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Formation | 1915 |
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Type | Theatre group |
Location |
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Artistic director(s) | Laura Kepley |
Website | www.clevelandplayhouse.com |
![]() | This article needs to be updated. The reason given is: Article needs info on demolition.(January 2023) |
Cleveland Play House (CPH) is a professional regional theater company located in Cleveland, Ohio. It was founded in 1915 and built its own noted theater complex in 1927. Currently the company performs at the Allen Theatre in Playhouse Square where it has been based since 2011. [1]
Cleveland Play House is organized like most American theater companies, with a board of directors and a number of administrators. The Board of Directors is chaired by Anne Marie Warren. The Artistic Director is Laura Kepley. The Managing Director was Kevin Moore until his death in 2020. [2] The theater's national directors are Alan Alda, Austin Pendleton, and Joel Grey.
The theatre received the 2015 Regional Theatre Tony Award on June 7, 2015 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. [3]
In the early 1900s Cleveland theatre featured mostly vaudeville, melodrama, burlesque and light entertainment. In 1915 a select group of ten Clevelanders met in the home of Charles S. and Minerva Brooks to discuss the formation of an Art Theatre. Those present in addition to the Brooks were Walter and Julia McCune Flory, Raymond O'Neil, Ernest and Katharine Angell, Henry and Anna Hohnhorst, George Clisbee, Grace Treat, and Marthena Barrie. Together, they formed Cleveland Play House and named O'Neil as the Director. [4] Their initial productions were performed in a home donated by Cleveland industrialist Francis Drury located at East 85th and Euclid Avenue. O'Neil was a devotee of the artistic ideals of Edward Gordon Craig, and the Play House's earliest productions reflect this. The founders of the Play House were bohemians and suffragists, and were thus outsiders in conservative Cleveland society. As a result, the Play House in its early years performed for a select group of individuals interested in avant-garde art, rather than the larger community of Cleveland. [5]
The Play House was founded midway through a decade of cultural renaissance in Cleveland. Through a partnership of idealistic vision and philanthropic largess, many of Cleveland's major cultural organizations were formed between 1910 and 1920—Cleveland Music School Settlement, Karamu House, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
After moving through several facilities in its first two years, the Play House purchased and renovated a church at Cedar Avenue and East 73rd Street, and opened the Cedar Avenue Theatre in December 1917. The new facility seated 160 and marked a turn toward professionalism. Soon after this, the Play House began to struggle financially, and the Board of Directors became increasingly dissatisfied with Raymond O'Neil's leadership. The resulting arguments led to O'Neil's resignation in 1921. [6] The board subsequently hired Frederic McConnell as the next Director, along with his associates K. Elmo Lowe and Max Eisenstat as assistants. The three transformed CPH into a popular regional theatre, ushering in a long era of growth and prosperity. [7]
A new Cleveland Play House facility, built in 1927, housed the Brooks Theatre and the Drury Theatre. To accommodate its growth, CPH in 1949 opened the 77th Street Theatre in a converted church, which featured America's first open stage – the forerunner of the thrust stage that was popularized in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1980s, the 77th Street Theatre was closed, Cleveland Play House purchased the Sears building and the world-renowned architect Philip Johnson designed significant additions for the complex, including the Bolton Theatre. With the 1927 buildings, the Sears building and the Johnson buildings taken together, the complex for CPH became the largest regional theatre complex in the country.
In 2009, through a collaboration called "The Power of Three," CPH partnered with Playhouse Square and Cleveland State University to create the new Allen Theatre Complex in downtown Cleveland. [8] In July 2009, CPH sold its building at 86th Street and Euclid Avenue to Cleveland Clinic. In September 2011, CPH kicked off its 96th consecutive season in the transformed Allen Theatre at Playhouse Square. Two new venues adjacent to the Allen Theatre came on board in January 2012, the Second Stage (renamed the Outcalt Theatre in 2014) and the Helen Rosenfeld Lewis Bialosky Lab Theatre. A new production center is now located along the lakeshore in Cleveland, and administrative offices and education center are on East 13th Street.
The list of plays and playwrights that have had premiers at Cleveland Play House is impressive, the most notable being Tennessee Williams' You Touched Me, and Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage . [9] Other notable premiers include The Pleasure of Honesty by Luigi Pirandello, Simone by Ben Hecht, Translations by Brian Friel, A Decent Birth by William Saroyan, Command by William Wister Haines, Ten Times Table by Alan Ayckbourn, The March on Russia by David Storey, The Archbishop's Ceiling by Arthur Miller, First Monday in October by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, Lillian by William Luce, The Cemetery Club by Ivan Menchell, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel, Jerusalem by Seth Greenland, The Smell of the Kill by Michele Lowe, and Bright Ideas by Eric Coble. Cleveland Play House continues to have a strong commitment to new works, especially those written by Ohio playwrights. The current policy for submission of new plays only permits unsolicited works to be submitted by playwrights who currently reside in the state of Ohio.
