#175: Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) — Surprise & Inspire the World — Cleveland’s Artistic Renaissance

--AI-Generated Transcript--

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:00:00]:
And our vision is to surprise and inspire the world, full stop. And we had a long debate about the world. You know, one of the trustees said, shouldn't it be northeastern Ohio? I said, no. No. North how many qualifications is that? Northeastern Ohio. No. No. No.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:00:17]:
And then and then you say, well, should a beach just surprise and inspire mainland USA? Does that mean you stop inspiring at the Canadian border? It's it's a nonsense. And because we do a lot of things digitally now with streaming and various things and and in time, commission more education projects, which will end up going around the world, Why would you limit the ambition to the borders of the USA? It doesn't make any sense. So if you say the vision is to surprise and inspire the world, a vision is like a mirage. You're probably never going to achieve it. It's a direction of travel. So if your ambition is of the world, then head that way. Don't stop halfway. I said to the team, I said, I came from the other side of the world.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:00:57]:
I was inspired and surprised by Playhouse Square, and the reason surprise in it because the surprise is that the gauntlet being laid down about the profile. So surprise is I had no idea Cleveland housed this organization. So we're gonna tell them. We're gonna tell Broadway. We're gonna tell the theater folk of this country. We're gonna tell the world through broadcast and streaming, and that's where we're heading.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:25]:
Let's discover what people are building in the greater Cleveland community. We are telling the stories of northeast Ohio's entrepreneurs, builders, and those supporting them. Welcome to the Lay of the Land podcast, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern, and today I had the real pleasure of speaking with Craig Hassall, CEO of Playhouse Square here in Cleveland, Ohio. Craig is a mainstay in the theater community, with decades of experience operating and curating the most prestigious and frequented venues across Europe and in Australia. Over his career, in addition to his role as CEO of the Royal Albert Hall in London, he was also the CEO at Opera Australia, which oversees the Sydney Opera House, and he was the managing director of the English National Ballet. He also held senior roles for major projects, including the 2,000 and 2,012 Olympic Games in both Sydney and London respectively, in addition to many other endeavors. In 2022, Craig was named as the new president and CEO of Playhouse Square, one of the world's premier art districts and 2nd largest performing arts center in the United States, outside of New York City.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:46]:
Playhouse Square has an amazing history here in Cleveland, dating back to the early 19 twenties, and today is the home of a plethora of resident organizations like the City Club of Cleveland, the Cleveland Ballet, Cleveland International Film Festival, Cleveland Playhouse, Cleveland State University Department of Theater and Dance, Dance Cleveland, Great Lakes Theater, Tri C Jazz Festival, and a whole lot more, in addition to its role as one of Broadway's premier touring partners. I personally love the opportunity to sit down with Craig. As a fellow non native Clevelander, it is always very fun for me to find a kindred spirit with a shared appreciation for this city, the excellence within it, and the opportunity ahead of it on a world stage. In this great conversation, Craig and I unpack his love of performance arts, the arc of his professional career and his path to Cleveland, the history and present state of Playhouse Square today, and his ambitious vision for the future going forward. So please enjoy my conversation with Craig Hassall after a brief message from our sponsor. Lay of the Land is brought to you by John Carroll University's Boulder College of Business, widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the region. As we've heard time and time again from entrepreneurs here on Lay of the Land, many of whom are proud alumni of John Carroll University, in this ever changing world of business requires a dynamic and innovative mindset, deep understanding of emerging technologies and systems, strong ethics, leadership prowess, acute business acumen, all qualities nurtured through the Bohler College of Business. With 4 different MBA programs of study spanning professional, online, hybrid, and 1 year flexible, the Bohler College of Business provides flexible timelines in various class structures for each MBA track, including online, in person, hybrid, and asynchronous.

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:40]:
All to offer the most effective options for you including the ability to participate in an elective international study tour providing unparalleled opportunities to expand your global business knowledge by networking with local companies overseas and experiencing a new culture. The career impact of a Bowler MBA is formative and will help prepare you for this future of business and get more out of your career. To learn more about John Carroll University's Buller MBA programs, please go to business.jcu.edu. The Buller College of Business is fully accredited by AACSB International, the highest accreditation a college of business can have. So I wanna start with the question that I imagine you get all the time, which I know that you do because we talked about it before. Turn on record here. But I I think it would be best served with a little context. So like yourself, I'm not a Clevelander by origin, born and raised in New York City.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:35]:
So, I mean, you probably already know where this is going. If we were to do one of those pattern recognition exercises where they show you 2 of something and you were supposed to intuit the 3rd, if we played that game with, say, the the Sydney Opera House and Royal Albert Hall and then proceeded to ask for the 3rd, I am not sure that Playhouse Square would be the institution that comes to most people's mind. Maybe Carnegie Hall.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:06:03]:
Maybe or Lincoln Center or something. Yes. Yes. Spot on. It's like that joke t shirt that says Sydney, London, Cleveland.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:10]:
Yes.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:06:10]:
Yeah. And, of course, Cleveland Cleveland is the joke, you know. It's it's, yeah, which I'm sure will come to you.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:15]:
But it's not a joke.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:06:15]:
It's not a joke.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:16]:
It's not a joke. And I personally am elated to know that you were here because I also recognize Cleveland as a great city, severely underrated, and very optimistic about where it can go from here and just think much more highly of Cleveland then its stereotypes and historical backdrop may suggest about it.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:06:35]:
But, you know, even the stereotypes are limited to the United States. I mean, I'd heard of Cleveland before I came here. I didn't have a view, positive or negative. And my friends who've come to visit me, and they've been quite a few of them, have had no view of Cleveland. So the negativity that's around Cleveland comes from the US, weirdly.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:54]:
And

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:06:54]:
a lot of it comes from Cleveland, I've noticed as well. I'm not sure. Yeah. That was odd. It it is. Yeah. It's the world is neutral about Cleveland.

Jeffrey Stern [00:07:02]:
There's probably some wisdom in that. I we'll we'll come back to that. I'll proceed to then ask the question, which is one, I think that comes genuinely from a place of bewilderment from a lot of Clevelanders who can't, you know, fully wrap their heads around why someone on their own volition would come to Cleveland.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:07:18]:
Yeah. Well, I'm So

Jeffrey Stern [00:07:19]:
so why so why are you here?

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:07:20]:
I'll try and answer it. So it's not because I've had a breakdown, which is what a lot of my friends thought,

Jeffrey Stern [00:07:25]:
or or I've,

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:07:25]:
you know, committed some terrible crime.

