Playhouse Square is a theater district in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States.[2] It is the largest performing arts center in the US outside of New York City (only Lincoln Center is larger).[3] 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."[4]
Following World War I, local developer Joseph Laronge, who had previously opened the Stillman movie house on East 12th street, envisioned a row of theaters on Euclid Avenue between East 14th and East 17th streets. Laronge and New York City business magnate Marcus Loew, among others, founded a partnership called Loew's Ohio Theatres to develop the area.[5]
The organization's first two theaters, the Ohio and State (now known as the KeyBank State),[6] were designed by eminent architect Thomas W. Lamb in the Italianate style. It was considered essential for the theaters' marquees to face Euclid Avenue, but because of space constraints the State Theatre was built at the back of the lot, although its lobby shares the Euclid frontage with the Ohio Theatre.[5] Construction began in 1920, and the pair opened in early February 1921.[2]
Across Euclid Avenue, Charles A. Platt's Hanna Theatre, part of the Hanna Building complex, opened in late March 1921. Although the theater faces East 14th Street, it is still part of Playhouse Square. It was named for the prominent Cleveland Senator Mark Hanna.[5]
Meanwhile, the Bulkley Building housing the C. Howard Crane-designed Allen Theatre was being built next door. Completed in early April 1921, Jules and Jay Allen's Pompeiian-style theater was sold to Loew's in 1922.[5]
The last theater to be constructed was the Palace Theatre,[7] now known as the Connor Palace, opening in November 1922 in the Keith Building, which at the time was the tallest in Cleveland.[5] There was a great promotion for the theater's opening: the largest electric sign in the world[8] was turned on to show that the Palace was open for business. Built by Edward F. Albee in honor of his friend and business partner, B.F.Keith, the Palace was billed as the “Showplace of the World.” Headlining the opener was America's favorite mimic, Elsie Janis, who shared billing with Eduardo Cansino, Rita Hayworth's father. Albee invested over $2 million in the vaudeville venue, which became known as the “…swankiest theater in the country.”[9]
Designed by the Chicago architectural firm of Rapp and Rapp, the Palace was a regional flagship of the Keith-Albee chain of vaudeville theaters.[10]
The area surrounding the theaters soon became known unofficially as “Playhouse Square.” The Euclid Square Association, a civic group, tried to rename the district “Euclid Square,” although these efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.[4] The area is now officially designated as "Playhouse Square."
The theaters successfully showed a variety of serious theater, vaudeville shows, and movies for more than forty years. However, during the years following World War II, suburbanization and the rise of television led to the decline of the theaters.[4] Fire broke out in the Ohio in 1964, and the other Playhouse Square theaters were struck by vandalism.[5] Between May 1968 and July 1969, all the theaters closed except the Hanna.[4]
Plans to reopen and restore the theaters began almost immediately. In 1970, Raymond K. Shepardson, a Cleveland Public Schools employee, formed a non-profit group named the “Playhouse Square Association” with the Junior League of Cleveland, Inc.[2] The cover of the February 27, 1970 issue of Life was a two-page pull-out of James H. Daugherty's The Spirit of Cinema America, a mural in the State Theatre's lobby.[5][11]
Plans to raze the Ohio and the State Theatres in 1972 and 1977 caused a public outcry, and in 1973 the newly formed Playhouse Square Foundation obtained long-term leases for the Palace, Ohio and State Theatres, while Cuyahoga County commissioners purchased the Loews Building.[2] Also in 1973, the musical revue Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris opened in the State Theatre lobby. Expected to run two weeks, the show instead played for two and a half years.[4] In 1978, Playhouse Square was added to the National Register of Historic Places.[5]
Part of James Daugherty's The Spirit of Drama – Europe, one of four murals in the lobby of the State Theater.
Renovation
Emboldened by the unprecedented success of Jacques Brel, restoration of the theaters began in earnest. Various public-private partnerships collected some $40 million for the project.[4]
Because of extensive fire damage, the Ohio Theatre was originally intended to be the last of the theaters to undergo renovation, but those plans were accelerated so that the theater could become the home of the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, now Great Lakes Theater. The $4 million project was begun at the end of 1981 and completed in less than nine months. Work began on the State Theatre in May 1979, and was completed in the summer of 1984, after the addition of a new $7 million stagehouse. Renovation of the theater's three lobbies was completed in 1987. Restoration of the Palace Theatre began in 1987, and was finished the following year. As part of the project, expanded parking facilities were added to the complex.