At least one mainstage production in each season is a new play.
The Playwrights' Unit is a group of experienced, accomplished playwrights from the Cleveland area who receive creative and administrative support from Cleveland Play House. The Unit meets regularly with members of the CPH artistic staff, where they read their works-in-progress and provide each other with feedback. Many of the plays developed in the Playwrights' Unit have been produced by Cleveland Play House, other Cleveland area theatres, and across the United States. Admission into the Playwrights' Unit is by invitation. Currently the CPH Playwrights' Unit consists of Eric Coble, Michael Geither, David Hansen, Margaret Lynch, Deborah Magid, Michael Oatman & Eric Schmiedl. [10]
Founded in 1996, the MFA program at Cleveland Play House is affiliated with Case Western Reserve University and has a growing national reputation, having produced many successful graduates. The master's degree for actors is a three-year program with a new class beginning study every other year. Tuition is waived, and an annual living stipend is awarded to each student automatically. [11] The most notable graduate to date is Rich Sommer (class of 2004), who is featured on the AMC series Mad Men and had a recurring role on NBC's The Office . Elizabeth A. Davis (class of 2006), was nominated for a Tony for her performance in Once . During the students' third year in the program, they are engaged on an Actors' Equity contract in a Cleveland Play House main stage production. Students conclude their studies by performing in an agent showcase in New York. During their term of study, the students are also cast in readings and other smaller productions. Each year of study focuses on a different area and period of theatre, as well as a cumulative study of voice, movement, and technique. Cleveland Play House teaches pre-K to MFA so children can start learning and developing skills when they are young.
New Ground Theatre Festival (formerly known as FusionFest) is an annual showcase of new theatrical works. Cleveland Play House develops and presents a variety of new work from nationally recognized artists, and each year produces a centerpiece production. Other offerings range from fully produced large-scale collaborations with peer top-tier organizations to solo performances to readings of plays hot off the writer's printer. The Roe Green Award brings a leading American playwright to Cleveland to develop a new project culminating in a public reading and master class. The first winner of this prestigious award was Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes, who spent a week in-residency with CPH to present and discuss her play Daphne's Dive in May 2012.
Cleveland Play House has showcased many playwrights and their emerging work at New Ground Theatre Festival, including Jordan Harrison (Marjorie Prime, 2013), George Brant (Grounded, 2014), Elizabeth A. Davis (Joe, 2014), Kirsten Greenidge (Little Roe Boat or, Conjecture, 2016), and Eric Coble(Fairfield, 2014, Feed 2016, These Mortal Hosts, 2017).
Alan Alda, Joel Grey, Margaret Hamilton, Paul Newman, Elizabeth Hartman, Eleanor Parker, June Squibb, Ray Walston, Jack Weston, Grant Show and James Riordan are among the many actors whose careers began at the Play House which also operates the nation's oldest community-based-theatre-education programs. [12]
1915–1921 | Raymond O'Neil |
1921–1958 | Frederic McConnell |
1959–1970 | K. Elmo Lowe |
1970–1971 | William Green |
1971–1985 | Richard Oberlin |
1988–1994 | Josephine Abady |
1995–2004 | Peter Hackett |
2004–2013 | Michael Bloom |
2013–2022 | Laura Kepley |
2022-present | Michael Barakiva |
Show | Date | Location |
---|---|---|
Into the Breeches! | September 14 - October 6 | Allen Theatre |
Pipeline | October 12 - November 3 | Outcalt Theatre |
The Merchant of Venice | November 6 - November 16 | Helen Theatre |
Every Brilliant Thing | November 23 - December 22 | Helen Theatre |
A Christmas Story | November 29 - December 23 | Allen Theatre |
Clue | January 25 - February 23 | Allen Theatre |
Getting Near to Baby | February 7 - 15 | Helen Theatre |
Show | Date | Location |
---|---|---|
The Woman in Black | September 15 - October 7 | Allen Theatre |
Sweat | October 13 - November 4 | Outcalt Theatre |
A Christmas Story | November 23 - December 23 | Allen Theatre |
An Iliad | January 12 - February 10 | Outcalt Theatre |
Ken Ludwig's Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood | February 2–24 | Allen Theatre |
Tiny Houses | March 23 - April 14 | Outcalt Theatre |
Native Gardens | April 27 - May 19 | Allen Theatre |
Show | Date | Location |
---|---|---|
Shakespeare in Love | September 9 - October 1 | Allen Theatre |
The Diary of Anne Frank | October 21 - November 19 | Outcalt Theatre |
