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde • Adapted by Jenny Koons
March 27 - April 14, 2024
Step into a world of sparkling conversation, romance, and sheer absurdity! Oscar Wilde’s wonderfully entertaining “trivial comedy for serious people” introduces two debonair bachelors, Jack and Algernon, who each lead a hidden double life. When a weekend in the country gives their alter egos the chance to win the hearts of two society ladies, they learn that keeping track of their lavish web of lies may be a bit harder than they realize. The plot twists and turns will at once keep you on the edge of your seat and doubled over in fits of laughter.
The Coffin Maker by Mark Clayton Southers
May 29 - June 16, 2024
In this new installment of his century-spanning chronicle of the Black experience inspired by his mentor August Wilson, Pittsburgh theater legend Mark Clayton Southers turns back the clock to 1849 Oklahoma. There, free man Lawrence Ebitts and his wife Eula live peacefully preparing bodies for burial with care and respect, until their world is turned upside down by a bounty hunter who gets more than he bargained for and a fugitive determined to forge his own future.
Pittsburgh CLO
All performances at the Benedum Center, Downtown Pittsburgh
Click here to purchase discounted tickets! Be sure to click on the appropriate PROMO CODE for discounted tickets.
There are no Cheap Seats offering for the Pittsburgh CLO at this time. Please, check back in late Spring to purchase tickets for their 2024 Summer Season.
City Theatre
All performances at 1300 Bingham Street, South Side Pittsburgh
$15.00 for Students with code CITYUPS
$27.00 for Faculty/Staff/Osher with code CITYUPF
Click here to purchase student tickets online.
Click here to purchase faculty/staff/other tickets online.
Fat Ham by James Ijames
March 2 – 24, 2024
This uproariously funny, Pulitzer Prize-winning new play comes to us straight from Broadway! A modern revamp of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Fat Ham follows Juicy, a queer, pensive, young Black man finding his way in the world, when the ghost of his father demands Juicy avenges his murder. Set at the family cookout, this “hilarious yet profound tragedy smothered in comedy” (The New York Times) examines love, loss, and a particular set of daddy issues.
Andy Warhol in Iran by Brent Askari
April 20 – May 12, 2024
In 1976, celebrity artist Andy Warhol traveled to Iran to take Polaroid pictures of the Shah’s wife. This Imagined experience of an encounter with a young Iranian radical is a fiery, thought-provoking drama about art, revolution, and discovering a world beyond yourself.