VIDEO: NWT Honors James Levin & Gordon Square Arts District Pioneers

Sat 5/22 @ 7:30PM

Four pioneers who created the Gordon Square Arts District will be honored at Near West Theatre’s annual benefit, Bring On Tomorrow, being held virtually this year. They include Cleveland Public Theatre founder James Levin, along with community leaders Carrie Carpenter, Judi Feniger and Joy Roller. View the video honoring James Levin here.

CoolCleveland’s Thomas Mulready honors James Levin on the occasion of Near West Theatre’s Virtual Annual Benefit on Saturday May 22. Mulready recalls how they first met backstage at Baldwin Wallace College (now University), with Levin inviting Mulready over to Detroit at West 65th where Cleveland Public Theatre was just getting started. What is now a thriving Gordon Square district of arts, theaters, coffeeshops, residences and boutiques was envisioned decades ago by James Levin.

Levin moved on to transform additional neighborhoods. Levin and Mulready co-founded the Ingenuity Festival, and Levin was the one who opened East Fourth Street to pedestrian traffic. He moved Ingenuity to Playhouse Square, then under the Detroit-Superior Bridge, then the Cleveland Lakefront. Levin created the Cleveland One World Festival at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens, taught entrepreneurialism at Wooster College, and enlivened Broadway in Lorain with the Fire Fish Festival. The legacy of James Levin can be felt in countless neighborhoods throughout our region.

In addition to honoring these four neighborhood leaders, the benefit will feature both recent performances and newly conceived musical numbers to showcase how Near West Theatre creates quality theater using an inclusive model that brings together both professional-level and inexperienced performers of all ages, races, ethnicities, sexual and gender identities, and social-economic backgrounds.

All proceeds raised will go to the relaunch of its post-pandemic performances. Go here to buy tickets.

nearwesttheatre/2021/05/22/bring-on-tomorrow

 

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