PLAYHOUSE SQUARE was a unique concentration of downtown movie, play, and vaudeville houses on EUCLID AVE. between East 13th and East 17th Streets that later evolved into the nation’s second-largest arts center. Real estate developer Joseph Laronge has been called the “Father of Playhouse Square” for opening the first two of its five theaters, the STATE THEATER and the OHIO THEATER, in February 1921. Six weeks later the Broadway-style HANNA THEATER opened its doors half a block down East 14th Street, followed a few days later by the opening of the ALLEN THEATER back on Euclid. In November 1922 the PALACE THEATER would complete the assemblage of four new marquees within half a block on the north side of Euclid. It was Laronge who made this critical mass of entertainment options possible by squeezing two 300-foot-long lobbies to the State and Ohio between the Allen and the Palace, in order to provide access from Euclid Avenue to his State and Ohio auditoriums, located half a block away on Dodge Court. Compared to other exotic movie palaces of the 1920s, the relative early Playhouse Square theaters were designed in a restrained, classical style, with lavish use of marble, expensive woods, murals, paintings, and gilded plaster relief. Fine shops and restaurants along with the HALLE’S and HIGBEE’S department stores made Playhouse Square a downtown rival to PUBLIC SQUARE.
Playhouse Square’s theaters remained relatively unchanged through WORLD WAR II. Their postwar prosperity was threatened, however, by the challenges of television, suburbanization, and the Supreme Court’s Paramount decision, which stripped downtown movie houses of their monopoly on first-run features. By 1969, all four Euclid Avenue theaters had darkened their marquees. Ray Shepardson, a CLEVELAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS employee, formed the Playhouse Square Association, a largely volunteer group that worked to save and restore the four theaters. The State and the Ohio were on the verge of destruction when donations by the JUNIOR LEAGUE and others won them a five-year reprieve. Shows were put on in the theaters and their lobbies to attract attention and bring Clevelanders back downtown. Businessmen organized the Playhouse Square Foundation to raise restoration funds and come up with a plan for the theaters’ long-range survival. Its board adopted the proposal by architect PETER VAN DIJK of connecting the theaters through their lobbies into an integrated arts center. Cuyahoga County commissioners secured the two central theaters by purchasing the entire Loew’s complex, using the Loew’s building for Juvenile Court offices and leasing the State and the Ohio back to Playhouse Square.
With three theaters including the Palace under lease, the Playhouse Square Foundation launched a $18-million capital campaign to restore and reopen them, mainly for three resident companies. The Ohio reopened in 1982 for the Great Lakes Shakespeare Company and the State in 1984 for CLEVELAND BALLET and CLEVELAND OPERA. The Palace, used for concerts and shows, reopened in 1988. After the Hanna went dark in 1984, the State and the Palace became Cleveland’s venue for touring Broadway shows. The nearly forgotten Allen, after dodging demolition, was acquired and restored for long-running musicals, then downsized to provide a new main stage for the CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE. Shepardson returned to Cleveland in 1997 to convert and reopen the Hanna as a cabaret-style theater. It failed within a year, but Playhouse Square stepped in to purchase not only the theater but the entire Hanna Building complex.
By the twenty-first century, in the words of Variety, Playhouse Square Center had become an “arts juggernaut.” Under CEO Art Falco, who succeeded Larry Walker, it pursued a policy of acquiring neighboring properties in order to control the storefronts and to provide a working endowment for the theaters. In addition to the Hanna, it purchased the Bulkley Building, including the Allen, and One Playhouse Square, which as Ideastream became home to radio stations WCPN, WKSU, WCLV, and television station WVIZ. New construction included a 750- car garage to serve the theaters, the Renaissance (later US Bank) Building on East 14th Street, the Wyndham (later Crowne Plaza) Hotel on Euclid and Huron Road, and the 34-story Lumen apartment tower across from the Palace Theatre.
Changing tastes and conditions in arts and entertainment have caused Playhouse Square to adapt its stages accordingly. To provide Great Lakes Theater with a more intimate acting space, the Hanna was downsized for them in 2008. Two new theaters, the flexible Outcalt Second Stage and the Helen lab theater, were constructed for the Play House and the CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY drama department. Other performance spaces added to the complex include Kennedy’s Cabaret under the Ohio lobby, the 14th Street Theatre in the Hanna Building, and the Westfield Insurance Studio Theatre in Ideastream. Undoubtedly the most significant theatrical change in Playhouse Square Center has been the expansion of the touring Broadway Series to fill the void left by the demise of Cleveland’s resident ballet and opera companies. Under program director Gina Vernaci it expanded from one-week runs in the 1980s to one of the nation’s few three-week-run cities in 2016. Megahits such as The Lion King and Hamilton often enjoy longer runs and return visits.
Vernaci followed Falco as Playhouse Square’s CEO in 2019. Upon early retirement in 2023, she was a succeeded in turn by Craig Hassel, formerly CEO of London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Updated by John Vacha 22 September 2025.
Routa, Michael R. A History of Cleveland’s Playhouse Square. 2021.
Vacha, John. Playhouse Square and the Cleveland Renaissance. 2024.
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