As you might have seen in the flurry of communication about all things new for us (new name, new strategic plan, new logo, new set of work imperatives), Arts Cleveland is also igniting a new focus on the arts learning and education ecosystem. This is exciting work, but anyone who works in this field, knows it’s a monstrous area of study, with lots of players, variables and unknowns.

In the same way a play can profoundly influence audience members, leave them emotionally moved or even drained, it can have a powerful effect on a person struggling with personal or emotional challenges, addiction or even serious community issues. That’s why drama or theater projects are often used therapeutically, and Cleveland has a number of programs that are designed to help different populations, including people with drug and alcohol addictions, HIV/AIDS patients, and even women serving time in prison.

For Christopher Bohan, visiting assistant professor of theater at Case Western Reserve University, teaching at the college level changed his life and his acting career.

“I really had no intention of teaching,” he recalls of his first decade in theater. “I just wanted to be a professional actor.” When he decided to pursue his MFA in his early 30s, he chose The Hillberry Theatre program at Wayne State University in Detroit, because it was strictly performance-based with no adjunct teaching requirements. 

As an expert in arts and culture marketing, John Elliot looks at theater in Cleveland or any city with a global and generational perspective. For a number of years, the head of Elliot Marketing Group in Pittsburgh oversaw a collaborative marketing database among Cleveland area arts organizations. Today, he continues to conduct research on the Cleveland market area as well as in other cities nationally.