Players Theatre Columbus was a professional resident theatre company based in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

. Founded as the Players Club by Agnes Jeffrey Shedd in 1923, the company originated as a private club for local theatre enthusiasts. Over the course of 70 years, the organization evolved into a public community theatre, and finally into a professional resident theatre under contract to Actors' Equity. In 1989, the company moved its operations into the

Vern Riffe Center for Government and the Arts The Vern Riffe State Office Tower is a skyscraper on Capitol Square in downtown Columbus, Ohio. It was completed in 1988 and has 32 floors. NBBJ designed the building, which is the fifth-tallest in Columbus, and has 102,192 m² of floor area. A ...

, having formerly occupied the Davis Discovery Center on Franklin Avenue. Players Theatre abruptly folded on September 11, 1993, just days before they were to open their 70th season. At the time, Players was the only professional theatre company in Columbus, as well as the city's oldest non-profit arts institution in continuous operation. An official report cited a range of systemic problems within the organization including "mismanagement, inaccurate and incomplete internal reports, continuing cash-flow crises, lack of cost and auditing controls, and unrealistic budgets and income projections." At the time of Players' closing, executive staff consisted of

Artistic Director An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the ...

Ed Graczyk Edward Graczyk (born 1941/1942)is a playwright originally from Ohio. He wrote several children's plays early in his career, but became better known as the author of 1976's '' Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean''. In 1982, ...

, Associate Artistic Director Steven C. Anderson, Managing Director Jean Ann Klaus, and President of the

Board of Directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

Thomas Murrill. Anderson, in charge of Players' youth theatre program, went on to found the Phoenix Theatre for Children and currently serves as the artistic director of CATCO. Among Players' most acclaimed productions in its final decade were the first central Ohio stagings of the musicals Sweeney Todd and

Evita Evita may refer to: Arts * Evita (1996 film), ''Evita'' (1996 film), a 1996 American musical drama film based on the 1976 concept album of the same name * Evita (2008 film), ''Evita'' (2008 film), a documentary about Eva Péron * Evita (album), ''E ...

. Players originated only a few new works, most notably several other plays by Graczyk.

References

Regional theatre in the United States Culture of Columbus, Ohio Theatre companies in Columbus, Ohio {{US-theat-stub