[NEohioPAL] GLTF Launches Hanna Theatre Capital Campaign

[Todd Krispinsky]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 16, 2007

 

Great Lakes Theater Festival Board Votes Unanimously 

To Launch Hanna Theatre Capital Campaign 
Parker Hannifin Foundation Announces Generous $1.5 Million Gift 

 

CLEVELAND, OHIO - November 16, 2007 - Great Lakes Theater Festival's
(GLTF) Board of Trustees voted unanimously to move forward with the
classic theater company's plans for a capital campaign.  The Festival's
Re-Imagine a Classic campaign will 1) transform the Theater District's
historic Hanna Theatre into an innovative theater experience featuring a
thrust stage and flexible 550-seat house which will become the permanent
home for GLTF, 2) establish an endowment for the Festival to ensure that
the classics continue to thrive in Cleveland for future generations and
3) provide support for Festival programming that reaches over 75,000
adults and students annually.  The Re-Imagine a Classic campaign, a
culmination of Great Lakes Theater Festival's 25-year commitment to
downtown Cleveland and Playhouse Square, is the first capital campaign
in GLTF's 46-year history. 

 

The Festival commenced its Hanna Theatre campaign with a generous $1.5
million gift from Cleveland-based Parker Hannifin Foundation.  The gift
from Parker Hannifin, the world's leading diversified manufacturer of
motion and control technologies, is the largest single award to an arts
organization in the corporation's history.    

       

Timothy K. Pistell, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
of Parker Hannifin, will chair Great Lakes Theater Festival's Re-imagine
a Classic campaign.  "We at Parker are proud to play a leadership role
in Great Lakes Theater Festival's Hanna Theatre campaign by pledging a
significant gift to the project.  We believe the Festival's endeavor
will be an important contributor to the redevelopment and vitality of
downtown Cleveland and our region as a whole."  

 

"This is an exciting day for Great Lakes Theater Festival, ," said
Charles Fee, Great Lakes Theater Festival Producing Artistic Director,
following the historic GLTF Board vote.  "This kind of opportunity
presents itself once in a lifetime.  Today's vote is more than simply a
sign of our confidence in this project.  It is an affirmation of our
belief in the power of partnership, our determination to make this
community a better place to live for current and future generations and
our commitment to producing classic theater of the highest quality.  The
creative opportunities that the 're-imagined' Hanna Theatre will afford
our artists and our audiences are absolutely extraordinary.  I can't
wait to share this new theater experience with Northeast Ohio.  We
remain forever grateful to Art Falco and his entire team at Playhouse
Square for sharing this journey with us."

 

The Re-Imagine a Classic Campaign is the fruit of a visionary
partnership between Playhouse Square Foundation and Great Lakes Theater
Festival.  The first resident company of Playhouse Square, Great Lakes
Theater Festival has called the Theater District home since 1982.  As
part of the partnership, Great Lakes Theater Festival and Playhouse
Square have ratified an agreement that will afford the Festival full
control over its performance calendar and enable GLTF to create a
recognizable brand identity for the classic theater company on the
interior and exterior of its new space through a distinctive lobby
design and permanent signage including an East 14th Street marquee
denoting the Hanna Theatre as the home of Great Lakes Theater Festival.
The name of the Hanna Theatre will remain unchanged as will the
theatre's historic vertical blade sign above the marquee.  Playhouse
Square will continue to own, manage and maintain the Hanna Theatre.

 

Art Falco, President and Chief Executive Officer of Playhouse Square
Foundation, lauded Great Lakes Theater Festival's efforts.  "Twenty-five
years ago, Great Lakes Theater Festival came aboard as the first
resident partner of Playhouse Square.  Today, the Festival is leading
the effort as a genuine partner to transform the Hanna into a truly
unique and innovative performance space that will set a new national
standard for audience experience, engagement and comfort.  The new Hanna
Theatre will enhance the vitality of the Theater District.  We at
Playhouse Square applaud Great Lakes Theater Festival's vision, energy
and determination and look forward to working with the Festival's staff
and Board of Trustees to bring this exciting project to fruition."

 

The "re-imagined" Hanna Theatre is designed to be dynamic, vibrant and
interactive - from the street to the stage.  A team of architects from
Cleveland-based architectural firm Westlake Reed Leskosky (WRL) have
collaborated with GLTF resident artists to conceive and create a
world-class space that will welcome the visitor, stimulate the
imagination and infuse the 1920's theater with a contemporary
sensibility while retaining its classic architectural elements.  The
final phases of the project's design process are currently underway.
Design details including renderings will be released in January of 2008.

