I remember being at both the C5 office on Bway and the CC office on 6th Ave. and Ralph would be in his office, either with someone or on the phone and they told him something funny or a joke or something. Well, he would burst into laughter that reverberated through the whole place – which, in turn, brought smiles to the faces of everyone, even in offices at the other end of the hall :)
The space occupied by the Virgin store and the Loews was originally to have been a shopping mall. After the developer went bankrupt construction was halted for a number of years. After the property was finally sold and construction resumed the plan changed and the new owner threw out the mall idea. The new owner wanted Virgin, and neither wanted the theatre there but they were stuck with it because Loews had a lease as per a stipulation in the sale of the original Loews/1540 building. The theatre was designed for the 1988 market and at that time 4 screens were adequate, but by the time it finally opened in 1996 it was obsolete.
Great Lakes Theater Festival has raised 75 percent of money for Hanna renovation
by Tony Brown / Plain Dealer Theater Critic
Friday January 18, 2008, 12:00 AM
You’ll be able to watch the next show that plays the Hanna Theatre while enjoying a pint of ale atop a barstool or sprawling in a lounge chair with a table of friends.
If you’re looking for a cozier experience when the new, radically made-over Hanna reopens — which could be as early as next fall — you could cuddle a significant other on a comfy banquette.
Perhaps it’s a business event, so you’ll book club seats, or a private box with its own restroom, thanks to a $19.2 million project that is already 75 percent paid for.
Or maybe you just want regular theater seats, none of which will be more than 11 rows from the thrust stage, putting you in the same room with the dueling actors.
Those actors might pop up out of some netherworld thanks to a hydraulic system that can independently raise and lower the three sections of the stage within seconds.
Or maybe they’ll descend from the heavens, suspended from a newly invented, computer-controlled mechanical “fly” system high over the stage.
All this is part of a project to transform Playhouse Square’s historic Hanna into a performance space unlike any other in the country, a new home for Great Lakes Theater Festival.
On Friday, Great Lakes, Playhouse Square and the architecture firm Westlake Reed Leskosky will unveil the details of their renovation of the 1921 theater, which has already been gutted of all but the neoclassical plasterwork that will be restored to its original luster.
At Friday’s news conference at the Hanna, Great Lakes is expected to announce it has already raised approximately $14.5 million in the “quiet phase” of its Re-Imagine a Classic campaign, according to documents obtained in the advance by The Plain Dealer.
Even before the campaign goes public today, the theater has collected nearly enough money to pay for the $14.7 million renovation of the theater, which has played host to Noel Coward and Henry Fonda, and introduced several generations of Clevelanders to Broadway.
The remaining $4.5 million in the campaign will go toward establishing an endowment and an operational support fund to ensure financial stability for Great Lakes, which reversed decades of economic woes only in the past two or three years.
The numbers don’t sound that impressive compared with the Cleveland Museum of Art’s current $258 million expansion and renovation project.
But it’s a big deal for Great Lakes, a professional nonprofit company that operates in difficult financial times with an annual budget of only $3.2 million.
“Raising that much that fast is a testament to Great Lakes and to its standing in the community,” said Thomas B. Schorgl, president of the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture and Cleveland’s de facto arts czar.
“They’ve gone about this with great vision, but also looking at practical issues. Contributors appreciate that kind of planning and collaboration going on between Great Lakes and Playhouse Square. This will have a great return on the investment by the community.”
The renovation of the Hanna will be the finishing touch on Playhouse Square, which has been called the single largest theater restoration project in the country, 27 years and $55 million (not counting the Hanna) in the making.
It’s the fifth and last of the theater district’s five 1920s theaters to be made over to form a performing arts center that now draws 1 million visitors a year and generates an estimated $46 million annually as a major engine in the ongoing revitalization of downtown Cleveland.
But architect Paul Westlake, whose firm has worked on more than 100 theater restorations around the country — including the first four at Playhouse Square — said he has never seen a theater like the new Hanna, which will seat 550 people in a space that originally held 1,400.