Jeffrey Stern [00:07:27]:
Right. Right.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:07:27]:
I'm on the run from the law, and they'll never find me in Cleveland, Ohio. No. It's, I was approached by a headhunter from Atlanta. Yeah. And, honestly, she was and she was great. I mean, I've told this story a thousand times, but she said, now, Craig, I have this opportunity for you. It's in Cleveland, Ohio. Now don't hang up.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:07:42]:
Don't hang up. Let let me explain. And she started explaining, and I I did say, look. That's very flattering, but I'm not sure I would move from London, from the Royal Albert Hall, one of the most famous venues in the world, to a place I've never heard of, Playhouse Square, in a city I've kind of heard of, but I'm not really sure where it is. And she said, well, just let's just listen to me, and then I persevered. And it wasn't till I came over. I had a look around. And what swung me? Well, probably 3 things, actually.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:08:09]:
One of them we discussed before we started recording. The first thing was the theaters, which I'm sure you've seen. The theaters are spectacularly good. Stunning. They're not just beautiful. They're restored. They work, operationally really well. They are stunning to look at.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:08:23]:
The sight lines are good, and there's plenty of them. So that was the first thing. And the second, I was interviewed by a whole lot of trustees. And the attitude of the trustees was so positive and so welcoming and professional and supportive. And, you know, I've worked in the arts most of my life, and I've never really experienced trustees with such a positive attitude to the place, such pride in what they are doing as trustees, not for profit trustees, and their enthusiasm for what's on stage and everything else. Well, that was the second thing. And the third thing was Cleveland. You know, I was taken around.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:08:53]:
Margi John, who's one of our trustees, the company called Executive Arrangements. Their job is to basically make you fall in love with Cleveland. That's what they exist for. And I had this whistle stop tour one afternoon where we were driven around Edgewater where I now live. Little Italy had lunch there. Yeah. We whizzed past the Westside markets and down to the flats. So it was this crazy whirlwind tour of Cleveland.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:09:16]:
And because I had no reference point at all, my view was this place is amazing. This is a really big little city, and it's got everything that you'd need As all that was discussed before, no traffic. There's no traffic on the roads. And so Cleveland was the 3rd clincher for me, and that's probably been surprising to people listening to this who are from New York or Chicago and LA because they just they just don't know. And I didn't know, and I now prosthetize back to Cleveland. You know? Right.

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:43]:
No. I again, I think we're we're kindred spirits in that way. Can you take us through part of your upbringing, you know, growing up in the countryside of New South Wales, I'd love to start with what inspired you to get interested in the world of of art, theater, performance.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:09:59]:
Yeah. Sure. I'll try and be brief, but this story that will end up in Cleveland. So I'll start with Cleveland and then go backwards. One thing I like about Cleveland is the attitude, which we discussed before the podcast. The attitude of the people here, it's it's Midwest values, which means people are generally, and I would say almost that exception for me, friendly, welcoming, genuine, honest.

Jeffrey Stern [00:10:19]:
Yes.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:10:20]:
But not hokey and not parochial. They're very proud of Cleveland, but they wouldn't say it's the best city in the world, and there's nowhere else you wanna live and blah blah blah. So they love this city. They're very proud of it, but not to the point of ridicule. You know what I mean? Yeah. So then I go right back, and I grew up in the countryside in in Australia, little country town on a farm. And Australian rural folk are very much like Cleavengers. Same thing.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:10:44]:
They travel. They're, you know, well educated. They have views of the world, but they love where they're from, and they're incredibly welcoming and friendly. Now they'll take you into the home, give you a meal, show you around the farm, and so on and so on. I never really I mean, I didn't really wanna be a farmer. I was cleared right from the get go. That wasn't that wasn't my thing. I will I'm not good with sheep.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:11:03]:
I I I I you know, that's not my thing. I won a scholarship to go to boarding school in Sydney, which was the best thing that could happen to me because I suddenly was in an urban environment with people like me that liked shows on stage and like music and, drama. And, yeah, I I enjoyed sport. I wasn't very good at it, but I tried every I played every sport there was. Cricket was very big in Australia. Yep. I was terrible at cricket, but I really enjoyed it. And how I got into this world was, the school I went to was was a very sport heavy school.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:11:30]:
We did really well at the head of the river, which is a big rowing competition, and rugby union was big. Cricket was huge, of course. Yeah. And I tried all those things, and that was fun. But I really love drama. And I had a really terrific English teacher and a really great French teacher. I mean, so weird learning French in Australia. I think, why on earth? How is that helpful? Well, not really is the answer.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:11:50]:
I did French and Latin. Latin was less useful. No. Actually, Latin was more useful than French, I'd say, because of etymology and so on. But anyway Yes. But I had one great French teacher and one great English teacher, and they went out of their way to take us, you know, rowdy, hapless, rural boys to shows. We went to see Mhmm. The Sydney Theatre Company and Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Australian Ballet and, Opera Australia.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:12:15]:
And I just gained a really substantial appreciation of the performing arts, which I would never have got if I'd stayed in the country. I would have seen the odd touring show, but not even anything like you have here in the US. So I'm so grateful to those 2 gentlemen to this day that they opened my eyes to this whole world I had no clue about. And it's actually one thing that I'm I've championed all the way through my career. We're doing even now at Playhouse Square. Is this notion of pipeline career awareness? But like you're saying, entrepreneurship, doing the same thing in the arts, there are so many jobs in my world that young kids like I was have no clue about. Yeah. They may they may want to work in the world that I'm in, but for them, they think that means being a musician or a singer or an actor.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:12:58]:
Right. They have no idea about lighting, sound, makeup, dresses, stage management, crew. There's so many jobs in this world. And so I'm I've always championed making young people aware of all the jobs we have in our world because we need people to work in our industry. And the more aware they are, the earlier, the better. So that kicked me off, and I, yeah, I never looked back after that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:21]:
Well and then I imagine we could spend, you know, the entirety of the conversation on the on the myriad out of experiences you you've had since from, I mean, the the Sydney Opera House, Royal Albert Hall, like we mentioned already, but, I mean, organizing the Olympics in in Sydney and London, the English National Ballet, I believe.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:13:37]:
Yeah. Just pick 1. I don't I don't know.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:41]:
Well, how how do you, when you reflect on the arc of your career, think about the threads that tie it together, the themes of it, the salient takeaways, you know, what kinda inspired you to each subsequent, you know, step in your journey?

