The Allen Theatre is one of the theaters in

Playhouse Square Playhouse Square is a theater district in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is the largest performing arts center in the US outside of New York City (only Lincoln Center is larger). Constructed in a span of 19 months in the early 1920s, ...

, the performing arts center on Euclid Avenue in downtown

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. It was originally designed as a

silent movie ''Silent Movie'' is a 1976 American satirical comedy film co-written, directed by and starring Mel Brooks, released by 20th Century Fox in the summer of 1976. The ensemble cast includes Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Bernadette Peters, and Sid Cae ...

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...

by C. Howard Crane and opened its doors on April 1, 1921, with a capacity of more than 3,000 seats. The first show was of the movie ''

Her Greatest Love ''Her Greatest Love'' is a 1917 American silent drama film directed by J. Gordon Edwards, starring Theda Bara, and based on the 1880 novel ''Moths'' by Ouida. This film is now considered to be lost. Cast * Theda Bara as Hazel * Marie Curtis as ...

'', and featured

Phil Spitalny Phil Spitalny (November 7, 1890 – October 11, 1970) was a Russian Empire-born American musician, music critic, composer, and bandleader heard often on radio during the 1930s and 1940s. He rose to fame after he led an all-female orchestra, a nov ...

and his 35 piece orchestra as live performers. The theater was designed in the

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

style and was one of the few "daylight atmospheric" theaters in the country, with a ceiling painted to resemble the open daylight sky. In the lobby, a rotunda was built to resemble the

Villa Madama Villa Madama is a Renaissance-style rural palace (villa) located on Via di Villa Madama #250 in Rome, Italy. Located west of the city center and a few miles north of the Vatican, and just south of the Foro Olimpico Stadium. Even though incomplete, ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. The ceiling of the rotunda was decorated with Renaissance-style figures from an unknown artist's imagination which greeted cinema patrons for decades. By the mid-1960s, financial troubles plagued both the Allen and the other downtown theaters. These were primarily caused by the popularity of

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

and the growing desire for local residents to move away from the city and into the suburbs. On May 7, 1968, the Allen Theatre was closed. The Playhouse Square Association was formed in 1970, and began the revitalization process of the

Connor Palace The Connor Palace, also known as the Palace Theatre and historically as the RKO Palace, is a theater located at 1615 Euclid Avenue in Downtown Cleveland, Ohio, part of Playhouse Square. The theater opened in 1922, as Keith's Palace Theatre after ...

State State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

and Ohio Theatres; but the Allen remained closed and slated for possible demolition until 1993, when the Playhouse Square Foundation agreed to purchase it. Fully restored to its former glory, the Allen Theatre reopened on October 3, 1998, with 2,500 seats and became an important venue for hosting touring

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

musicals and concerts. In 2000, the

Cleveland Ballet The Cleveland Ballet was founded in Cleveland in 1972 by Dennis Nahat and Ian Horvath as a dance school, the School of Cleveland Ballet. It was the second incarnation of the Cleveland Ballet, having been preceded a ballet company of the same name ...

, which had been performing in the State Theatre, left the city and moved to

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...

. This enabled the State Theatre to produce more Broadway shows; but bookings for the Allen Theatre declined. Playhouse Square began to pursue alternative uses for the Allen Theatre, and eventually found it with two nearby organizations:

Cleveland Play House 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 wher ...

and

Cleveland State University Cleveland State University (CSU) is a public research university in Cleveland, Ohio. It was established in 1964 and opened for classes in 1965 after acquiring the entirety of Fenn College, a private school that had been in operation since 1923. ...

. Through a collaboration called "The Power of Three," Cleveland Play House, Cleveland State University and Playhouse Square partnered and launched a $32 million renovation project to create the Allen Theatre Complex. The theater itself was closed in 2010, underwent a major transformation, and re-opened on September 16, 2011. The house was reduced from seating 2,500 people to just under 500, creating a much more intimate theatrical setting. Large golden panels were installed along the walls of the theater to improve acoustics; in such a way that they could be taken down again, if desired, to reveal the original artwork still decorating the theater. In addition, two new theater spaces were built as a result of the collaboration. The Outcalt Theatre (originally Second Stage) was constructed as a flexible performance space with multiple configuration possibilities and maximum seating of around 300. The Helen Rosenfeld Lewis Bialosky Lab Theatre, seating approximately 100 people, was also built as a

black box theater A black box theater is a simple performance space, typically a square room with black walls and a flat floor. The simplicity of the space allows it to be used to create a variety of configurations of stage and audience interaction. The black ...

to house the

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

/Cleveland Play House MFA Acting Program and other events throughout the year.

References

{{authority control Theatres in Cleveland Movie palaces 1921 establishments in Ohio Cleveland State University Cinema of Cleveland

See also

References