Getting To Know Kevin Moore

A conversation with Cleveland Play House’s new addition

By Faye Sholiton
Photograph courtesy of Cleveland Play House

When Cleveland Play House trustees named Kevin Moore their new managing director, they not only had to pick the right person for the job, but they also needed to pick the right Kevin Moore. Three regional theaters in America are steered by Kevin Moores.

Early signs show we got the right one: Cleveland’s newest managing director brings skills honed over nine years with Washington, DC’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Thanks in large part to his leadership, the company moved from an urban auto repair shop to a state-of-the-art, 265-seat facility in the city’s upscale, downtown market. He tripled the annual budget, raised $9 million in the theater’s first capital campaign, and, according to Woolly Mammoth’s artistic director, Howard Shalwitz, made friends wherever he went.

“Kevin doesn’t want to look away from fundamental issues or problems,” says Shalwitz. “He’d rather know what the whole challenge is and deal with it.” With Moore’s guidance, he says, “We ended up creating a theater that was beyond anyone’s expectations. Kevin’s somebody people want to deliver for.”

Moore has brought that same energy and passion during his first few months in Cleveland. Mark Alan Gordon, who directs the Case/CPH MFA program, calls him “a man of the theater. He understands the redemptive qualities of theater and how that must be preserved on all levels.”

Not many managing directors sit in on table readings, watch rehearsals, or learn the names of graduate students in the building, Gordon points out. “He has such a keen sense in his dealings with people, not only what they do, but why they do it. Half the job is just showing up, and he does.”

Recently, Moore spoke with Northern Ohio Live about his new assignment.

Faye Sholiton: When did you first fall in love with theater?

KM: In 1969, when I did theater as a child. My mother was looking for an activity for us. I began on stage in Moline, Illinois.

FS: You were born there?

KM: In Michigan. But I grew up throughout the Midwest. My dad worked for Sears and was transferred a lot. And he visited stores all over. We also lived in Louisville and in a town outside of Minneapolis. I attended college in Moorhead, Minnesota, and graduate school was at Indiana University. So I’d been circling Ohio.

FS: And the Play House is also America’s oldest regional theater.

KM: But say “first.” I don’t like “oldest.” It suggests “ye olde.”

FS: In your public speeches, you have expressed great appreciation for the cultural history of Cleveland. Did that influence your decision to come here?

KM: There was something in the Kool-Aid in Cleveland in the 1910s. No other city in the country founded an orchestra, art museum, performing arts center [Playhouse Square] and art theater in such a short time. It’s an amazing heritage. And the history of philanthropy here … I’m impressed with so many pockets of leadership in arts, environmental and economic issues.

FS: Talk about your experience when you came here to interview.

KM: It was in November. My flight from Washington was cancelled by snow. They reworked my itinerary, and 24 hours later, I took off. But there was a new agenda. Now, I was ushered straight to the Schubert Library to a steering committee meeting and faced 12 people. They all started with questions. It’s kind of a blur. But afterward, we went downstairs, where the Festival of Trees was set up, and I was struck by the immensity of it all. In nearly 20 years in theater, I had never seen a facility this big. It was 300,000 square feet!

FS: You were coming from a much more modest operation at Woolly Mammoth. Talk about the growth you achieved there.

KM: When I got there, they were working with an annual budget of $900,000, performing in a 130-seat garage. What we worked on was building our resources and getting a board of directors, staff and facilities to support art at a level that rivaled anyone in the country.

FS: How did you achieve that?

KM: It required a lot of moving parts, but a development opened up downtown. We came in as the arts requirement. We got 30,000 square feet set aside for us. It took about seven years from the idea to opening night, including four years performing in rented spaces.

FS: With a new location and double the number of seats, how did you find your new audience?

KM: You can talk about fancy marketing plans all you want, but it’s all about the work. It comes down to the experience people have in the theater and the theater’s commitment to the mission, in their case, presenting leading-edge theater. It helps that we had the same artistic director for 27 years, so there was a consistent focus on the same aesthetic.

FS: And then you came to Cleveland…

KM: …where I’m working with three times the budget and 10 times the physical plant.

FS: What did you identify as your biggest challenge at the Play House?

KM: Finding a way for the real estate to help advance the mission. It’s remarkable that this organization had amassed this property and these assets. I would not have come here had I not felt that success still flows from the work. And with [artistic director] Michael Bloom, he’s got a clear sense of mission and of the standards of how the Play House should serve the community.

FS: Define that mission.

KM: Great theater. A great arts education program. We were founded to be an art theater, to bring plays of substance to Cleveland, embracing the entire community.

FS: What programs have already delivered on that promise?

KM: FusionFest, for one. It will move us toward a goal of being a top-tier theater in America. It invites the community to experience new work. The MFA program is another, with incredible students and instructors. Our relationship with [Case Western Reserve University] goes back 80 years. Michael’s connection to other theaters is another. I’m very excited about the April production of Carly Mensch’s All Hail Hurricane Gordo, a co-production with Actors Theatre of Louisville. It will bring a taste of the Humana Festival, one of the premiere showcases of new American work. And we’re consistently producing theater at a high level. We’ve had audience growth consistently, for a four-year period.

FS: Still, the company is operating at a large deficit.

KM: It’s in the $3 million range, mostly dating from the challenges in the years leading up to and just after 2001. But we’re on 13 acres of land and we have an endowment of $9 million. It ties in to our aspirations to expand the endowment and the facilities.

FS: What steps have you taken to reduce the deficit? Closing the Play House Club?

KM: That was in process before I arrived. But our mission didn’t include a private dining facility. And [with programming], you can cut too much and cut off your nose to spite your face. Why people cut programming and marketing during tough times, I don’t understand. I ask how we can generate more revenue first. Our success will ride on how well we produce theater. Cutting productions with a steady diet of two-character plays isn’t a solution. Partnering with others to co-produce larger pieces is a solution. Our audiences get a full meal.

FS: …which leads us to the offerings in the second half of the season.

KM: It’s a remarkable range, beginning (this month) with Hershey Felder in George Gershwin Alone. I’m also excited about Gee’s Bend, the story of Alabama quilters. Pieces of their art have hung in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Then comes Doubt – Broadway has had few dramas as compelling as this, followed by Pride and Prejudice, which features the third-year MFA candidates who were honored in last year’s Northern Ohio Live Awards [of Achievement]. And then FusionFest, which includes the Louisville co-production.

FS: “Plays of substance.”

KM: We did it all in the 1920s. We’re still doing that. It’s all part of our mission.

Faye Sholiton, theater writer for Live, is part of the Cleveland Play House Playwrights’ Unit.

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