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:13:54]:
Yeah. It's a good question. And that probably ties back to a lot of what you do with your your world. You know? There's a great saying that says, you know what happens if you don't take any risks? Nothing. And I know it's true. And I've taken risks all my life with my career, with productions, with people, with hires, young people, and it's usually always paid off. I mean, the Sydney Olympic Games, you know, I was a young guy. I was about early thirties, and I was given the job of running the cultural program with the Sydney Olympics.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:14:22]:
Now the guy that I replaced had been to Atlanta in was it 96, I think? Yeah. And it was he had a terrible time. He came back from Atlanta and resigned. So the the word on the street in Sydney was, this is a poison chalice. Do not take this job. And I was young. I thought, well, what the hell? I was offered the job, and I thought, well, I'm not gonna lose. You know? I could just Right.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:14:42]:
Go. So I left in boots and all, and I hired people that I trusted and knew who were also very young. So we're a very young team. And we'd have these, what I call, come to Jesus meetings where, basically, it's a daddy go, Okay, guys. We have to solve this. Who's got an idea? And some, you know, my my Stephanie, my marketing person will go, well, we could try x, y, and zed. I go, well, that sounds good. And, honestly, it was it was as random as that.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:15:08]:
And we'd followed up with a bit of science, but it was a case of just leaping in and trying things out. And because it was Sydney, it was the year 2000 or just before, and we'd never hosted the games before. The world didn't know much about Sydney. So whatever we did was first time it had been done. So we couldn't really get it wrong because whatever we did was the thing. It was the touchstone. You know? Right. And we put on 4 festivals over 4 years, and in the final year, which is the year of the games when, you know, the whole world came to Sydney or watches on television, We put on a 6 week festival, which had Sydney Opera House and all the galleries and theaters, and it was just unbelievable.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:15:44]:
You know, it really worked. We had some things didn't work. We had one music festival, which is a bit of a disaster. It just it just actually just rained and rained and rained a week before the opening ceremony. Yeah. It was a nightmare, but that wasn't our fault. But in the final analysis, I thought, well, we just kept pushing forward, trying stuff out, and taking risks every day for 4 years, and it paid off.

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:04]:
Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I I like that that saying without risk, then nothing happens.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:16:11]:
Nothing happens. Exactly. Actually, coming to Cleveland was a risk, you know.

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:15]:
Well, absolutely.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:16:15]:
Yeah. I just left in. I thought, well, it doesn't work if I go back to London. Right. I

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:19]:
mean, lots of unknowns, as as a part of of that step.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:16:23]:
Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:23]:
Let's set some context for Playhouse Square. Sure. So while while I was reading up on Playhouse Square, I'd come across this line that I I thought was kinda memorable and funny, but it was that the saving of Playhouse Square is, you know, kind of a leading triumph in one of the top ten successes in Cleveland history. I don't know what the other 9 are, but to the degree that Cleveland has historically prioritized parking, for example, over, you know, its kind of rich heritage, architectural beauty, you know, Millionaire's Row is right next to where Playhouse Square is or at least it used to be. How did you approach, you know, kind of the understanding of the history of Playhouse Square?

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:17:02]:
The history of Playhouse Square really chimed with me personally when I heard the story.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:06]:
And it's survival. And it's survival.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:17:07]:
And, you know, Ray Shepherdson was a he was, like, in his twenties. This is the guy who led the restoration and the saving of those buildings. So he got his mates together, and they put it on a cabaret for, like, two and a half years, Jacque Braille. And that's a that's that's the arts, you know, coming to the fore, and the people of Cleveland would go and see this show again and again and again knowing that every time they went, cost them a few bucks to go, the money would help support and restore these theaters. And the parking thing, I mean, it's so funny you say that. You know, I come from a city where no one has a car. You jump on the tube, you get a bus. Yeah.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:17:39]:
If you dare to drive, you're an idiot because it takes you twice as long. And I come here where, as we discussed before, we have these amazing motorways with no no cars, but everyone has a car. So you have to drive in Cleveland. I'm sure that was the culture from a 100 years ago, you know, with the motor industry being so big here and so on. So when you imagine now, it seems heinous to to think about it, the fact that those theaters are going to be razed

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:02]:
to the ground

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:18:03]:
Yeah. Demolished. Demolished for surface parking because parking was so important back in the day, back in the, what, 50 years ago. The fact they were saved is extraordinary. Extraordinary. And I what I'd like to say is, you know, those theaters were rescued by the people of Cleveland. The restoration funded by the people of Cleveland, and now they're supported by the people of Cleveland. You know, the Playhouse Square has, and if you know this, has the highest number of season ticket holders in the country.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:18:28]:
These are the people who subscribe to 7 Broadway shows, 44,000 people. And the next highest city is, I think, it's Cincinnati or Chicago, somewhere. It's 22,000. Wow. So people in Cleveland love the arts. Look at the rock hall. Look at the museum, the orchestra. You know, there's a really kind of disproportionately high appreciation of the arts in Cleveland.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:18:49]:
You know, look at jazz. Look at the number of bands in pubs and things around. It's really, really strong here, and that's a good DNA for a city to have, I would say.

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:58]:
Absolutely. What were some of the other historical precedents moments from Playhouse Square that stood out to you in your study of it?