A Christmas Story | November 24 - December 23 | Allen Theatre |
Marie and Rosetta | January 20 - February 11 | Allen Theatre |
The Invisible Hand | February 17 - March 11 | Outcalt Theatre |
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee | April 14 - May 6 | Allen Theatre |
The Royale | May 5–27 | Outcalt Theatre |
Show | Date | Location |
---|---|---|
All the Way | September 17 - October 9 | Allen Theatre |
Sex With Strangers | October 22 - November 13 | Outcalt Theatre |
A Christmas Story | November 25 - December 23 | Allen Theatre |
Ken Ludwig's Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery | January 21 - February 12 | Allen Theatre |
How I Learned to Drive | March 4 - March 26 | Allen Theatre |
Between Riverside and Crazy | April 1–23 | Outcalt Theatre |
Show | Date | Location |
---|---|---|
Ken Ludwig's A Comedy of Tenors | September 5 - October 3 | Allen Theatre |
The Crucible | October 10 - November 8 | Outcalt Theatre |
A Christmas Story | November 27 - December 23 | Allen Theatre |
Little Shop of Horrors | January 9 - February 7 | Allen Theatre |
The Mountaintop | January 23 - February 14 | Outcalt Theatre |
Luna Gale | February 27 - March 20 | Allen Theatre |
Mr. Wolf | April 2–24 | Outcalt Theatre |
Steel Magnolias | May 21 - June 12 | Allen Theatre |
Show | Date | Location |
---|---|---|
The Little Foxes | September 12 - October 5 | Allen Theatre |
How We Got On | October 24 - November 16 | Outcalt Theatre |
A Christmas Story | November 28 - December 21 | Allen Theatre |
Five Guys Named Moe | January 23 - February 15 | Allen Theatre |
The Pianist of Willesden Lane | February 27 - March 22 | Allen Theatre |
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike | April 3–26 | Allen Theatre |
Fairfield | May 1 - May 31 | Outcalt Theatre |
In the movie Wet Hot American Summer , when upset about the effort of the actors in a camp play, Amy Poehler as "Susie" says: "OK, stop. I feel like I'm watching regional theatre, you guys. God! Am I in the Cleveland Play House or something? Your craft is a muscle, you need to exercise it. Take a break; think about what you've done." [13]
Filmmaker David Wain explained, "The joke was that in saying how bad these campers are, she compares them to a truly respected theater company. I figured why not make a reference to my hometown?" [14]
Ethan Phillips is an American actor. He is best known for his television roles as Neelix on Star Trek: Voyager and PR man Pete Downey on Benson.
Great Lakes Theater, originally known as the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, is a professional classic theater company in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1962, Great Lakes is the second-largest regional theater in Northeast Ohio. It specializes in large-cast classic plays with a strong foundation in the works of Shakespeare and features an educational outreach program. The company performs its main stage productions in rotating repertory at the Hanna Theatre in Playhouse Square, which reopened on September 20, 2008. The organization shares a resident company of artists with the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. On its main stage and through its education programs, GLT connects approximately 85,000 adults and students to the classics each season.
Eric Coble is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is a member of the Playwrights' Unit of the Cleveland Play House.
Karamu House in the Fairfax neighborhood on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio, United States, is the oldest producing Black Theatre in the United States opening in 1915. Many of Langston Hughes's plays were developed and premiered at the theater.
Playhouse Square is a theater district in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is the largest performing arts center in the US outside of New York City. Constructed in a span of 19 months in the early 1920s, the theaters became a major entertainment hub for the city for much of the 20th century. However, by the late 1960s, the district had fallen into decline and its theaters had closed down. In the 1970s, the district was revived through a grassroots effort that helped usher in a new era of downtown revitalization. For this reason, the revival of Playhouse Square is often locally referred to as being "one of the top ten successes in Cleveland history."
Robert Sanford Brustein was an American theatrical critic, producer, playwright, writer, and educator. He founded the Yale Repertory Theatre while serving as dean of the Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut, as well as the American Repertory Theater and Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was a creative consultant until his death, and was the theatre critic for The New Republic. He commented on politics for the HuffPost.
