Players Theatre Columbus

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Players Theatre Columbus was a professional resident theatre company based in Columbus, Ohio. Founded as the Players Club by Agnes Jeffrey Shedd in 1923, the company originated as a private club for local theatre enthusiasts. Over the course of seventy years, the organization evolved into a public community theatre, and finally into a professional resident theatre under contract to Actors' Equity. In 1989, the company moved its operations into the Vern Riffe Center for Government and the Arts, having formerly occupied the Davis Discovery Center on Franklin Avenue.^[1]

Players Theatre abruptly folded on 1993-09-11, just days before they were to open their 70th season. At the time, Players was the only professional theatre company in Columbus, as well as the city's oldest non-profit arts institution in continuous operation. An official report cited a range of systemic problems within the organization including "mismanagement, inaccurate and incomplete internal reports, continuing cash-flow crises, lack of cost and auditing controls, and unrealistic budgets and income projections." ^[2]

At the time of Players' closing, executive staff consisted of Ed Graczyk, Artistic Director; Steven C. Anderson, Associate Artistic Director; and Jean Ann Klaus, Managing Director. Thomas Murrill was President of the Board of Directors. (Graczyk was best known as a playwright; his Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean went to Broadway. Anderson, in charge of Players' youth theater program, rose like a phoenix after Players' demise by founding the youth-oriented Phoenix Theatre Circle,now called Phoenix Theatre for Children.)

Among Players' most acclaimed productions, in its final decade, were the first central Ohio stagings of musicals like Sweeney Todd and Evita. Players originated only a few new works, most notably several other plays by Graczyk. But Players did stage Da before it went to Broadway in the 1970s.

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