He credited Great Lakes producing artistic director Charles Fee and executive director Bob Taylor with having the vision to dream.
“Charlie Fee has been fearless, and we’ve built more models and redrawn more plans for this project than our firm has ever done,” said Westlake, whose practice is one of the nation’s leading theater restoration designers.
This creation has been a patient search, not an epiphany.
“The other theaters we’ve done are straight restorations, elegant old and old. This one has a dramatic contrast of the new and the old. We’re not using every square inch for seats. We’re trying to perfectly arrange 550 seats to make a completely different kind of environment.”
Among the minutiae included in the plans will be a remote refrigeration system for the in-theater bar, allowing the noisy parts that could disturb audiences to be put out of earshot in a newly excavated basement below the auditorium.
Fee delights in pointing out such details when showing visitors around the now-empty Hanna, but he says they’re all part of a bigger picture, for Great Lakes (which now operates in Playhouse Square’s 1,000-seat Ohio Theatre) and downtown Cleveland.
“As we’ve explored our options, we considered such things as moving to Chagrin Falls and building a barn theater, trying to move to University Circle or merging with the Cleveland Play House,” Fee said.
“But we’ve had a 25-year history of being in Playhouse Square, of being integral to downtown. We kept coming back to the idea of the Hanna, of being part of the next stage of downtown’s revitalization, and creating a theater experience like no other.”
Just the facts
Re-Imagine a Classic campaign goal: $19.2 million.
Raised to date: Approximately $14.5 million.
Hanna Theatre renovation cost: $14.7 million.
Endowment and operational support for Great Lakes Theater Festival: $4.5 million.
New Hanna seating capacity: 550.
Expected completion date: Fall 2008.
Unofficial but expected opening shows: Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Into the Woods” in repertory with Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”
New & cool
Six styles of seating — bar, lounge, banquette, club, private box and regular theater seating, integrating the social and artistic aspects of theater.
Multiple ticket-price points for each performance, from as low as under $20 for lounge areas and up to $60 or more for premium seats.
A three-part hydraulic “thrust” stage that juts out into the auditorium and that can lower to create a “traditional” proscenium (or picture-frame) stage with a full orchestra pit.
A unique, computer-controlled, mechanical “fly” system, structurally independent of the building to handle more weight, intended to raise and lower scenery.
A reconfigured auditorium floor to allow stadium-like seating for improved sight-lines.
In addition to a rejuvenated street-level entrance, there will be a door from the balcony level to an elevator lobby in the Hanna Annex building to allow patrons covered access to a parking garage — and access to the balcony for disabled patrons.
Registration with the U.S. Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System, in pursuit of a Silver rating, the third-highest rank.
Pardon my ignorance, but in the opening description the seating arrangement is stated as ‘stalls’ and ‘circle’ – is this what we on the west side of the pond would call orchestra (the main floor) and loge/mezzanine/balcony (upstairs)?
A book entitled “Cleveland’s Playhouse Square” by Patricia M. Mote chronicles in words and photographs the Loew’s State & Ohio, RKO Allen & Palace and Hanna theaters from their opening in the 1920s through 2006. It can be found in the Local Interest section of Cleveland area bookstores, and for those not in the area it can be ordered from the publisher at the following website: View link
A book entitled “Cleveland’s Playhouse Square” by Patricia M. Mote chronicles in words and photographs the Loew’s State & Ohio, RKO Allen & Palace and Hanna theaters from their opening in the 1920s through 2006. It can be found in the Local Interest section of Cleveland area bookstores, and for those not in the area it can be ordered from the publisher at the following website: View link
A book entitled “Cleveland’s Playhouse Square” by Patricia M. Mote chronicles in words and photographs the Loew’s State & Ohio, RKO Allen & Palace and Hanna theaters from their opening in the 1920s through 2006. It can be found in the Local Interest section of Cleveland area bookstores, and for those not in the area it can be ordered from the publisher at the following website: View link
A book entitled “Cleveland’s Playhouse Square” by Patricia M. Mote chronicles in words and photographs the Loew’s State & Ohio, RKO Allen & Palace and Hanna theaters from their opening in the 1920s through 2006. It can be found in the Local Interest section of Cleveland area bookstores, and for those not in the area it can be ordered from the publisher at the following website: View link
A book entitled “Cleveland’s Playhouse Square” by Patricia M. Mote chronicles in words and photographs the Loew’s State & Ohio, RKO Allen & Palace and Hanna theaters from their opening in the 1920s through 2006. It can be found in the Local Interest section of Cleveland area bookstores, and for those not in the area it can be ordered from the publisher at the following website: View link
The following was posted to the Uniondale Mini page:
Exhibitor Ralph E. Donnelly died Sept. 21 in Palm Harbor, Fla. He was 75.
