‘The Pitt’ scores 13 Emmy nominations, and a Pittsburgh hospital played a key role

After emerging as one of the hottest dramas on television, “The Pitt” enjoyed a very healthy haul when the Emmy Award nominations were announced Tuesday.

"The Pitt," an HBO Max series depicting an emergency department in Pittsburgh, secured 13 Emmy nominations Tuesday. Actors Shawn Hatosy, left, and Noah Wyle are shown in an episode of the first season. Scenes were filmed in Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. (Image credit: Warrick Page/HBO Max)

The HBO Max series earned 13 Emmy nominations, including nods for best drama, best actor in a drama for Noah Wyle, and best supporting dramatic actress for Katherine LaNasa. The series also received nominations for writing and directing, among others.

Set in a fictitious Pittsburgh trauma center, the producers and crew worked with Allegheny General Hospital in the making of the first season. While the Emmys don’t have a “supporting hospital” category, Allegheny General is an important part of the show.

While most of the series is filmed in Los Angeles, the producers spent a few days at Allegheny General to film some scenes, and hospital staff offered guidance to producers, says Dan Laurent, senior vice president of corporate communications at Highmark Health. The hospital is part of Highmark.

In an interview earlier this month, Laurent tells Chief Healthcare Executive® that he’s heartened by the show’s appeal to audiences. Critics and clinicians have praised the series for providing a riveting and realistic account of life in an emergency room.

“Obviously the success of the program is very gratifying, given the decision we made to be part of it, for sure,” Laurent says. (Check out this video on filming 'The Pitt.' The story continues below.)

While Laurent was enthusiastic about working with the producers, he says he didn’t have a sense that the first-year drama would become one of the top shows on TV.

“I don't know that we anticipated that it would be as successful as it is, but we had a real good feeling about this one,” he says.

Pittsburgh has been a draw for film and TV production, with “The Dark Knight Returns” and “Jack Reacher” among many projects shot in the Steel City. While Highmark gets requests to shoot hospital scenes from time to time, typically the organization declines, citing the challenges that come with hosting a production while caring for patients.

“Those things can be pretty intrusive when they're when you're trying to choreograph that kind of thing in an active hospital setting,” Laurent says.

But Laurent says the producers of The Pitt presented an appealing vision. They said it was going to be different from other hospital-based dramas seen on television.

He says the producers outlined their idea: “This is going to be a real, genuine look and portrait of what it's like providing care in a very busy urban trauma center.”

With that type of vision, Laurent says Highmark signed off on working with the show.

“Our focus was anything we can do to help pay tribute to those heroic folks who work on the front lines of medicine, particularly in the setting of a very busy urban trauma center emergency department,” he says. “We were all for that.”

Filming took place over three days, and the crew spent long hours on each of those days. It was no small production, with a dozen tractor-trailers and about 100 members of the cast and crew at the hospital.

The producers worked to ensure that shooting the scenes was done without interrupting hospital staff. Hospital staff and the producers talked for “dozens and dozens of hours” for months before the scenes at Allegheny General.

“We figured that we could do this in a manner that would be minimally disruptive to the day-to-day operation of the hospital, and they were very sensitive to make sure that that occurred, and they were incredibly meticulous in the planning stages,” Laurent says.

Even short scenes could take hours to shoot. An emotional scene on the rooftop only lasted a couple of minutes in the show, but required hours of takes.

“Those actors nail it every time,” Laurent says. “They keep coming back to redo the scene, until the producers have it exactly as they want it. I was very impressed by how dialed in they are and how they can pull that off.”

The producers found some unexpected luck on the day they filmed scenes of Allegheny’s helicopter on the hospital’s roof. The hospital can get 20 to 30 helicopter flights each day, so they made preparations to capture footage as quickly as possible. But on a beautiful day with blue skies, there were no flights for more than four hours.

“I told them that will never happen again,” he says with a laugh.

Allegheny General doctors and nurses offered guidance, and staff enjoyed the chance to work with the show. The second season of The Pitt is in the works and is slated to premiere in January 2026, according to Variety.

Staff are looking forward to more scenes being shot at the hospital later this year, although the hospital will be quiet about some details to avoid drawing too many crowds, given the show’s popularity.

And Laurent jokes that he’ll probably get a few staff requests to appear as an extra. But he says he’s heartened to see the success of the show and its depiction of an urban trauma center.

“We thought it would be a great, great morale booster, to be part of this national program, too, and the feedback from employees has been tremendous,” he says. “They love it.”

Look for more features on “The Pitt” in the coming days. Stay tuned!