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:19:07]:
Oh, wow. Well, if you kinda go backwards, if you look at Playhouse Square now, its future is assured, I would say, touch wood, in that it has this really interesting portfolio of of theaters and real estate. You know, Playhouse Square owns the Crowne Plaza Hotel, The Lumin Apartments, which they build, office buildings, all the theaters, and other bits and pieces around that neighborhood. So it's got a really strong business base. Yep. And then if you go backwards, the highlights since they say the theaters were, the building in Moore Theatre. So the there's the 4 sort of heritage theaters, and now there's now about 14 performance spaces. So the idea stream collaboration in the idea center was a really important moment when public broadcasting came into the Playhouse Square, and so that extended the portfolio and the and the partnership with Ideaastream.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:19:50]:
That was, I'd say, really a high watermark for Playhouse Square. But I'd also say the the assembling of all these resident companies over the years. You know, I've had experience I've been a resident company. So the Sydney Opera House, I ran Opera Australia, which is the opera company. So I was a resident of the Sydney Opera House, and that was fine because we got on very well, but it wasn't always the case. You know? In in London, there's a place called Southbank. It's an art center. And then famously, there are about 5 or 6 resident orchestras of Southbank.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:20:18]:
Yeah. And word on the street is the orchestras hate Southbank, and Southbank hates the orchestra. But they're stuck in this unholy marriage where they have to get certain dates and so on and so on. It's a really an unhealthy dynamic. At Playhouse Square, they have 8 resident companies, most recently, City Club, which, you know, City Club is a great institution. I'm sure you know them very well. And alongside that, you have, you know, Cleveland Playhouse and Great Lakes and the film festival and Tri c Jazz. I mean, there's so many companies, Cleveland Ballet.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:20:47]:
And there's a it's a really good dynamic. No one's competing for audiences or donors or space or dates is a bit of a wrangle often because everyone wants to corner palace at a certain date, of course. But, actually, it all works out, and I'd say that's one of the the nicest parts of the personality of Playhouse Square is the fact that it can have this association of 8 resident companies. And, actually, most recently, we added Karamu Karamu House as an affiliate company because they're not resident. They don't need to be. They've got a fantastic theater in East Cleveland, but they're an affiliate company. So we're setting up this new partnership where we're going to have a an artistic and operational partnership with Karamu to help them, and that'll help us. So it's a really good dynamics between the 2 organizations.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:21:29]:
So that's a high watermark as well. And then I'd say since the other theaters are built, just building the real estate portfolio to benefit the not for profit status of Playhouse Square. So, you know, most real estate developers make money for their shareholders or their family or whatever it is. Any money that we make is only for Playhouse Square, meaning for the buildings or for education programs or commissioning works. What a great setup is that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:55]:
Yeah.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:21:56]:
Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:56]:
That's incredible. I'm curious as you, I mean, ultimately opted to take the job, you know, that the recruiter reached out to you about, how you thought about what your mandate is? And and particularly, I think it would be interesting to hear, you know, in contrast to what it was at this, you know, the Sydney Opera House or the Royal Albert Hall. What is your goal?

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:22:16]:
Sure. That's a good question. So I might contrast it with English National Ballet, actually. Sure. So when I it's similar in a way, and then I moved from Sydney to London to run English National Ballet just after the Olympic games. Yeah. And then I moved from London to Cleveland for Playhouse Square. So when I arrived at the ballet company, they were in a parlor state financially and artistically.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:22:36]:
So, my job was to rescue the company. I had to sort them out, not artistically if I had an artistic director, but the 2 go hand in hand. So what you put on stage obviously affects how much money you make at the box office and so on and so on. So we structured the the regional touring model of the company. We set up smaller touring parties. We changed repertoire. We adjusted our London dates. We had more dates in London because London sells really well if you're doing The Nutcracker or Swan Lake.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:23:02]:
We renegotiated with the Royal Albert Hall to do big ballets at the Royal Albert Hall. So we had a lot of work to do. I think we me and my senior team at the ballet to get it back on track and steady the ship and worked. You know, we were back in the black about a year later, and we had more invitations to tour throughout Europe and to China and and Australia and places. So it it worked, and the company was in a good position operationally and financially and artistically. So that was great. Yeah. I contrast that with with Plano Square.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:23:29]:
Didn't come here to rescue Plano Square. I arrived. The company is firing all cylinders, you know, in the wake of Gina Venacci, who's before me, and Art Falco before her. They'd run the company really well. It was in great shape artistically, operationally, and financially. So to your question, you think, well, what am I doing here? And I think the answer is, and I I said to the trustees, I think my job here is to, first of all, ensure that continues. Rent? But the biggest challenge for me, I would say, is this question of profile, profile and brand of Playhouse Square within Cleveland, within Ohio, nationally, and internationally. And so we've just done a new you you do all these vision and value statements.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:24:12]:
When you start with a new company, the first thing you do is business plan. So we're doing all that. And our vision is to surprise and inspire the world, full stop. And we had a long debate about the world. You know, one of the trustees said, shouldn't it be northeast in Ohio? I said, no. No. North how many qualifications is that? Northeastern Ohio. No.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:24:33]:
No. No. And then and then you say, well, should a beach surprise and inspire mainland USA? Does that mean you stop inspiring at the Canadian border? It's it's a nonsense. And because we do a lot of things digitally now with streaming and the various things and and in time, commission more education projects, which will end up going around the world, why would you limit the ambition to the borders of the USA? It doesn't make any sense. So if you say the vision is to surprise and inspire the world, a vision is like a mirage. You're probably never going to achieve it. It's a direction of travel.

Jeffrey Stern [00:25:05]:
Yes.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:25:06]:
So if your ambition is of the world, then head that way. Don't stop halfway. I said to the team, I said, I came from the other side of the world. I was inspired and surprised by Playhouse Square. And the reason surprise in it because the surprise is that the gauntlet being laid down about the profile. So surprise is I had no idea Cleveland housed this organization. So we're gonna tell them. We're gonna tell Broadway.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:25:31]:
We're gonna tell the theater folk of this country. We're gonna tell the world through broadcast and streaming, and that's where we're heading. So that's, I think, the challenge I have ahead of me is to keep the ship, you know, gold plated and keep it successful, but go to the next level in terms of profile and brand.

Jeffrey Stern [00:25:48]:
Yeah. Well, that's spectacular. I think it hits on a theme or a pattern, a topic that's come up, I mean, so frequently in conversations on this podcast in particular, but it's a recognition of people who are who are building things here to raise the bar of ambition. We can actually just think bigger and the you know, we don't have to tolerate a a mediocrity and average, which I say, you know, from a place of of love and and knowing that we can do that here.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:26:17]:
Definitely. And, you know, I I'll give a plug for the mayor. The mayor has the same ambition. You know, he's very focused. He's very young. He's very ambitious and very focused. He's a bright guy. I got to know him when I when I started.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:26:29]:
Actually, before I started, I met with him. And it's really helpful to have someone like the mayor and the county executive, Chris Renee. They're they're aligned in their ambition, and having those 2 very key roles in a city like Cleveland aligned may means that for, not just in my world, but in entrepreneurship, in business, in manufacturing, in hospitality, in tourism, you can really kick goals if you're aligned politically in that way, and that's really helpful. So I, yeah, I think it's great. I mean, the mayor, he could sit in his laurels and just go, well, Cleveland is what it is and just do your best, But he doesn't. He's really this oh, what I love one of one of his great things is this 15 minute city. You know, this thing about Yeah. Let's create a city where it's 15 minutes wherever you wanna go, whether you're walking, driving, you're downtown, wherever you are.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:27:15]:
And that suddenly, that's really easy to imagine. And the best goals, the ones you go, oh, I see. You wanna paint the building blue? Oh, yeah. Well, let's get on with it. Then that's why I think his ambition is really strong and it's easy to leap on board to help support that ambition.