Reconstruction of the Allen Theatre lagged behind the rest, partly because some felt that three theaters were enough for the district. However, in 1993 the Playhouse Square Foundation agreed to rent the theater with the intention of purchasing it, which it did in 1997. This acquisition made Playhouse Square the largest performing arts complex outside of New York in the United States, with more than 10,000 seats.[5] The Allen re-opened in 1998.[4]
Although the Hanna Theatre was the only one of the group not to close in 1968 or 1969, it was overshadowed by the revitalization of the Euclid Avenue theaters during the 1980s, and closed in 1989. However, the Hanna reopened in March 1996 – the 75th anniversary of its original opening.[12] In 1999, the Playhouse Square Foundation acquired the Hanna, making it the fifth and last of the original theaters to be purchased by the foundation.[4]
The Cleveland Theater District Development Corporation (CTDDC), now the Playhouse Square District Development Corporation (PDDC), was established in 1998 as a business improvement district to foster development in the theater district.[13][14][15]
Recent
Winterfest at Playhouse Square.
The reopening of the State, Ohio and Palace Theatres encouraged further development at Playhouse Square, including the $40 million Renaissance Office Building and a Wyndham Hotel at Playhouse Square.
In an unprecedented move for a not-for-profit performing arts center, Playhouse Square established a Real Estate Services Division in 1999 to support the organization's arts operations. Playhouse Square is active in area development in order to give visitors a lively, welcoming and entertaining destination, while also creating a neighborhood with a robust business environment.
In 2002, Playhouse Square opened the 14th Street Theatre as a home for Second City Cleveland and a venue for improvisational comedy, musical comedy and avant-garde fare, often for extended runs. The venue was closed in 2013 and transformed into the private dining space Cibreo Privato, part of the Italian restaurant Cibreo operated by Driftwood Restaurant Group.[16][17]
In 2003, the area of East 14th Street near Playhouse Square was renamed Memory Lane-Bob Hope Way in honor of the longtime Cleveland resident to commemorate the entertainer's 100th birthday.[18]
Playhouse Square and Cleveland's public broadcasting stations conducted a joint capital campaign to transform the One Playhouse Square Building into the Idea Center at Playhouse Square. Opened in 2005, it is now the home for Playhouse Square's community engagement and education programs and the downtown headquarters for radio stations WKSU (simulcast over a regional network including WCPN) and WCLV, as well as TV station WVIZ, incorporated together as Ideastream Public Media.[19]
Also in 2008, the Hanna Theatre underwent a thorough renovation with improvements to its stage including a new hydraulic lift system. The Hanna is now home to Great Lakes Theater, Cleveland's classic theater company which previously performed at the Ohio Theatre.
Through a collaboration called “The Power of Three,” Cleveland Play House, Cleveland State University and Playhouse Square partnered to create the Allen Theatre Complex, featuring a reconfigured Allen Theatre (re-opened 2011) and two new theaters that opened in 2012. Cleveland Play House and Cleveland State University's Department of Theatre and Dance are now resident companies at Playhouse Square. The Cleveland Play House administrative offices and all of Cleveland State University's arts programs are now located in the Middough Building on Playhouse Square's campus, adding to the vibrancy of the neighborhood.
Playhouse Square welcomes more than 1 million guests to 1,000+ performances and events each year. Its KeyBank Broadway Series season ticket holder base (more than 45,000) is the largest in the country, making Cleveland one of fewer than 10 markets that can support a three-week run of a touring Broadway show.[20][21]
Improvements to the Playhouse Square neighborhood - including a digital signage network, upgrades to U.S. Bank Plaza, a retro signage feature and the GE Chandelier, the world's largest outdoor chandelier, located above the intersection of Euclid Avenue and East 14th Street - were completed between April 2013 and April 2014, culminating in a ceremony on May 2, 2014, entitled "Dazzle the District."[22][23][24] In 2014 a $100 million capital fund campaign was initiated with a $9 million gift from the Chris Connor family of Cleveland. In honor of their gift the Palace Theatre was renamed Connor Palace.[7] In honor of a $10 million gift from KeyBank in 2017, the State Theatre was renamed KeyBank State Theatre.[25]
In April 2018 Playhouse Square began construction on The Lumen, a 34-story apartment tower. The tower adds 318 apartments to downtown Cleveland and contains a 550 space parking garage. The Tower opened in 2020.[26]
Cleveland, officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in Northeast Ohio along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the U.S. maritime border with Canada and lies approximately 60 miles (97 km) west of Pennsylvania.
The Cleveland metropolitan area, or Greater Cleveland as it is more commonly known, is the metropolitan area surrounding the city of Cleveland in Northeast Ohio, United States. According to the 2020 census results, the six-county Cleveland, OH Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) consists of Cuyahoga County, Ashtabula County, Geauga County, Lake County, Lorain County, and Medina County, and has a population of 2,088,251, making it the 34th-most populous metropolitan area in the United States and the third largest metropolitan area in Ohio. The metro area is also part of the larger Cleveland–Akron–Canton Combined Statistical Area with a population of over 3.6 million people, the most populous statistical area in Ohio and the 17th most populous in the United States.