~~Donnelly was a pioneer of specialized exhibition, and established the First Avenue Screening Room in Manhattan and the Mini Cinema in Uniondale, New York. ~~
He was a founder of the annual ShowEast convention. Starting in his teens as an usher, he ultimately became president of Cinema 5 Theaters in Manhattan. He was also head film buyer at City Cinemas, RKO-Stanley Warner Theaters, Creative Film Services and Associated Independent Theaters. A past president of the Variety Club and the Motion Picture Bookers Club, he was also a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and was on the board of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. After Donnelly retired, he served as a shipboard host on cruises, screening films and leading discussions of film lore. He is survived by his wife, Gloria; a sister; three children and five grandchildren.
posted by Kyra on Dec 18, 2007 at 2:31pm
Ralph was always a class act – something painfully absent from the business today. It was a privilege to have worked with him at Cinema 5 and City Cinemas.
The 34th St. East Theatre was/is located closer to 2nd Ave. on the north side of the street. The 34th St. Theatre you are referring to, near the 3rd Ave El, later became the Murray Hill Theatre, which was just off 3rd Ave. to the west on the south side of the street.
In his posting of Jul 7, 2005 RobertR posted a link to a newspaper page with an ad for The Beatles on cctv at the Fox. View link . Immediately above this ad is another for the TOHO Cinema, 45th St. W. of Bway. Does anyone know anything about that theatre? This is the first I’ve heard of it, and it isn’t listed here on CT, at least not under that name.
Lost, and InCharge, Loew’s had two theatres on Boston Post Rd. – the one under this heading, the Loew’s Boston Rd. is the one at Wilkens Ave. & Boston Post Rd. (US Rt. 1) The other is under the heading Loew’s Post Rd. was newer and was at Boston Post Rd. and Corsa Ave. in the vicinity of Eastchester Rd.
Has that tower on the stagehouse always been there, or did the church add it? It may be enclosing the water tower. Obviously the cross and ersatz stained glass have been added, but the structure itself looks out of place, a different style than the rest of the building.
At the time it was built it was operated by the ABC Theatres, which was taken over by Henry Plitt, who was subsequently taken over by Cineplex Odeon. The original signage on the building read “ABC Entertainment Center”.
Yes, Lost, that’s the correct theatre. The building is still there, I recognize that arch thing. I’ve seen it from the elevated #6 train and I thought it had been a theatre at one time. It’s an odd design, the way that arch is, I thought that the building had an upper floor that had been demolished and they only retained the arch, but apparently I was wrong. It is presently being used for retail.
Jacobs is the last name of the guy who booked the Angelika for Joe Salah. Salah, btw, apparently passed away in April in Paris (sounds like the name of a song…). Thanks to CT member astrocks for that info.