 

Paul Westlake, FAIA, principal in charge and principal designer of
Westlake Reed Leskosky, described the project as a "re-imagination" as
opposed to a "renovation."  "While our office has worked on many theatre
facilities, this is the first project that employs a design strategy
that integrates the artist and audience experience into one realm and
dissolves the formal separation between the social experience of the
lobby and the artistic experience of the stage.  The design is very
contemporary in its attitude.  Throughout the design process, we have
been inspired by the insight and creativity of Great Lakes Theater
Festival's resident artistic company.  We believe that, together, we
have captured the essence of this vision in our re-imagination of this
great classic theater space."

 

Support for the campaign has been robust, according to Great Lakes
Theater Festival Executive Director, Bob Taylor.  "The response to the
campaign from across our region has been overwhelmingly positive.  We're
so pleased with the community's confidence in us and we look forward
look to sharing more good news.  We have a lot of exciting work ahead of
us."  According to Taylor, more details regarding the scope and
structure of the Hanna Theatre campaign will be announced in the new
year.  Natalie Epstein, Co- Chair of GLTF's Board added, "We are
grateful to all of our early supporters and especially proud of the
dedication, unanimous endorsement and 100% participation in the campaign
from our Board of Trustees."

 

"This project is an important piece of the fabric of downtown," said
David Goldberg, Chairman of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance.  "The Hanna
renovation is a critical asset to make downtown a terrific place to work
and live.  Great Lakes and Playhouse Square have worked on this for a
long time so I am thrilled that it is finally going to happen.  I'm
pleased that GLTF is bringing it to fruition."

 

It has long been a dream of the Festival to have a distinctively
designed, permanent home that is right-sized for its audience, uniquely
appropriate for classic theater productions and branded with a strong
GLTF identity. This campaign will make that dream a reality.  "Forty-six
seasons ago this company was founded by a group of parents, civic
leaders and educators in the hope of providing a lasting and meaningful
cultural resource for their children and their grandchildren," said
William W. Jacobs, GLTF's Board President.  "The Board and I are proud
to play a role in continuing their legacy today with our important
historic vote to proceed with the Hanna Theatre campaign - creating a
revolutionary theater experience for the next generation of
theater-goers and realizing the Festival's long-time goal of providing a
permanent home for the classics in Northeast Ohio."

 

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Media Contact
Todd S. Krispinsky, Marketing and Public Relations Director

(216) 241-5490 x317 / tkrispinsky at greatlakestheater.org

 

 

Great Lakes Theater Festival
The mission of Great Lakes Theater Festival is to bring the pleasure,
power and relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience
in northern Ohio. 

Since the company's inception in 1962, programming has been rooted in
Shakespeare, but the Festival's commitment to great plays spans the
breadth of all cultures, forms of theater and time periods including the
20th century, and provides for the occasional mounting of new works that
compliment the classical repertoire. 

Classic theater holds the capacity to illuminate truth and enduring
values, celebrate and challenge human nature and actions, revel in
eloquent language, preserve the traditions of diverse cultures and
generate communal spirit. On its mainstage and through its education
program, the Festival seeks to create visceral, immediate experiences
for participants, asserting theater's historic role as a vehicle for
advancing the common good, and helping people make the most joyful and
meaningful connections between classic plays and their own lives. This
Cleveland theater company wishes to share such vibrant experiences with
people across all age groups, creeds, racial and ethnic groups and
socioeconomic backgrounds. 

The Festival is dedicated to the highest standards in all areas of its
operation, including theater production, education and outreach,
management and governance, and to creative problem solving and
innovation.


Parker Hannifin Corporation
With annual sales exceeding $8 billion, Parker Hannifin Corporation is
the world's leading diversified manufacturer of motion and control
technologies, providing systematic, precision-engineered solutions for a
wide variety of commercial, mobile, industrial and aerospace markets.
The company's products are vital to virtually everything that moves or
requires control, including the manufacture and processing of raw
materials, durable goods, infrastructure development and all forms of
transport. 

Traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "PH," Parker is
strategically diversified, value-driven and well positioned for global
growth as the industry consolidator and supplier of choice.


Playhouse Square Foundation
Playhouse Square Foundation is a not-for-profit performing arts center
whose mission is presenting and producing a wide variety of quality
performing arts, advancing arts education and creating a theater
district that is a superior location for entertainment, business and
housing, thereby strengthening the economic vitality of the region.

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