Jeffrey Stern [00:27:30]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:27:33]:
Lay of

Jeffrey Stern [00:27:33]:
the Land is brought to you by Impact Architects and by 90. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio, Impact Architects has helped 100 of those leaders, many of whom we have heard from as guests on this very podcast, realize their own visions and build these great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love. If you 2 are trying to build great, Impact Architects is offering to sit down with you for a free consultation or provide a free trial through 90, the software platform that helps teams build great companies. If you are interested in learning more about partnering with Impact Architects or by leveraging 90 to power your own business, please go to ia.layoftheland.fm. The link will also be in our show notes. So again, I I love, you know, aspirationally, the the goal is is at a global scale, but I you you know, you've also mentioned and I'd love to hear more about this appetite for culture in Cleveland and how you envision Playhouse Square as an institution going forward and and the impact you'd like for it to have locally.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:28:50]:
Sure. Well, the first thing to say is, Playhouse Square is not an outlier in terms of cultural impact in Cleveland. You know, what I was really impressed about when I first came here was the number and weight of artistic institutions you have in Cleveland, you know, big and small. I look at Karamu and Cleveland Public Theater, and there's some really terrific things going on. Then you have the art museum, which is it is one of the best in the world. And I can say that I'm not from Cleveland. It was one of the best in the world. Yeah.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:29:15]:
That collection, if you're in Cleveland, you haven't been, go. It's free because of mister Wade back in the day made it free. It's phenomenal. The orchestra and, you know, the Royal Albert Hall, we host the Cleveland Orchestra in the BBC Proms, which is the biggest custom music festival in the world. So we already knew that Cleveland Orchestra was one of the best in the world, but I don't know that Clevelanders know that. It is genuinely a force to be reckoned with artistically in the classical music world, not just in in the music world. Amazing. The Rock Hall.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:29:44]:
You know? Phenomenal. Phenomenal. You know, we beat well, I say I could say we now. We. Yeah. Yeah. We beat Very cool. Pittsburgh, Nashville, Memphis, Vegas, LA in the competition.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:29:56]:
And, again, it's a bit like playing our square. As I understand it, the reason that the Rock Hall was here was because something like 600 Clevelanders wrote in in support of Cleveland getting itself. Like, there you go again. Grassroots support by Clevelanders for cultural institutions in Cleveland. Fantastic. So Impact locally, I think, again, the resident companies is part of that solution. You know, we can support these companies to do things beyond what they could do with their own resources. You know, the film festival just finished, and that's a fantastic outfit.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:30:26]:
I mean, I don't know if you go to it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:27]:
It's it's great.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:30:29]:
It's great. Great. Great. The films are terrific. The organization is really well run, and it we love having it at Playhouse Square. It's terrific. All the theaters are being used and various things. But I think this is for the company model also as a way that we can embed ourselves more in the culture of Cleveland.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:30:42]:
I think there was a slight sense maybe, I don't know, 10 years ago, a slight fortress mentality about Playhouse Square. Beautiful theaters, pine garage at the back. So you park your car, scurry across the overpass into theater, then scurry home. So one thing I'm and this goes back to why I'm here, I think. One thing I'm I'm gonna push and push and push is this notion of place making and destination Yeah. And really make Playhouse Square more so it is it is already, but more so a destination. And that's there's a whole lot of bits to that. It's about this what's on the street.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:31:16]:
It's about what's on offer. It's about having things where you can graze rather than have a ticketed entry. So rather than come to a 7:30 show or a 1:30 matinee, whatever, just come in. There's a jazz club. You pay a cover charge and stay for an hour, 3 hours, whatever you like. There's a bar. You can come to a martini or have a beer, whatever you like. There's a beer garden.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:31:35]:
There's a festival in the park. You come and bring your kids. You can have a play date. You know, all these things where it's a reason to come down to Playhouse Square. And I know we joked about parking before. Parking I'm learning I'm learning the 3 three three biggest things in Cleveland are parking, religion, and guns. And I wouldn't put any one higher than the other.

Jeffrey Stern [00:31:55]:
Yeah. You know.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:31:56]:
So if you're going to make Playhouse Square a destination, you can't just have one event in the park because it doesn't justify the cost of parking. I know that's terrible. I can't remember saying that. I'm a cleaner No. It's it's reality. It's true. But if you have a few things where there's something for the children, there's something for the adults, there's something to go and see, you may come down. And, also, on that place making point, I would also say, it's a net sum neutral gain if we don't have a point of difference.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:32:23]:
So I what I don't wanna do is cannibalize the people that go to the flats or West 25th or East 4th. I want to create things that bring more people from the suburbs of Mattartown to Plain House Square. I don't wanna steal the audiences from other Right. Entertainment areas of Cleveland. That that's really unhelpful. And and the way to do that is to have an offer which is different. So we're not gonna have the same offer as The Flats or West 25th or East 4th. It'll be a Playhouse Square offer.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:32:52]:
Now it's what what's the offer? Well, we'll look at the personality of Playhouse Square within a bloody great chandelier in the middle of our streets, and that's a good indication. So it's probably something for I don't know, maybe a slightly older demographic that doesn't want thumping music or they want really cool jazz. They want really nice drinks or whatever. So we haven't quite worked out what the offer is, but it has to be different from the other offers to complement what's out there.

Jeffrey Stern [00:33:17]:
If you take that, you know, ultimately, one step further, kinda overlay the whole vision exercise you've been undertaking, how do you think about what success for Playhouse Square is and for you personally in this undertaking? Sure.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:33:30]:
I well, I probably say what does success look like for Cleveland, actually. I wanna make sure that Playhouse Square is intimately locked into the culture of Cleveland. You know, I don't want us to be like Harry Potter World in Watford. So in Watford, it's a town north of London, and Harry Potter World is there, Warner Brothers. It's like the Battleship Galactica. I mean, it's this it's this whole thing Yeah. Has nothing to do with Watford. It starts very well.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:33:53]:
It's the number 2 tourist attraction in the UK. Watford benefits 0 from that because there are shuttle buses from London or there's a train ride to Harry Potter World. I don't wanna be the Harry Potter World of of Cleveland. I wanna be part of the community to make sure we are. So I would say success looks like I thought of this before I actually came to live here, us to get to a point where Cleveland becomes like Nashville or Detroit or New Orleans. I mean, you you say, let's go New Orleans for the weekend. Why? Because why? Because there's always something to do. It's great.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:34:26]:
It's great fun. There's a real good vibe. There's some good jazz and so on and so on. Nashville, well, there's country music. All the time, there's great things to do. Detroit, Motown, sort of Vegas is, you know, it's not my favorite place. But, yeah, I don't I don't want us to become Vegas. But Cleveland, I think, is almost there.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:34:42]:
And so if Playhouse Square becomes an important player in the offer and we all, you know, us, the Rock Hall, the orchestra, and everyone helped contribute to this this brand of Cleveland being a place you can go. It's relatively inexpensive to stay there. It's pretty safe. There's tons to do. It's family friendly. There's a variety of things. The Metroparks, you know, phenomenal. And then so brand Cleveland gets gets known as a really cool, affordable place to go for a weekend.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:35:14]:
If we can get that message across, I'd say maybe not internationally yet, even though I'm I am trying to surprise the world. Yeah. It will happen. It'll happen in time in time. A bit like I mean, like, San Francisco, I think, has kinda lost that luster a little bit in the last, say, 5 or 10 years, and somewhere like Austin, Texas seems to have gained it. It's weird how cities have their highs and lows over time. I think Cleveland is poised to have a high and play our square feet part of that, the delivery of that high Yeah. Working with our other our colleagues.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:47]:
I certainly hope so.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:35:48]:
Yeah. Me too.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:50]:
What do you wish more people understood about the business of performance arts?