Euclid Avenue is a major street in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It runs northeasterly from Public Square in Downtown Cleveland, passing Playhouse Square and Cleveland State University, to University Circle, the Cleveland Clinic, Severance Hall, Case Western Reserve University's Maltz Performing Arts Center, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center. The street runs through the suburbs of East Cleveland, Euclid, and Wickliffe, to Willoughby as a part of U.S. Route 20 and U.S. Route 6. The HealthLine bus rapid transit line runs in designated bus lanes in the median of Euclid Avenue from Public Square to Louis Stokes Station at Windermere in East Cleveland.
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.
Thomas White Lamb was a Scottish-born, American architect. He was one of the foremost designers of theaters and cinemas of the 20th century.
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.
Downtown Cleveland is the central business district of Cleveland, Ohio. The economic and symbolic center of the city and the Cleveland-Akron-Canton, OH Combined Statistical Area, it is Cleveland's oldest district, with its Public Square laid out by city founder General Moses Cleaveland in 1796.
The Connor Palace, also known as the Palace Theatre and historically as the RKO Palace, is a theater located at 1615 Euclid Avenue in Downtown Cleveland, Ohio, part of Playhouse Square. The theater opened in 1922, as Keith's Palace Theatre after B. F. Keith, founder of the Keith-Albee chain of vaudeville and movie theaters. It was designed by the Chicago architectural firm of Rapp and Rapp in the French Renaissance style, and originally housed live two-a-day vaudeville shows. The $2 million theater opened in the Keith Building on November 6, 1922, seating 3,100. The interior featured Carrara marble and 154 crystal chandeliers, and the main lobby, dubbed the "Great Hall," was decorated with over 30 paintings.
The Mimi Ohio Theatre is a theater on Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, part of Playhouse Square. The theater was built by Marcus Loew's Loew's Ohio Theatres company. It was designed by Thomas W. Lamb in the Italian Renaissance style, and was intended to present legitimate plays. The theater opened on February 14, 1921, with 1,338 seats. The foyer featured three murals depicting the story of Venus, and the balcony contained paintings of Arcadia. Throughout the 1920s, the Ohio had a stock company and hosted traveling Broadway plays.
The KeyBank State Theatre is a theater located at 1519 Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. It is one of the theaters that make up Playhouse Square. It was designed by the noted theater architect Thomas W. Lamb and was built in 1921 by Marcus Loew to be the flagship of the Ohio branch of the Loew's Theatres company.
The Keith Building is a skyscraper in downtown Cleveland, Ohio's Playhouse Square theater district. The Keith is 272 feet tall and 21 stories, and houses the Palace Theater, a former flagship theater of the Keith vaudeville circuit. As of 2017, the renovated building is in use as an office tower.
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.
The Hanna Theatre is a theater at Playhouse Square in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is one of the original five venues built in the district, opening on March 28, 1921. The Hanna Theatre reopened in 2008 as the new home of Great Lakes Theater Festival after a major renovation by the classic theater company.
For the theater that was once in New York City see Fourteenth Street Theatre
The Helen Lab Theatre is a theater on Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, part of Playhouse Square. The smallest of three venues used by the Cleveland State University Department of Theatre and Dance and Cleveland Play House.
Ray Shepardson was a theatre restoration specialist and theatre operator credited by many with beginning the trend toward restoring old unused movie theaters into economic engines for their communities. He is the founder of the Playhouse Square association in Cleveland and is recognized as the visionary that helped motivate the creation of one of the nation's largest performing arts districts. He was involved in forty restorations throughout his career and operated several theaters after their restoration.
The Crowne Plaza Cleveland at Playhouse Square is a mid-sized, 14-story Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown Cleveland's Playhouse Square district, located at the intersection of Huron Road and Euclid Avenue. Originally known as the Wyndham Cleveland at Playhouse Square, the structure helped to complete the revitalization of Playhouse Square. It changed brand names in August 2017.
The Hanna Building is a historically renovated high-rise in downtown Cleveland's Theater District on the corner of East 14th Street and Euclid Avenue. The building stands 194 feet high and rises to 16 stories. It was built in 1921 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The Hanna is part of the Playhouse Square historic property portfolio and features many of the same features such as news tickers, billboards, and decorative elements as the other "theatrical" buildings in the locale. The Hanna is highly recognizable on the Playhouse Square and is currently the third tallest building in the Theater District behind the B.F. Keith and the US Bank Centre. Like many buildings of the era, the Hanna sits in an oblong fashion in relation to the street grid and runs parallel to the roadways of Euclid Avenue and East 14th Street, respectfully.
The Lumen is a high-rise apartment building in the Playhouse Square district of downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Completed in 2020, the 34-story, 396-foot (121 m) tower sits at the southwest corner of Euclid Avenue and East 17th Street, adjacent to the Hanna Building and across Euclid from the Keith Building. It is the second new apartment building built in downtown Cleveland since the 1970s, following the construction of The Beacon in 2019.
↑ "Playhouse Square". Cleveland Historical. Cleveland State University. Retrieved July 1, 2023. By the turn of the twenty-first century, all of the original theaters were again hosting performances, constituting the nation's second largest performing arts complex after New York's Lincoln Center.
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