I remember being at both the C5 office on Bway and the CC office on 6th Ave. and Ralph would be in his office, either with someone or on the phone and they told him something funny or a joke or something. Well, he would burst into laughter that reverberated through the whole place – which, in turn, brought smiles to the faces of everyone, even in offices at the other end of the hall :)
The space occupied by the Virgin store and the Loews was originally to have been a shopping mall. After the developer went bankrupt construction was halted for a number of years. After the property was finally sold and construction resumed the plan changed and the new owner threw out the mall idea. The new owner wanted Virgin, and neither wanted the theatre there but they were stuck with it because Loews had a lease as per a stipulation in the sale of the original Loews/1540 building. The theatre was designed for the 1988 market and at that time 4 screens were adequate, but by the time it finally opened in 1996 it was obsolete.
Great Lakes Theater Festival has raised 75 percent of money for Hanna renovation
by Tony Brown / Plain Dealer Theater Critic
Friday January 18, 2008, 12:00 AM
You’ll be able to watch the next show that plays the Hanna Theatre while enjoying a pint of ale atop a barstool or sprawling in a lounge chair with a table of friends.
If you’re looking for a cozier experience when the new, radically made-over Hanna reopens — which could be as early as next fall — you could cuddle a significant other on a comfy banquette.
Perhaps it’s a business event, so you’ll book club seats, or a private box with its own restroom, thanks to a $19.2 million project that is already 75 percent paid for.
Or maybe you just want regular theater seats, none of which will be more than 11 rows from the thrust stage, putting you in the same room with the dueling actors.
Those actors might pop up out of some netherworld thanks to a hydraulic system that can independently raise and lower the three sections of the stage within seconds.
Or maybe they’ll descend from the heavens, suspended from a newly invented, computer-controlled mechanical “fly” system high over the stage.
All this is part of a project to transform Playhouse Square’s historic Hanna into a performance space unlike any other in the country, a new home for Great Lakes Theater Festival.
On Friday, Great Lakes, Playhouse Square and the architecture firm Westlake Reed Leskosky will unveil the details of their renovation of the 1921 theater, which has already been gutted of all but the neoclassical plasterwork that will be restored to its original luster.
At Friday’s news conference at the Hanna, Great Lakes is expected to announce it has already raised approximately $14.5 million in the “quiet phase” of its Re-Imagine a Classic campaign, according to documents obtained in the advance by The Plain Dealer.
Even before the campaign goes public today, the theater has collected nearly enough money to pay for the $14.7 million renovation of the theater, which has played host to Noel Coward and Henry Fonda, and introduced several generations of Clevelanders to Broadway.
The remaining $4.5 million in the campaign will go toward establishing an endowment and an operational support fund to ensure financial stability for Great Lakes, which reversed decades of economic woes only in the past two or three years.
The numbers don’t sound that impressive compared with the Cleveland Museum of Art’s current $258 million expansion and renovation project.
But it’s a big deal for Great Lakes, a professional nonprofit company that operates in difficult financial times with an annual budget of only $3.2 million.
“Raising that much that fast is a testament to Great Lakes and to its standing in the community,” said Thomas B. Schorgl, president of the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture and Cleveland’s de facto arts czar.
“They’ve gone about this with great vision, but also looking at practical issues. Contributors appreciate that kind of planning and collaboration going on between Great Lakes and Playhouse Square. This will have a great return on the investment by the community.”
The renovation of the Hanna will be the finishing touch on Playhouse Square, which has been called the single largest theater restoration project in the country, 27 years and $55 million (not counting the Hanna) in the making.
It’s the fifth and last of the theater district’s five 1920s theaters to be made over to form a performing arts center that now draws 1 million visitors a year and generates an estimated $46 million annually as a major engine in the ongoing revitalization of downtown Cleveland.
But architect Paul Westlake, whose firm has worked on more than 100 theater restorations around the country — including the first four at Playhouse Square — said he has never seen a theater like the new Hanna, which will seat 550 people in a space that originally held 1,400.
He credited Great Lakes producing artistic director Charles Fee and executive director Bob Taylor with having the vision to dream.
“Charlie Fee has been fearless, and we’ve built more models and redrawn more plans for this project than our firm has ever done,” said Westlake, whose practice is one of the nation’s leading theater restoration designers.
