On Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, the Klemann Brothers Band set up on a porch along McKean Street and played to the people walking between the Butler Area Public Library and the Maridon Museum. Cast members from the Musical Theatre Guild sang outside the museum. Hobnob Theatre performers did improv at the library, and Steve Harding of the Butler Arts Center gave a ceramics demonstration inside the Maridon.
That evening returns on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026, from 5 to 7:30 p.m. It's easy to read the listing as a small fall street party. The pricing and the timing tell you more. A Taste of McKean is planned as the opening act of a downtown theater night. It's priced to pull in people who already have a show ticket, and its hours run right up to show time.
The wristband shows who the evening is for
A wristband gets you the food, wine and ale along the street. If you have a digital ticket to Penn Theater's Dueling Pianos or to the Musical Theatre Guild's Side Show, the wristband is free. If you don't, it costs $10 at the Butler Public Library or the Maridon Museum.
The 2025 edition worked the same way. The Butler Eagle called that night "an appetizer" for people already headed to one of two shows downtown, Vino Veritas at the Butler Little Theatre or Dueling Pianos at the Penn Theater. Ticket holders got their wristbands free. This year the event falls on the opening night of Side Show, so it lines up with the start of a musical run.
County Commissioner Leslie Osche is also a project director for the Butler Rotary Club PM's Cultural District. Last year she called the evening "an opportunity for people to enjoy the museum and the library and all of the offerings that we have there." Put that next to the wristband rules and the goal is clear. Someone who bought a ticket for a show ends up in the library and the museum first.
How the clock works on Oct. 16
The street event overlaps both shows that night, so ticket holders have to decide when to leave McKean Street.
- Penn Theater, Dueling Pianos Full Moon Sessions: doors at 6 p.m., show from 7 to 10 p.m.
- Musical Theatre Guild, Side Show: Friday performances start at 7:30 p.m. at the William A. Lehnerd Performance Hall & Production Center in Butler Memorial Park.
- A Taste of McKean: 5 to 7:30 p.m. on McKean Street.
Penn Theater's doors open an hour into the street event, and Dueling Pianos starts half an hour before A Taste of McKean ends. Side Show starts at 7:30, the same minute the street event wraps up, and Lehnerd Hall is in Butler Memorial Park, not on McKean Street. Either way, you'll need to leave McKean Street early to make your curtain.
Walking it, stop by stop
The event runs between two institutions about a block apart on North McKean. Here's a sensible order for the evening:
- Butler Area Public Library, 218 N. McKean St. The library is hosting a "Book Tasting," and magician Steve Haberman will stroll the library grounds from 5 to 7 p.m. You can buy a wristband here. The library's posted Friday hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., so the event starts when the regular day ends.
- The porches in between. This is where the Rotary porch-decorating contest is judged during the event.
- The Maridon Museum, 322 N. McKean St. The museum is hosting "Art and Appetizers" and origami folding, and it's open to visitors free with a ticket. The museum's fall exhibition, One Stitch at a Time, opens Oct. 7, so the event night falls in its second week. The show features embroidered objects, including a Chinese lady's jacket.
The Maridon is normally open Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. On event night you get into the exhibition after those hours and with no separate admission.
The porch contest is how the street joins in
The Rotary Club of Butler and the Butler Cultural District run the Fall/Halloween Porch Decorating Contest together. Entries need a fall or Halloween theme. You can enter online or drop a printed form at the front desk of the Butler Public Library. Prizes are packages of tickets and gift certificates for local cultural and culinary attractions.
Last year, eight homes and businesses up and down McKean Street entered. They competed in two categories, fall-themed and Halloween-themed. "Boy Scout Troop 6, along with a couple of our Rotarians, are judging the porch decorating contest," Osche told the Eagle that night. The judges walked the street during the event, and the awards were announced at the end of the evening.
The 2026 contest materials don't list an entry deadline or which streets qualify. The form just asks for a street address. Judging happens on Oct. 16, so if you live or run a business nearby and want to enter, get your entry in well before then.
Who put this corridor together
A Taste of McKean is one piece of a larger project. The Butler Cultural District was proposed publicly in December 2021. Butler Rotary Club PM started it and has coordinated it with local leaders, artists, venues and organizations, and early coverage named Osche as project chair. By spring 2022, committees for events, signage, marketing, funding and artscape were at work.
Pennsylvania's Creative Communities program lists the project for 2023 to 2027, with the Butler Rotary Foundation as lead partner. Its listed partners include the Rotary Club of Butler, Slippery Rock University, Butler Downtown, the Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau, the Butler Area School District, the Maridon Museum and the City of Butler. The District's venue directory lists the Butler Art Center & Gallery, Butler County Historical Society, Maridon Museum, Butler County Symphony Orchestra, Butler Little Theatre, Hobnob Theatre Co., Musical Theatre Guild and Penn Theater.
Most of those venues already have their own audiences. A Taste of McKean puts several of them in front of each other's ticket holders on a single night. In 2025, a library woodturning demonstration by Ken Hertzog ran the same evening as theater cast members singing outside the museum.
What the corridor holds after Oct. 16
The same venues keep a full calendar through the end of the year:
| Date | What | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Oct. 7 – Nov. 21 | One Stitch at a Time exhibition | Maridon Museum, 322 N. McKean St. |
| Oct. 17, 18, 23, 24 | Side Show, remaining performances | Lehnerd Performance Hall, Butler Memorial Park |
| Nov. 7, 7:30 p.m. | Butler County Symphony, The Planets | Butler Intermediate High School, 551 Fairground Hill Road |
| Dec. 4 – 12, except Monday | It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play | Butler Little Theatre, 1 Howard St. |
| Dec. 5, 7:30 p.m. | Holiday Traditions 2026 | Butler Intermediate High School |
Side Show's Friday and Saturday performances start at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday shows start at 3 p.m. Maridon admission on regular days is $4 for adults, $3 for seniors and students, and free for children under 8. At Butler Little Theatre, It's a Wonderful Life is set inside a 1940s radio station and uses vintage sound effects. Its running time is 90 minutes. The symphony's Holiday Traditions listing includes the community choir, a new local-history presentation, Santa photos and cookies after the concert.
If you have a Side Show or Dueling Pianos ticket for Oct. 16, your wristband is free. Plan to reach the library by 5 p.m. so you get as much time on McKean Street as possible before you leave for your show.
Jennie Spohn-Rousseau has Butler County roots and follows what's happening around downtown Butler. If you'd like more local guides like this one, or you have questions about the neighborhoods around McKean Street, Jennie Spohn is happy to help. Let's Connect.
