Cleveland Play House

CARE (Compassionate Arts Remaking Education) is a year-long school residency program that was developed in 2011 by a team of artists and educators from Cleveland Play House (CPH) in response to Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s (CMSD) needs for enhancing Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skills, school climate, and improving literacy achievement. The residency program focuses on theatre and the arts as essential tools to increase literacy learning, SEL development, academic readiness, and to create safe and supportive learning environments. The main components of the CARE program are Teaching Artist-led theatre integrated lessons for students, student-centered digital learning labs, and professional development and training for educators in the school.

CPH artists use theatre to help students recognize and manage their emotions, develop caring and concern for others, establish positive relationships, make responsible decisions, and handle challenging situations constructively and effectively.

More than 5,000 young people attend a student matinee at CPH each season. Students attend a pre-show workshop designed to help connect the themes of the play to their own lives, participate in a question and answer session with the artists following the performance, and bring home a student guide that provides academic and real world connections to the production.

All educational materials support the common core standards.

For more than eight decades, CPH has offered educational programming as varied as the stories on its stages. Alumni include Academy Award®-winner Paul Newman, Academy Award- and Tony Award®-winner Joel Grey, and Toy Story 3 Director Lee Unkrich, among many other successful film and theatre talents.

Our CPH Theatre Academy has classes for working adult professionals, preschool children with big imaginations, and everyone in between. Faculty from Tony-Award-recipient Cleveland Play House will excite creative potential and nurture your passion for live theatre!

Cleveland Play House's Apprenticeship Program is a dynamic and engaging program for young professionals and future colleagues in the field. The apprenticeship introduces recently graduated college and post-graduate students in an intensive experience with a top-tier American theatre. Apprentices will work with individual departments and top professionals in the field to gain practical experiences and skills working in a regional theatre. Our central goal is to train future leaders that will transform the field.

Patrons engage with the people and processes that make the work on our stages happen. This suite of programs is offered free to the public and provides a variety of opportunities for the public to feel like CPh insiders all season long. Programs include Pre-Show Conversations, Behind-the-Scenes events, TechNights, and post-show TalkBacks.

CPH produces a seven-play series each season featuring a wide variety of classic, contemporary, and new plays and musicals. Enjoyed by tens of thousands of theatre-goers every year, CPH mainstage productions take place in the Allen and Outcalt Theatres at Playhouse Square in downtown Cleveland's bustling theatre district.

CPH commissions and develops new plays, nurturing and supporting playwrights with developmental workshops and readings. Held each spring, New Ground Theatre Festival features world premiere productions, workshops, readings, and the annual presentation of the Roe Green Award for Playwrighting.

Eight students are accepted every-other-year into this professional training program jointly produced with Case Western Reserve University. The program is housed at CPH, with two MFA productions per year presented in The Helen. Third year students appear in CPH mainstage series productions.

Working in partnership with the United Way of Greater Cleveland and Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Cleveland Play House uses theatre and the arts as essential tools in strengthening the community. CPH provides five schools, Adlai Stevenson, Almira Academy, Kenneth Clement Boys' Leadership Academy, Robert H. Jamison, and Walton Elementary with direct and comprehensive services to students, families, and community members to address their educational, physical, social, and emotional needs. By participating as a Lead Agency, CPH strives to increase learning readiness, academic achievement, healthy families and communities, and socially responsible citizens.