Starting in the rotunda of The Cleveland Play House, our curious group of visitors head behind the scenes through Studio One Theater, past the wings of the Bolton Theater to the shops where all the backstage action really takes place. Follow along with this video as we tour the bowels of the Cleveland Play House’s facility at 8500 Euclid Avenue, just months before their move to Downtown Cleveland’s theatre district. Learn more and watch the video tour here.
Our first stop is the scene shop, which looks like a messy school shop class area. This is where the scenery and backgrounds are made using metal, wood, canvas and electronics. Next up is the paint shop, where the scenery is transformed with color to reflect the times and places of the performances for which they are designed. Then upstairs to the costume shop. This at last is a bright clean space chock full of fabric and flounces, the back room of which is the biggest closet I’ve ever experienced, stacks of racks two or three levels high go on and on, stuffed to overflowing but impeccably organized by time period, size, gender, color, etc. We breeze through the green room to the rehearsal rooms, then down to the prop shop. This seemingly chaotic basement cavern is another workshop through which we pass into the storage rooms which are teeming with a myriad of items from the common to the absurd, everyday dishes to mummy skeletons.
Then we head back up front to the theaters. First the oldest, the Brooks theater, which is a tiny brick space in which you can see the fireplace in the back wall that originally heated this rough and spare room. We file past an ancient box office to the slightly more accommodating and larger Drury Theater. Finally the Bolton Theater with it’s soothing lighting and rich acoustics.
It turns out that not only is The Cleveland Play House America’s oldest nonprofit theater, but this massive cluster of performance and work areas is also the nation’s largest theater facility under one roof. The oldest section is in the Northeast corner of the complex and houses the Brooks and Drury Theaters and their original lobbies. The second oldest space is the largest area and is south of all the public spaces. It houses all the shops and work areas, and was originally a huge Sears Department Store. The most modern section of the building was built in the 1980s and consists of the main entrance lobby across the Northern front of the building, with its grand rotunda, and the stylish Bolton Theater in the Northwest corner.
This massive structure has been purchased by The Cleveland Clinic and the last performance will take place here in May 2011. After the transition The Cleveland Play House will be better suited to focus their energy and assets on the artistic performances rather than the upkeep and maintenance of an aging facility, the size of which is comparable to four football fields stacked on top of each other. The Allen Theater in PlayhouseSquare, the Cleveland Play House’s new home, is being reconfigured to accommodate three new theater spaces. The shops will be housed off site. For more information, visit ClevelandPlayHouse.com.
Cleveland MetroParks‘ cultural history interpreter Doug Kusack, who is also a professional actor, does a great job coordinating these Urban Explorations Tours which are regular features of the Cleveland MetroParks. You can find out more about this and similar tours that take place throughout the year in their monthly publication The Emerald Necklace.
Learn more and watch the video tour here.
Carol Drummond has been a professional designer for 25 years. Prior to starting her award-winning graphic design studio 15 years ago, Drummond Design, she graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, worked at a graphic design studio, a video production company, and a consumer products company. She has been an art docent for Mayfield City Schools and currently serves on the COSE Arts Network Advisory Committee. http://www.DrummonDesign.com
[Click here to return to the current issue of Cool Cleveland]