Behind the Scenes and Beyond the Stage

Visit or drive through Playhouse Square on a weekday morning during the school year and chances are good you will see a line of bright yellow buses parked in front of the theaters. This is perhaps the most noticeable sign of our not-for-profit mission at work, as we welcome more than 50,000 schoolchildren to student matinee performances each year.

What you might not see are Playhouse Square teaching artists visiting schools across Northeast Ohio to lead workshops or assist teachers with staging student musicals, high school students attending intensive master classes or staff members meeting with artists and producers to discuss creating new experiences for young audiences.

We are helping to grow the next generation of arts leaders through a variety of internships, our high school senior project program and an annual career fair for entry-level technical and administrative positions in stage, film and television.

Behind the scenes, staff members and volunteers set up quiet spaces for sensory-friendly performances, choose and order supplies for Family Theater Day crafts and stuff envelopes with reimbursements for bus transportation, helping schools overcome one of the biggest barriers for taking advantage of field trip experiences.

As the steward of our neighborhood, we plow and salt district sidewalks during winter, program free events on U.S. Bank Plaza during summer and work to provide a welcoming environment year-round.

And much more.

With more than a thousand performances and events on our calendar to share with you each year, we do not have the opportunity to shed light on this work as often as we would like, so now, we are turning the spotlight on #PSQmissiondriven. We hope you enjoy seeing what we are up to beyond the stage!