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:35:56]:
Yeah. Gosh. It's sort of our own fault. In our world, we have a whole world of artists where we create something on a stage, and we don't really want you to see how the lights turn on or where how the makeup's put on or the fact that she's wearing a wig or there's a big effect at the end of act 1 and so on. It's we're selling magic. And once you start to unpick magic, you're doing yourself a disservice. I always say it's funny. I've worked in this industry too long now, and I saw a show last week in London.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:36:25]:
And as soon as something falls on the stage, it's the end of the act. And I mean petals, balloons, confetti, sand, bricks, paper, whatever because you can't sweep it up. So you have to bring the curtain in every interval. Mhmm. So it's a shame because that that means for me well, I've ruined it for you now as well and your listeners. If you see something fall on the stage, get ready to go because that's the end of the act. So you don't really want to undo the magic too much. Now the downside of that is there are all these careers that are part of delivering the magic.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:36:57]:
And I would love to make people more aware of those, but I don't want to destroy the magic. A story years ago, when I went to the opera, Baz Luhrmann, the film director, he's an Aussie. He was a young guy, and it was his first production out of drama school.

Jeffrey Stern [00:37:10]:
Yeah. And it was an opera

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:37:11]:
of La Beau Hemp by Puccini. And he had a tiny budget. He and his now wife were the director and designer. And he was a terrific connector. He would sit in the wardrobe helping make the costumes, and he'd sit in marketing signing posters for the first 100 subscribers or whatever it was. And everyone in the building felt part of that show.

Jeffrey Stern [00:37:33]:
Mhmm.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:37:33]:
And everyone got to go to the final guest rehearsal. And Bas made a point at the rehearsal of standing up and thanking the finance department and the HR people and the drivers and the fundraising team because he he understood that all those roles were important for getting that show on stage. And the people that in front of the curtain are one tiny part of this massive infrastructure. And I just thought that was what a great thing to inspire young people who are working in the company to feel part of the show. So when the curtain went up that midnight and you read the reviews, you felt that you had a personal stake in the success of that show. So that's what I'd love to achieve, but how do you do it without opening up the curtain too much and showing everyone the ugly parts behind the scenes? Right. But that's my aspiration.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:20]:
No. It's fascinating.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:38:21]:
I I

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:22]:
wanna ask a few, maybe more personal questions. One that I was genuinely interested in, it actually goes back to what you mentioned at the beginning, which is I think, maybe in a proximity to Cleveland, there is a perception of what Cleveland is like. And until you come here, you don't know how accurate or not it is. But outside of America, maybe there isn't even a perception. So this whole idea that, you know, Mark Twain said travel is is fatal to prejudice and bias. I would love to understand, you know, having been in many different countries, the kind of influence of the culture of each of them respectively as it's shaped your approach to leadership and, you know, just running these kinds of organizations?

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:39:04]:
Yeah. It's a good question because it does it certainly does. I mean, the way I would behave running an organization in Australia is very different to how I behave in the UK or in London, particularly.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:14]:
Yeah.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:39:14]:
Australia has a very entrepreneurial spirit and flavor about it, and it is a very can do country. But at the same time, it has that slight chip on its shoulder that you find here For sure. That people think, well, we wouldn't be able to do that. We're just Australians. And yet yet unlike Cleveland, the world thinks Australia is a utopia. I don't know where that came from. It did. Yeah.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:39:37]:
Crocodile Dundee. I don't know where it came from. But the world thinks favorably of Australia. So that means a lot of people want to go there and work and live, so it's good for Australia. But the way I would behave running a company is, slightly maybe more casual and more collaborative and less hierarchical than other places. When I moved to London to the ballet, you know, it's yeah. I'm I'm and I love the British. After about, You got

Jeffrey Stern [00:40:06]:
the caveat in there.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:40:07]:
Yeah. After about 6 weeks, people kept saying to me, oh, well, that's not how we do things here. And then I finally said, okay. You know what? You keep saying that to me, but the way you're doing things here is not working because look at the state of the company. We're gonna turn this around. So you just have to basically push ever so slightly. You can't be too demonstrative. You can't be you can never bang the table, not that I bang the table.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:40:30]:
But you have to just go do it in an English way. Little persuasion.

Jeffrey Stern [00:40:34]:
Yes. Yes.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:40:35]:
Be polite. Just bring people along for the ride.

Jeffrey Stern [00:40:38]:
Well, it's interesting because that that's also a pattern that's come up a bunch in in conversations here, but it's whenever the justification for the way of doing things is that's the way we've always done it, it's not the best justification.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:40:49]:
It's really not. If you track records, great. Maybe it is. But even then, you can push the boundaries a bit. Absolutely. Yeah. But my observation coming here is and I don't say this against the British, but I would say the goes back to the Midwest thing. Yeah.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:41:03]:
It's such a glass half full mentality. People are so, so far, so much like, yeah, we can do that. Yeah. We've never done it before, but let's try. That's a great idea. Let's do it. And so I feel like I'm kicking an open door with the ideas I've had to play on screen. And I've had I've had quite a few only because no one has said, please, can you just slow down? Well, actually, I have said that, but that I mean it.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:41:28]:
They're they're so receptive to ideas and keen to make them work. And and then I would also, based on my Olympic experience, be happily told, look, that's great, but we just need to, you know, do it at at the time when we can afford it or when it's operationally sensible and so on and so on. So happy to wait as well. Well, not happy, but prepared to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:49]:
What would be your ask of Clevelanders, You know, if if you could wave a magic wand and fully, you know, amplify and ask or or a message or

