On Sat 11/6, the Kent State Theatre and Dance program entered into a new world. With the opening of the Roe Green Center, the programs took a large step forward when they increased their performance spaces, storage areas, added a grand new lobby, and updated their lighting and sound systems. Added were a lighting laboratory, acting studio, vocal coaching suite and theatre and dance classrooms, a dance rehabilitation studio, a jazz dance class, a dance technique studio and a swing dance studio. All in all, the facilities are beautiful and practical.
The building was made possible due to a large financial grant by local arts patron and activist Roe Green. An avid theatergoer, she received her M.A. in theatre from Kent State, has been a long time member of the KSU Foundation and School of Theatre and Dance and Porthouse Advisory Boards. She is on the Board at the Cleveland Play House, where she is the honorary producer of FusionFest. A graduate of Beachwood High School, where she was my student and got the “theatre bug,” she was recently inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame. She is lovingly known to the KSU theatre students as “The Fairy Godmother.”
At the building’s grand opening ceremony and ribbon cutting, the musical theatre program performed Brigadoon under the direction of Terri Kent. A sprightly and well-focused production, it featured fine performances by Miriam Henkel-Moellimann as Fiona, Kaitlyn Warren as Meg, and Gunther Henkel-Moellmann as Charlie.
From Cool Cleveland contributor Roy Berko. Berko’s blog, which contains theatre and dance reviews from 2001 through 2009, as well as his consulting and publications information, can be found at http://royberko.info. His reviews can also be found on NeOHIOpal and CoolCleveland.com.Roy Berko, who is a life-long Clevelander, is a Renaissance man. Believing the line in Robert Frost’s poem “Road Not Taken,” each time he comes to a fork in the road, he has taken the path less traveled. He holds degrees, thought the doctorate from Kent State, University of Michigan and The Pennsylvania State University. His present roles, besides husband and grandfather, are professor, crisis counselor, author and entertainment reviewer… Read Roy Berko’s complete bio here