Cleveland Play House

Cleveland Play House
CPH Logo
Formation	1915
Type	Theatre group
Location	1407 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, OH 44115
Artistic director(s)	Laura Kepley
Website	www.clevelandplayhouse.com

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 Center 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 Alec Pendleton. The Artistic Director is Laura Kepley and the Managing Director is Kevin Moore. The theater's national directors are Alan Alda, Austin Pendleton, and Joel Grey.

History

Origins

In the early 1900s Cleveland theatre featured mostly vaudeville, melodrama, burlesque and light entertainment. But a select group of eight Clevelanders, among them Charles and Minerva Brooks, sought plays of substance on timely topics. Together, they formed Cleveland Play House. They found a home in a farmhouse donated by Cleveland’s industrialist Francis Drury located at East 85th and Euclid Avenue which ultimately became the site of a long-lasting home of CPH.

Founded in 1915, Cleveland Play House is America’s first permanently established professional theatre company. It 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 Museum of Natural History.

This 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-renown 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.

Recent history

In 2009, through a collaboration called “The Power of Three,” CPH partnered with PlayhouseSquare and Cleveland State University to create the new Allen Theatre Complex in downtown Cleveland. In July 2009, CPH sold its building at 86th Street and Euclid Avenue to Cleveland Clinic. In September 2011, CPH kicked off its the 96th consecutive season in a reinvented Allen Theatre at PlayhouseSquare. Two new venues adjacent to the Allen Theatre came on board in January 2012, the Second Stage 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. 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, The 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.

Education programs

The MFA program at Cleveland Play House is affiliated with Case Western Reserve University and has a growing national reputation. The program was started in 1996 and has produced many successful graduates. The master's degree program is three years long with a new class beginning study every two years. Tuition is waived, and an annual living stipend awarded to each student automatically. The most notable graduate to date is Rich Sommer, who is featured on the AMC (TV channel) series Mad Men, as well as a recurring role on NBC’s The Office. Graduates of the program perform in an agent showcase in New York at the end of their third year, and can choose upon graduation to automatically join Actors' Equity. Students in this program are cast in both main stage performances and smaller venues. Each year of study focuses on a different area and period of theatre, as well as a cumulative study of voice, movement, and technique.

Notable artists

Joel Grey, Margaret Hamilton, Paul Newman, Eleanor Parker and Jack Weston are among the many actors whose careers began at the Play House which also operates the nation’s oldest community-based-theatre-education programs.

Artistic Directors

Productions

2011-2012 Season

2012-2013 Season

2013-2014 Season^[2]

New Ground Theatre Festival

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.

References

External links

• The Cleveland Play House