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:41:58]:
Great. Gosh. That's a great question. So I'm doing this leadership Cleveland course at the moment, which I think we talked about before. And it's it's really for me, it's it's just invaluable. There's 60 leaders of Cleveland. We spend a day a month together, and then we have the odd retreat. And and it's been so helpful meeting people from all walks of life, from health care, from business banking, not for profit, from churches, and all sorts of things.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:42:23]:
And we have these the class of 60 is split up into groups of about 6 or so. We have one day to present each. And so our day, my group, was called quality of life. And as it turned out with our little gang, I did the intro. And so we decided we were going to have a sort of flavor of the day about reminding our colleagues how amazing Cleveland is because there are lots of problems. You can't pretend there are issues here with infant mortality, especially amongst black children and, you know, education is an issue and Digital divide. Yeah. Exactly.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:42:55]:
There are a lot of challenges, but we've studied all a lot of these things are part of the course. And even though these are huge problems, like, child literacy really struck me as one, The stuff that Cleveland is doing is really good. Like, there's some really great people, doing really great things. Like, one of my classmates, Jasmine Long, she's runs a thing called Birthing Beautiful, which is a it's a birthing center for black women. Mhmm. Because if you're black and pregnant, you're stressed. You know? And if the midwives are all white, you're more stressed. And so Jasmine's creating a center where you won't feel stressed so the danger of miscarriage is reduced and, anyway, all sorts.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:43:33]:
So it's and, no, that's just one of a number of stories. Yeah. So, anyway, our quality of life day, I opened the day, and I spent 45 minutes basically about Cleveland and just saying, guys, yes, there are challenges, but there are challenges in every American city, every British city. You know? But what we are doing here is extraordinary. And look at the assets that we have, the assets of Cleveland. And I'm saying this as a transplant. I've come here with no skin in the game, and I'm gonna give you a roll call of things here which are great about Cleveland. I went through.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:44:02]:
I said, yeah. Empty motorways and, you know, the art museum and Lakeview Cemetery and Karamu and Cleveland Public Theater. I mean, there's just it's extraordinary. It is an extraordinary list. It's phenomenal. And so I I think I'm now of the view that Cleveland has great assets to sell. One of the biggest issues to solve is the attitude of Clevelanders, though. And you you you were you're a transplant.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:44:25]:
You must tell us this. People that are born and bred in Cleveland say, what on earth are you doing here? Why would you come here?

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:32]:
Yes. Yes.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:44:32]:
Yeah. And then and the problem is then a lot of people from Cleveland study in other cities and just don't come back. So you have these talented young people who were born and bred, and they loved Cleveland at some point, but they've gone off to Michigan or LA, and they just don't come back. So it's incumbent on us who are in Cleveland to really get the story out there that actually has no propaganda. It's all true. It's a great city.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:58]:
Right. Yeah. That's the I mean, that's the crazy part is that it it seems to be grounded in reality. Yeah.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:45:04]:
Yeah. Totally.

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:05]:
Yeah. Right. We're not making You're

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:45:06]:
not making yourself. No. No.

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:08]:
We actually you know, there

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:45:10]:
are amazing things. Yeah. Yep.

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:13]:
Well, I'll keep the the magic wand in your hand for a moment,

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:45:16]:
and I

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:17]:
I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about from the performance art side of things. If you could wave that magic wand again and you could bring any acts performances, you know, what most aspirationally would you like to have and bring to Cleveland?

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:45:32]:
Oh, gosh. That's a very hard question. Well, this is a recent conversation I had with Michael Barakiva, who's the new artistic director at Cleveland Playhouse. I would love us to have a commissioned show that is about Cleveland. Mhmm. And I don't mean a sort of historic panorama. I mean, something a really gutsy biting story that happens to be about Cleveland, and that becomes the next Hamilton or the next Nicholas Nickleby or, you know, it it becomes one of these incredible stories, like, of mice and men or or something.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:11]:
Yeah.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:46:11]:
Imagine if we pulled that off and that story sent chills through the spines of people in theaters over the world, and it was done by the National Theatre in London and it was on Broadway and it played 3 years, that's like an advertorial for Cleveland. Whether the story is, you know, about the mafia, it doesn't matter. It just it's about a city like this. And so the DNA of Cleveland lives through that story, and it becomes the thing that people see all over the world. Now New York is full of those kinds of plays and musicals. So the image of New York is shaped by the cultural devices that describe the city. Paris is the same. Why can't Cleveland have just one of those Yeah.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:46:52]:
That is becomes a a modern classic and tells a story.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:55]:
And there are incredible stories. Incredible stories. The the history is.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:46:59]:
The 2 guys, the 2 Jewish guys that created Superman were from Glenville. I mean, that's unbelievable. Yeah. The 2 guys that built the terminal tower, that's a cookie story. Like, they shared a room for their entire life, and they're really rich. They were brothers and that I mean, there's there's something it's a wonderful story to be told. So the stories are here. In fact, one one idea we've had for you know, we just bought this Greyhound bus terminal

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:26]:
Yeah.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:47:26]:
Right next to Plano Square, and and we are making it into performance space and do all these amazing things. And one thing we're talking about is this a commission piece, an immersive theater piece called journeys where you tell the stories of people that came to Cleveland to that bus station, and you weave the stories through in a night where you wander through. And I might hear your story, and I hear her story, and then his story. And wouldn't that be great Yeah. To, like, celebrate Cleveland, which Absolutely. We should be doing more of.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:54]:
We we we definitely should be. Yeah. Wow. This is all very exciting.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:47:57]:
You thought I'd say TADA Swift, didn't you?

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:02]:
For sure. Yeah. No. But I I love that. So something original. Totally. Truly. Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:07]:
Yeah. With that being said, I I still have been curious, you know, what were of the more formative performances that you got to experience growing up? You know, like, for me, it's Les Mis.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:48:17]:
Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:18]:
Yeah. There's a story behind that, but what what are those for you?