This creation has been a patient search, not an epiphany.
“The other theaters we’ve done are straight restorations, elegant old and old. This one has a dramatic contrast of the new and the old. We’re not using every square inch for seats. We’re trying to perfectly arrange 550 seats to make a completely different kind of environment.”
Among the minutiae included in the plans will be a remote refrigeration system for the in-theater bar, allowing the noisy parts that could disturb audiences to be put out of earshot in a newly excavated basement below the auditorium.
Fee delights in pointing out such details when showing visitors around the now-empty Hanna, but he says they’re all part of a bigger picture, for Great Lakes (which now operates in Playhouse Square’s 1,000-seat Ohio Theatre) and downtown Cleveland.
“As we’ve explored our options, we considered such things as moving to Chagrin Falls and building a barn theater, trying to move to University Circle or merging with the Cleveland Play House,” Fee said.
“But we’ve had a 25-year history of being in Playhouse Square, of being integral to downtown. We kept coming back to the idea of the Hanna, of being part of the next stage of downtown’s revitalization, and creating a theater experience like no other.”
Just the facts
Re-Imagine a Classic campaign goal: $19.2 million.
Raised to date: Approximately $14.5 million.
Hanna Theatre renovation cost: $14.7 million.
Endowment and operational support for Great Lakes Theater Festival: $4.5 million.
New Hanna seating capacity: 550.
Expected completion date: Fall 2008.
Unofficial but expected opening shows: Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Into the Woods” in repertory with Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”
New & cool
Six styles of seating — bar, lounge, banquette, club, private box and regular theater seating, integrating the social and artistic aspects of theater.
Multiple ticket-price points for each performance, from as low as under $20 for lounge areas and up to $60 or more for premium seats.
A three-part hydraulic “thrust” stage that juts out into the auditorium and that can lower to create a “traditional” proscenium (or picture-frame) stage with a full orchestra pit.
A unique, computer-controlled, mechanical “fly” system, structurally independent of the building to handle more weight, intended to raise and lower scenery.
A reconfigured auditorium floor to allow stadium-like seating for improved sight-lines.
In addition to a rejuvenated street-level entrance, there will be a door from the balcony level to an elevator lobby in the Hanna Annex building to allow patrons covered access to a parking garage — and access to the balcony for disabled patrons.
Registration with the U.S. Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System, in pursuit of a Silver rating, the third-highest rank.
SOURCE: Great Lakes Theater Festival
Pardon my ignorance, but in the opening description the seating arrangement is stated as ‘stalls’ and ‘circle’ – is this what we on the west side of the pond would call orchestra (the main floor) and loge/mezzanine/balcony (upstairs)?
What is happening with the exterior above the street level in that photo? What’s with those white lines?
You’re welcome!
A book entitled “Cleveland’s Playhouse Square” by Patricia M. Mote chronicles in words and photographs the Loew’s State & Ohio, RKO Allen & Palace and Hanna theaters from their opening in the 1920s through 2006. It can be found in the Local Interest section of Cleveland area bookstores, and for those not in the area it can be ordered from the publisher at the following website:
View link
A book entitled “Cleveland’s Playhouse Square” by Patricia M. Mote chronicles in words and photographs the Loew’s State & Ohio, RKO Allen & Palace and Hanna theaters from their opening in the 1920s through 2006. It can be found in the Local Interest section of Cleveland area bookstores, and for those not in the area it can be ordered from the publisher at the following website:
View link
A book entitled “Cleveland’s Playhouse Square” by Patricia M. Mote chronicles in words and photographs the Loew’s State & Ohio, RKO Allen & Palace and Hanna theaters from their opening in the 1920s through 2006. It can be found in the Local Interest section of Cleveland area bookstores, and for those not in the area it can be ordered from the publisher at the following website:
View link
A book entitled “Cleveland’s Playhouse Square” by Patricia M. Mote chronicles in words and photographs the Loew’s State & Ohio, RKO Allen & Palace and Hanna theaters from their opening in the 1920s through 2006. It can be found in the Local Interest section of Cleveland area bookstores, and for those not in the area it can be ordered from the publisher at the following website:
View link
A book entitled “Cleveland’s Playhouse Square” by Patricia M. Mote chronicles in words and photographs the Loew’s State & Ohio, RKO Allen & Palace and Hanna theaters from their opening in the 1920s through 2006. It can be found in the Local Interest section of Cleveland area bookstores, and for those not in the area it can be ordered from the publisher at the following website:
View link
The following was posted to the Uniondale Mini page:
Exhibitor Ralph E. Donnelly died Sept. 21 in Palm Harbor, Fla. He was 75.
