Cleveland Public Theatre

CMHA CAN (formerly Brick City Theatre) takes place in partnership with Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) at community centers for children and families who live in public housing. Under the guidance of CPT Teaching Artists, young artists learn how to create and perform their own plays, dance, poetry, music, and visual art. These multidisciplinary performing arts activities improve academic skills, instill empathy and responsibility, build character, and enhance creative thinking. The students regularly perform at CMHA community centers as well as arts festivals throughout Cleveland.

CAN Academy is a free performing arts program for younger teens and youth from Cleveland and surrounding neighborhoods, held on-site at the theatre. Young artists engage in rigorous (and fun!) theatre training, learning acting fundamentals, script analysis, storytelling techniques, and play creation.

CPT’s Student Theatre Enrichment Program (STEP) is a rigorous arts-based program that provides hands-on job training, engages youth from Cleveland families in a powerful learning experience that develops job skills, academic achievement, and interpersonal skills. As part of this eight-week summer program, youth ages 14-19 work together to create, produce, perform, and tour their own play. This program is the longest-running arts-based, workplace development program in Cleveland and is an international model for engaging youth. Since its beginning in 1994, STEP has received multiple awards and recognitions including those from the City of Cleveland, The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Through STEP, teens see themselves as a positive and inspirational force, and watch as their work has an impact on the larger Cleveland community.

Y-Haven is a program for residents of Y-Haven, a YMCA center providing temporary housing and Substance Use Disorder Treatment to individuals who are homeless, re-entering the community from incarceration, and/or recovering from Opioid Use Disorder. The program teaches performing arts and technical aspects of theatre while addressing critical personal, interpersonal, and job-related skills through a comprehensive process. The program culminates in the performance and community-wide tour of an original play based on stories from the clients’ lives.

In the summer of 2013, Cleveland Public Theatre launched Teatro Público de Cleveland (TPC), a theatre ensemble of Latinx artists creating original stories in a mix of Spanish and English that can be understood by all, as well as interpreting scripted Spanish-language works. Teatro Público de Cleveland produces performances that preserve and promote the cultures of Cleveland Latinos for Spanish-speaking audiences and the broader public. The company started with a handful of budding artists – today, Teatro Público boasts over 30 ensemble members. The venture has been an incredible success, engaging the local Latinx community in the creation of multiple brand-new devised plays and scripted works and reaching over 8,000 audience members at 15 sold-out productions on our stages.

Through Masrah Cleveland Al-Arabi, Arabic-speaking communities of Cleveland share vital, life-affirming stories celebrating family, dignity, and freedom of expression. These stories affirm a rich heritage and seek to move Cleveland to shed preconceptions and stereotypes and grow empathy and understanding. Masrah Cleveland Al-Arabi is open to all people who share a heritage from Arabic-speaking cultures with an interest in theatre regardless of experience.

The ensemble’s productions are developed through CPT’s unique play creation method, which engages participants in storytelling workshops expressing their personal perspectives, family stories, and traditional narratives from their heritages. Through this collaboration, an original play is made. Plays are bi-lingual, presented in Arabic and English.