ELLSLER, JOHN ADAM (26 Sept. 1821 - 21 Aug. 1903) was an actor, producer, manager, instructor, and theater builder/owner. He is often considered to be the most significant person in Cleveland THEATER history.
Ellsler was born in Harrisburg, PA. He moved to Baltimore at an early age, working in a print shop that published programs and posters. He regularly delivered materials to area theaters and stayed for performances. It was these experiences that spurred his lifelong devotion to the theater business. Returning to PA (Philadelphia) Ellsler worked as assistant treasurer of Peale's Museum and as a property (theater prop) man while acting in minor roles. In 1846 he became a member of the city’s Arch St. Opera House. His next move was to the Chatham St. Theater in New York City, where he met and married the actress Euphemia Emma Myers. They remained in NY until 1849 when they joined traveling stage shows. In the early 1850s Ellser also managed the Utica Museum in Utica, NY.
The couple moved to Cleveland in the mid-1850s, at which time Ellsler leased, managed, and revived the Cleveland Theater. Formerly known as National Hall (1853-54) and Foster's Varieties (1854-55), the Cleveland occupied the third and fourth floors of a building on Bank St. (now West 6th St.). Ellsler renamed the venue the ACADEMY OF MUSIC and established a full-time stock (resident) theater company that performed mainly in Cleveland but also maintained a residency in Columbus and travelled frequently to nearby cities such as Akron and Canton. Commercial establishments, including a restaurant, were located on the building’s first floor. The building kept historically important company, occupying a block that (on both sides of the street) included the Cleveland Herald, the Cleveland Branch of the U.S. Sanitary Commission (forerunner of the American Red Cross), and the Weddell House and Kennard House hotels.
The Academy of Music reigned as Cleveland’s preeminent playhouse for almost two decades. In addition to scores of stock productions (most of which he directed and acted in) Ellsler brought in many of the country’s most prominent figures from THEATER, OPERA, variety, and burlesque, including John Wilkes Booth, Edwin Forrest, Edwin Booth, James O’Neill (>40 engagements), Clara Morris, Faye Bainter, and McIntyre & Heath. Academics, theologians, politicians, and even boxers also appeared at the Academy. Ellsler’s own daughter EFFIE ELLSLER (4 Apr. 1854-8 Oct. 1942) made her stage debut at the Academy in 1872 before going on to star on Broadway and in silent and talking films.
The Academy’s visiting actors often became Ellsler’s friends. Most notable was John Wilkes Booth who, in 1863, partnered with Ellsler to form a petroleum-extraction venture called the Dramatic Oil Company in Franklin, PA. The next year, the partners’ well—christened The Wilhelmina—struck oil at a depth of about 1,900 feet. However, the well and the venture collapsed when workers attempted to “well shoot” the hole. An early form of fracking, the dynamite blast destroyed and buried the entire site. Bankruptcy followed and a year later, an embittered Booth killed President Abraham Lincoln.
By 1870 Ellser was planning his next move—a palatial theater on Sheriff St. (East 4th St. after 1905) in a largely residential neighborhood just off Euclid Avenue. The building’s main entrance facing Sheriff St. was lavish and elegant, but the road also was narrow with no real capacity for widening. Thus Ellser purchased an adjoining store room in the Heard Block, which opened onto Euclid Ave. The resulting second entrance and vestibule eased traffic flow on Sheriff St. and, ostensibly, gave the neighborhood’s bourgeois patrons an opportunity to see and be seen shuttling between their carriages and the theater.
The Euclid Avenue Opera House, replete with electric lighting, marble floors, ceiling frescos, gold-gilded carvings, and velvet seats for 1638 patrons, opened on 6-Sept. 1875. Featured was Bronson Howard’s Saratoga, with a stock cast that included John Ellsler and his daughter Effie. Ellsler continued to operate the Academy of Music, focusing first on variety programming but later returning to a broader menu of theatrical fare. He sold the Academy in 1885.
For more than four decades, the Euclid Avenue Opera House hosted acting greats such as James O’Neill, Helen Hayes, Arnold Daly, Sarah Bernhardt, Billie Burke, Lillian Russell, and John, Lionell, and Ethel Barrymore. Opera icons appeared frequently, including Emma Trentini, Robert Mantel, and the entire NY Metropolitan Opera. Regular variety (VAUDEVILLE) shows featured comedians Will Rogers, Odell Williams, Fanny Brice, and Weber & Fields; bandleaders John Phillip Sousa and Edward Cupero; “Queen of Magic” Adelaide Herrmann; Julian Eltinge (America’s foremost female impersonator); and even blackface (minstrel) acts like McIntyre & Heath, John Morris, and Haverly’s Mighty Mastodon Minstrels.
The Opera House survived until 1922 when it was replaced by an S.S. Kresge store. The site now encompasses the Pickwick & Frolic entertainment center and the Corner Alley restaurant. However, John Ellsler’s stewardship of the venerable theater was brief. Barely five years after its 1875 opening, spiraling costs and fallout from the financial panic of 1873 forced him to sell his crowning achievement at auction to MARCUS HANNA. Hanna paid $43,050 for a theater that had cost $200,000 to build. Ellsler continued his involvement with the Academy of Music. He also assumed management of the Park Theater—a similarly large and ornate venue on the north side of Public Square—until 1886 when he returned to New York. His acting career continued until his death at the age of 81. John Ellsler is buried in LAKE VIEW CEMETERY.
Updated by Christopher Roy 6 August 2026
The Stage Memories of John A. Ellsler (1950), WRHS.