~~Donnelly was a pioneer of specialized exhibition, and established the First Avenue Screening Room in Manhattan and the Mini Cinema in Uniondale, New York. ~~
He was a founder of the annual ShowEast convention. Starting in his teens as an usher, he ultimately became president of Cinema 5 Theaters in Manhattan. He was also head film buyer at City Cinemas, RKO-Stanley Warner Theaters, Creative Film Services and Associated Independent Theaters. A past president of the Variety Club and the Motion Picture Bookers Club, he was also a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and was on the board of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. After Donnelly retired, he served as a shipboard host on cruises, screening films and leading discussions of film lore. He is survived by his wife, Gloria; a sister; three children and five grandchildren.
posted by Kyra on Dec 18, 2007 at 2:31pm
Ralph was always a class act – something painfully absent from the business today. It was a privilege to have worked with him at Cinema 5 and City Cinemas.
The 34th St. East Theatre was/is located closer to 2nd Ave. on the north side of the street. The 34th St. Theatre you are referring to, near the 3rd Ave El, later became the Murray Hill Theatre, which was just off 3rd Ave. to the west on the south side of the street.
In his posting of Jul 7, 2005 RobertR posted a link to a newspaper page with an ad for The Beatles on cctv at the Fox. View link . Immediately above this ad is another for the TOHO Cinema, 45th St. W. of Bway. Does anyone know anything about that theatre? This is the first I’ve heard of it, and it isn’t listed here on CT, at least not under that name.
Lost, and InCharge, Loew’s had two theatres on Boston Post Rd. – the one under this heading, the Loew’s Boston Rd. is the one at Wilkens Ave. & Boston Post Rd. (US Rt. 1) The other is under the heading Loew’s Post Rd. was newer and was at Boston Post Rd. and Corsa Ave. in the vicinity of Eastchester Rd.
Has that tower on the stagehouse always been there, or did the church add it? It may be enclosing the water tower. Obviously the cross and ersatz stained glass have been added, but the structure itself looks out of place, a different style than the rest of the building.
…with the side of the Palladium looming in the background.
At the time it was built it was operated by the ABC Theatres, which was taken over by Henry Plitt, who was subsequently taken over by Cineplex Odeon. The original signage on the building read “ABC Entertainment Center”.
Ahh! Al Goldstein – an undisputed authority on taste, culture and the American cinema! – LOL!
kong1911 – when did Alan Freed do the shows at the Loew’s Oriental, before or after the Bkln Paramount?
The Village Theatre is listed here on this site – see theatre #9335.
Wasn’t there a firehouse on the corner of 54th & 8th? Did they knock it down? It wasn’t that old…
Yes, Lost, that’s the correct theatre. The building is still there, I recognize that arch thing. I’ve seen it from the elevated #6 train and I thought it had been a theatre at one time. It’s an odd design, the way that arch is, I thought that the building had an upper floor that had been demolished and they only retained the arch, but apparently I was wrong. It is presently being used for retail.
Jacobs is the last name of the guy who booked the Angelika for Joe Salah. Salah, btw, apparently passed away in April in Paris (sounds like the name of a song…). Thanks to CT member astrocks for that info.