Cleveland Play House

Formation	1915
Type	Theatre group
Location	1407 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44115
Artistic director	Michael Barakiva
Website	www.clevelandplayhouse.com

This article needs to beupdated. The reason given is: Article needs info ondemolition. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(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 theAllen Theatre inPlayhouse 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 Jonathon Bloomberg. The Artistic Director is Michael Barakiva.^[2] The Managing Director is Rachel Fink.^[3] The theater's honorary national directors areAlan Alda,Austin Pendleton, andJoel Grey.

The theatre received the2015Regional Theatre Tony Award on June 7, 2015 atRadio City Music Hall inNew York City.^[4]

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. andMinerva 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 andKatharine 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.^[5] 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 ofEdward 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.^[6]

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, theCleveland Museum of Art, theCleveland Orchestra, theCleveland Institute of Music and theCleveland 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.^[7] 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.^[8]

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 architectPhilip 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 andCleveland State University to create the new Allen Theatre Complex in downtown Cleveland.^[9] In July 2009, CPH sold its building at 86th Street and Euclid Avenue toCleveland 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) andthe 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 beingTennessee Williams'You Touched Me, andBertolt Brecht'sMother Courage.^[10] Other notable premiers includeThe Pleasure of Honesty byLuigi Pirandello,Simone byBen Hecht,Translations byBrian Friel,A Decent Birth byWilliam Saroyan,Command byWilliam Wister Haines,Ten Times Table byAlan Ayckbourn,The March on Russia byDavid Storey,The Archbishop's Ceiling byArthur Miller,First Monday in October byJerome Lawrence andRobert E. Lee,Lillian by William Luce,The Cemetery Club by Ivan Menchell,The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds byPaul Zindel,Jerusalem bySeth Greenland,The Smell of the Kill by Michele Lowe, andBright Ideas byEric Coble. Cleveland Play House continues to have a strong commitment to new works, especially those written by Ohio playwrights.

At least one mainstage production in each season is a new play.

Founded in 1996, the MFA program at Cleveland Play House is affiliated withCase Western Reserve University. 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 isRich Sommer (class of 2004), who is featured on theAMC seriesMad Men and had a recurring role onNBC'sThe Office.Elizabeth A. Davis (class of 2006), was nominated for a Tony for her performance inOnce. During the students' third year in the program, they are engaged on anActors' 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.

Cleveland Play House has showcased many playwrights and their emerging work at New Ground Theatre Festival, includingJordan 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 andJames 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]

In the movieWet 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]

FilmmakerDavid 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]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toCleveland Play House.

• Cleveland Play House

• Theatres in Cleveland
• Entertainment companies established in 1915
• 1915 establishments in Ohio
• Philip Johnson buildings

• CS1 maint: location missing publisher
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Pages using infobox mapframe with missing coordinates
• Wikipedia articles in need of updating from January 2023
• All Wikipedia articles in need of updating
• Commons category link is on Wikidata