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:48:21]:
Gosh. Well, it depends which stage of my life, I suppose. I'll I'll give 2 examples. 1 was in Sydney. We had the Sydney Festival every January, and it's a holiday of theater and dance and various things. And there's a company called Complicite, which I think are from they're either from France or Canada. I'm not even sure. And they did a production of Shakespeare's A Winter Tale.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:48:41]:
And, you know, Shakespeare can be challenging. Like, the first 20 minutes, everyone's like, what the hell? I have no idea what's going on. Who's he and who's she and what are they saying? But then it kinda clicks, and you just understand. Then then it's wonderful. But witness Taylor is one of the best Shakespeares. I think it's a tragic story. And there was one scene in this play where the court of the king the exiled king, they're coming back into the court and blah blah blah. And they just walk in a circle around the stage, and these peasants become the courtiers just by changing slight elements of their costume as they walk around.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:49:14]:
I'm getting goosebumps now telling you this. It was the most phenomenal piece of theater. And I was probably 19 or 20 years old. Yeah. Never read the play, and that was unbelievable. I mean, that was just extraordinary. And then then the second one I'd say is one that we put on. It was a ballet, and we I was at English National Ballet, and we were invited by IMGE Paris, who are event producers, to put on Swan Lake on a lake in the Palace of Versailles.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:49:41]:
Now that was pretty amazing. Yeah. Palace of Versailles, one of the most famous chapters. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And the grounds, have you been there? Yeah. Like, you know, the remember the gardens or the fountains and stuff? Extraordinary. Extraordinary.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:49:52]:
So just below the palace is one called the basin of Neptune, which has this big golden coiled serpent, and we put a stage around the serpent and did Swan Lake there just for 3 nights. And, I mean, it was it was it's sold out. And the great thing because it's, you know, France and it's Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:50:08]:
That must have been so special.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:50:10]:
It's so special. The ticket's, like, €35, and it was packed up with low just local people. It was and it was designed to encourage the Parisians to stay longer in Paris, not to all go to the coast for the summer. That was the idea. So it worked. And and, yeah, and for the fire act of Swan Lake, when the prince runs out of the palace back down to the lake to save her, and I think, yeah, she dies. But, anyway, it doesn't matter. They turned all the lights on in the hall of mirrors to represent the palace.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:50:34]:
Yeah. So it was, you know, just one of those nights that you never do this again. It was amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:50:40]:
Wow. That's that is awesome. In reflection on all this, you know, the work to be done, your experience that led you to this place in this moment, what do you feel is the most important thing that we haven't talked about yet?

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:50:54]:
Sure. I think the most important thing is we all need to have a joined up mentality to this to be successful. You know, the bones are really good. The bones of Cleveland are very good. We've got the people and the expertise and the skill set in Cleveland to deliver amazing things, but we have to join up and do it together in a unified way. And it's very easy to say be more confident of your ability and your assets, Clevelanders. But in a way, you can't be until you prove that you are in a way. So

Jeffrey Stern [00:51:27]:
Right.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:51:27]:
You know, success leads to success. So have a few wins, and Cleveland's had plenty of wins, and that will lead to more success. So I'd say, if I could give one message to Cleveland, it'd be be be confident of the assets and join up and collaborate because we are stronger together. And it's an amazing city with incredible things to offer and almost forget just forget the jokes and the the stupid stories about the mistake on the lake and all that nonsense because I'd never heard of any of those things. And the number of times that I've been here, people said, oh, you know, the river caught on fire. It's like, who cares? I mean, where who when? Actually, I don't even care when. Just forget about it. It's beautiful now and the lake's lovely and you have lovely cityscape and great parks.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:52:10]:
Leave that behind. Right. Yeah. So yeah. Have have confidence.

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:14]:
Have confidence.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:52:15]:
Yeah. Well

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:17]:
said. Well, I'll ask you then our our traditional closing question, which is, I bet you have awesome perspective on, but it's it's for hidden gems in Cleveland for things that you wish other people knew about this place that maybe they don't.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:52:32]:
How many am I allowed to have?

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:33]:
As many as you would have.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:52:34]:
Oh, gosh. I'll just do 2. Sure. 1st is the Westside Markets. Yeah. I discovered them on my tour when I first came. It's an absolute gem. That place is spectacularly good.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:52:45]:
The quality of food, the variety of food, the parking is good. I know parking is very important to Cleveland. It's like nothing for 90 minutes then it's $1. It's crazy. I'd say Westside Market's terrific, and the whole area around there. That that's just terrific. That's one. And the second, I discovered through Leadership Cleveland, Lakeview Cemetery and particularly the Wade Chapel.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:53:06]:
Now have you been to that?

Jeffrey Stern [00:53:07]:
I I haven't actually.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:53:08]:
Oh my goodness. Okay. So the Wade Chapel, it's called a resting chapel. And resting chapel means that it's where you put the coffins in the winter because the ground was too hard to dig up in the winter. So you put the coffins in this resting chapel.

Jeffrey Stern [00:53:20]:
I was like, it's not because the corpses are getting cold. That's that's right.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:53:24]:
They're pretty cold. But you you can't dig the ground. So you wait till spring, you dig the ground, put the put the coffins in. But the Wade Chapel was built in honor of mister Wade, who founded Western Union Telegraph. So a very wealthy man, and his legacy was the free entry to the museum. That's that's an important thing. But the way chapel, his grandson, I think, built it. And Tiffany, as in, you know, there were 2 Tiffany brothers, 1 made, jewelry, 1 made glass.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:53:49]:
So the glass guy had this incredible window, a Tiffany window, which is in the Wade Chapel. It went to the Paris exhibition in 18/87 and came back. It's probably the best and largest example of Tiffany glass in the world Wow. In Cleveland, free in the Wade Chapel. And the interior is all Tiffany glass mosaic tiles. Tiffany designed these murals of mosaic glass, and every element of this chapel is symbolic. The chandeliers and the tiles and the it's it's if you've not been, it's phenomenal. It's it's open.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:54:22]:
I think it's closed in the winter. But in the spring, there are volunteer guides to tell you the whole story. It's on my go to now. Every time and I've had now 14 different groups of visitors from either Sydney or London or the UK to Cleveland. They've all loved it. They all go to the way Chapelby now. So it's on my list. Wow.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:54:38]:
Amazing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:39]:
No one's mentioned that.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:54:40]:
They are.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:40]:
They are.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:54:41]:
That's a perfect one. Great.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:42]:
Well, Craig, I just wanna thank you again for coming on, for sharing your story, for being here, for for championing Cleveland. I'm very excited to see what you're able to to do. Great.

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:54:50]:
Yes. Watch this space. That's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:53]:
Yeah. If folks had anything they wanted to follow-up with you about, tag along on Playhouse's journey, where would you direct them?

Craig Hassall (Playhouse Square) [00:54:59]:
I'd go playhousesquare.org. Start there. Yeah. That's got all the info. Everything about us, yeah, you'll find out there. Perfect.

Jeffrey Stern [00:55:07]:
That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show, so if you have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffrey at lay of the land dot f m, or find us on Twitter at podlayoftheland or @sternjefe, j e f e. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player. Support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land.