Broadway in Cleveland

When many people think about Cleveland, the theater does not often come to mind, especially with the younger generation. But, Playhouse Square, which is composed of 11 stages and more than 10,000 seats ranks as the second-largest unified arts complex in the United States, after Lincoln Center in New York.

When we were both young children, we would head downtown to Playhouse Square for the occasional show with our families or for a school field trip. As we got older we would head down for a musical or to see a comedian perform or even a magician (Broad once saw David Copperfield and had quite the experience but that’s for a different time).

Our friends Adam, Alex, Nick and Sam were heading down to Playhouse for shows on the regular it seemed. It turns out they had season tickets to the Broadway series that came to Cleveland. We were intrigued. They explained the process to us and we decided we were in!

#BWYinCLE
We first bought tickets for the 2014-2015 Broadway season. We saw amazing shows such as Motown, Newsies and Kinky Boots. We also saw some not so amazing ones such as Dirty Dancing and Pippin.  Our night for the show is Thursday. We typically get downtown early for the show and head to the next door bar, Parnell’s Pub for a preshow drink or two. If there is an important game on while we’re at the show we usually head back to Parnell’s after the show to finish watching the game. The second season we saw some great shows such as Beautiful (The Carole King Musical), Matilda and Phantom of the Opera. We also have the option of switching out some shows for a different show coming to Cleveland, usually for a small fee. Not all shows are available for the switch, but last year we swapped out Bullets Over Broadway for Mamma Mia. You also have the option of changing nights if something comes up.

In the spring, Playhouse holds an event for the season ticket holders to reveal the next year’s line up. It’s a whole presentation. They thank donors and ticket holders, they talk about upcoming events and renovations and then they announce the shows. They do a preview from each show and one of the shows has someone from the cast perform a song live. It’s really fun and it’s so exciting to see the new lineup. After the presentation, you can hang out on the stage and renew your tickets for the next season while enjoying snacks and booze.

Beer & Cheese Tasting
The best part of the season is the beer and cheese tasting before the start of the shows. Now, this is something that our group decided to do and is not a Playhouse Square sponsored event.  It’s actually the brain child of our friend Mez.  Each couple is assigned one or two shows and must bring a beer and cheese that is representative of the show. Really, it’s just a fun excuse to get together and pretend to be fancy and sophisticated.

The first year we did it, we were new so we had no idea what to expect. We were assigned Pippin and we think Kinky Boots (our minds are a bit hazy on that one). We brought way too many beers and had a very long, ridiculous presentation which consisted of us yelling “Pippin has the floor!” multiple times. The whole night is a bit blurry but it was so fun and we were excited for the season.

The second year we stepped up our game for the tasting. Our shows were Beautiful and Steel Magnolias. We again brought too many beers but this time incorporated visual aids in the form of posters. The conclusion of our presentation was Tom Skerritt:

• Carole King wrote songs for The Righteous Brothers.
• The Righteous Brothers sang “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” (not written by King) that famously appeared in Top Gun.
• Tom Skerritt was in Top Gun and Steel Magnolias.

This is a terrifying insight into how our brains work.

Oh, we also added Scott and Christa to our theater group.

This year, we took our presentation to a whole new level. Our shows were Fun Home and Finding Neverland. We made posters again but somehow got ourselves into a conspiracy theory blackhole and were able to link Tom Skerritt again to our presentation. Note: Tom Skerritt if you are reading this, please contact us. We would love to fly you out for next year’s presentation!

Our group gets really creative when picking out beers and cheese. We’ve tried really delicious beers and cheeses and really terrible ones. This year, the beer winners were Two Brothers Wouch!, Two Brothers Prarie Path, DuClaw Sour Me This and Thirsty Dog Siberian Night. The worst beer was one we brought only because it was old and tasted horrendous. After we tried it we didn’t even share it.  We overall had very excellent cheese including some brie(s?), a mustard seed cheese, smokey blue, and the always delicious English cheddar. Sam and Nick had the show Something Rotten and brought Limburger cheese and a very smelly blue. Those were obviously the worst ones but we loved their spirit and dedication to find something that represented their shows!  The Limburger was almost thrown out immediately, but Beard and Adam had to try it.  They did, almost threw up, then immediately threw it out.

Final Thoughts
We absolutely love attending these shows. It’s fun to dress up every few months, head downtown and hang out with our friends while doing something different. It’s great adding some culture to our lives and be able to see these critically acclaimed show. It’s really made us theater lovers now. Before we went to this many shows, we both really didn’t like musicals or plays. But now we’ve grown to appreicate them and have favorite ones we would see again (looking at you Kinky Boots). We recommend at least going to some shows that sound interesting. You may end up being theater buffs like us!