Theater in Chicago describes not only theater performed in Chicago, Illinois, but also to the movement in Chicago that saw a number of small, meagerly funded companies grow to institutions of national and international significance. Chicago had long been a popular destination for touring productions, as well as original productions that transfer to Broadway and other cities. According to Variety editor Gordon Cox, beside New York City, Chicago has one of the most lively theater scenes in the United States. As many as 100 shows could be seen any given night from 200 companies as of 2018, some with national reputations and many in creative "storefront" theaters, demonstrating a vibrant theater scene "from the ground up". According to American Theatre magazine, Chicago's theater is "justly legendary".
The Rochester Community Players (RCP), the oldest community theatre in New York State, is a local theater group in Rochester, Monroe County, New York, in the United States.
Seattle Rep is a major regional theater located in Seattle, Washington, at the Seattle Center. It is a member of Theatre Puget Sound and Theatre Communications Group. Founded in 1963, it is led by Artistic Director Dámaso Rodríguez and Managing Director Jeffrey Herrmann. It received the 1990 Regional Theatre Tony Award.
David Esbjornson is a director and producer who has worked throughout the United States in regional theatres and on Broadway, and has established strong and productive relationships with some of the profession's top playwrights, actors, and companies. Esbjornson was the artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre in Seattle, Washington, but left that position in summer 2008.
As the new medium of cinema was beginning to replace theater as a source of large-scale spectacle, the Little Theatre Movement developed in the United States around 1912. The Little Theatre Movement served to provide experimental centers for the dramatic arts, free from the standard production mechanisms used in prominent commercial theaters. In several large cities, beginning with Chicago, Boston, Seattle, and Detroit, companies formed to produce more intimate, non-commercial, non-profit-centered, and reform-minded entertainments.
Mark Lamos is an American theatre and opera director, producer and actor. Under his direction, Hartford Stage won the 1989 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and he has been nominated for two other Tonys. For more than 15 seasons, he has been artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse. In May 2023, he announced he will leave the post in January 2024.
The Allen Theatre is one of the theaters in Playhouse Square, the performing arts center on Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. It was originally designed as a silent movie theater by C. Howard Crane and opened its doors on April 1, 1921, with a capacity of more than 3,000 seats. The first show was of the motion picture Her Greatest Love with Theda Bara, and featured Phil Spitalny and his 35 piece orchestra as live performers. The theater was designed in the Italian Renaissance style and was one of the few "daylight atmospheric" theaters in the country, with a ceiling painted to resemble the open daylight sky. In the lobby, a rotunda was built to resemble the Villa Madama in Rome. The ceiling of the rotunda was decorated with Renaissance-style figures from an unknown artist's imagination which greeted cinema patrons for decades.
David Hansen is an American playwright, actor, director and arts educator. He is the founder of Dobama's Night Kitchen and co-founder of Guerrilla Theater Company and Bad Epitaph Theater Company.
Portland Stage Company is a professional LORT theater company in the state of Maine. Founded as the Profile Theatre in 1974 as a touring theater company, the company made Portland its permanent location in 1976. In 1982, it moved to its current home of 25A Forest Avenue in Portland, Maine. Anita Stewart has served as the Artistic Director since 1996, and in 2006 was made Executive Director.
Halley Feiffer is an American actress, playwright and showrunner, known for her award-winning plays I'm Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City, and for showrunning and writing the entire season of American Horror Story: Delicate starring Emma Roberts and Kim Kardashian.
ACT Contemporary Theatre is a regional, non-profit theatre organization in Seattle, in the US state of Washington. Gregory A. Falls (1922–1997) founded ACT in 1965 and served as its first Artistic director; at the time ACT was founded he was also head of the Drama Department at the University of Washington. Falls was identified with the theatrical avant garde of the time, and founded ACT because he saw the Seattle Repertory Theatre as too specifically devoted to classics.
Pittsburgh Playhouse is Point Park University's performing arts center located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It houses three performance spaces and is home to The Rep, Point Park's resident professional theatre company, as well as three student companies—Conservatory Theatre Company, Conservatory Dance Company, and Playhouse Jr. The Conservatory Theatre Company offers five productions each year that are performed by undergraduate students at Point Park; each season consists of a mixture of established plays and musicals, as well as occasional new works.
Theater in Pittsburgh has existed professionally since the early 1800s and has continued to expand, having emerged as an important cultural force in the city over the past several decades.
Blanka Zizka is a Czechoslovakia-born American theatre director and playwright. She is currently the Founding Artistic Director of The Wilma Theater.
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