The Hanna Theatre is the last of five theaters in Cleveland’s Playhouse Square to be renovated and “reimagined” for modern audiences. |
Between February 1921 and November 1922 five theaters opened along a short stretch of Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland, all of them presenting silent movies, legitimate theater, and vaudeville. During the Great Depression, several of the theaters in the unofficial “Playhouse Square” converted to movie theaters, but they all fell into a death spiral after World War II. By 1969, four of the five were forced to close.
Only the Hanna Theatre stayed alive, limping along into the '80s with local theater productions and the occasional Broadway preview, until it too went dark in 1989. Ten years later, an investment group led by Playhouse Square—a preservation organization that had already saved Hanna's cousins, the Allen, Ohio, State, and Palace theaters—acquired the historic Hanna Building with the goal of making the Hanna Theatre the permanent home of the Great Lakes Theater Festival.
For local A/E firm Westlake Reed Leskosky, the task of revitalizing the Hanna was compounded by the added assignment of making the space conducive to live concerts, stand-up comedy, corporate outings, and other events for which it was never intended.
WRL's new design significantly reconfigured the original 1,400-seat proscenium stage theater into an intimate 548-seat thrust stage, fully flexible in three independent sections, and adaptable to a 572-seat proscenium mode. Equipped with hydraulic lifts that can raise and lower parts of the stage at a rate of up to two feet per second as well as a new structurally independent fly system and improved acoustical, A/V, and lighting systems, the venue provides unparalleled production flexibility. General contractor Turner Construction completed the project in 8½ months, in time for the theater's opening performance September 20, 2008. —Jeffrey Yoders, Senior Associate Editor
Related Stories
| Oct 23, 2013
Gehry, Foster join Battersea Power Station redevelopment
Norman Foster and Frank Gehry have been selected to design a retail section within the £8 billion redevelopment of Battersea Power Station in London.
| Oct 18, 2013
Meet the winners of BD+C's $5,000 Vision U40 Competition
Fifteen teams competed last week in the first annual Vision U40 Competition at BD+C's Under 40 Leadership Summit in San Francisco. Here are the five winning teams, including the $3,000 grand prize honorees.
| Oct 18, 2013
Researchers discover tension-fusing properties of metal
When a group of MIT researchers recently discovered that stress can cause metal alloy to fuse rather than break apart, they assumed it must be a mistake. It wasn't. The surprising finding could lead to self-healing materials that repair early damage before it has a chance to spread.
| Oct 7, 2013
10 award-winning metal building projects
The FDNY Fireboat Firehouse in New York and the Cirrus Logic Building in Austin, Texas, are among nine projects named winners of the 2013 Chairman’s Award by the Metal Construction Association for outstanding design and construction.
| Oct 4, 2013
Nifty video shows planned development of La Sagrada Familia basilica
After 144 years, construction on Gaudi's iconic Barcelona edifice is picking up speed, with a projected end date of 2026.
| Sep 24, 2013
8 grand green roofs (and walls)
A dramatic interior green wall at Drexel University and a massive, 4.4-acre vegetated roof at the Kauffman Performing Arts Center in Kansas City are among the projects honored in the 2013 Green Roof and Wall Awards of Excellence.
| Sep 23, 2013
Six-acre Essex Crossing development set to transform vacant New York property
A six-acre parcel on the Lower East Side of New York City, vacant since tenements were torn down in 1967, will be the site of the new Essex Crossing mixed-use development. The product of a compromise between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and various interested community groups, the complex will include ~1,000 apartments.
| Sep 19, 2013
What we can learn from the world’s greenest buildings
Renowned green building author, Jerry Yudelson, offers five valuable lessons for designers, contractors, and building owners, based on a study of 55 high-performance projects from around the world.
| Sep 19, 2013
6 emerging energy-management glazing technologies
Phase-change materials, electrochromic glass, and building-integrated PVs are among the breakthrough glazing technologies that are taking energy performance to a new level.
| Sep 19, 2013
Roof renovation tips: Making the choice between overlayment and tear-off
When embarking upon a roofing renovation project, one of the first decisions for the Building Team is whether to tear off and replace the existing roof or to overlay the new roof right on top of the old one. Roofing experts offer guidance on making this assessment.