Mission and Artistic Statement

Mission Statement

Cleveland Public Theatre's mission is to raise consciousness and nurture compassion through groundbreaking performances and life-changing education programs.

CPT develops new, adventurous work; and nurtures Northeastern Ohio artists—particularly those whose work is inventive, intelligent, and socially conscious.

CPT's acclaimed education programs engage communities in devising new works that speak to contemporary issues, and empower participants to work for positive change in our community.

2024 – 2025 Artistic Statement

Cultivate

Though it's in the DNA of CPT,
this season we are saying its name,
the action at the heart of who we are—Cultivate!

And we ask ourselves how we will once again harness the life energy
that must be poured into every project (great and small)
before it even gets to the first rehearsal, before the seed is even planted,
and after the flowers have bloomed…

Even for those of us in the mix, sometimes it is hard to fully acknowledge, and to fully grasp the life energy that must be poured into a project before it even gets to the first rehearsal.

For, as hard as it is to create the conditions for great art… making great art without those conditions is even harder.

So, we clear the land of rock and obstacles of distrust and skepticism.
We work the earth with earnestness for new ideas and articulations of the ephemeral.

We seek the light of human connectedness—being seen, seeing each other and the world.

This is presence in action.

We weed out those elements that take away from our work, like the cliches that have lost their meaning, or even worse…

We are not just nurturing new, but nurturing new ways to nurture, in a learning loop.

We refresh and nourish with water from the fountain of the imagination that feeds a hunger for that something we know is just beyond our reach, yet ever present.

And when it is time, we invite the audience in, and there is blossoming.

New neuron paths form. New windows open in our hearts. Meaning and meaningfulness enlarge us all. We are refreshed with profound perspectives, laughing, stunned, in tears, or simply quiet. And so much of arts’ impact is below the surface.
Maybe we don’t even know why… but hours, days, weeks later…we are changed.

We think, we feel, we act in new ways.

We cultivate art because art cultivates us!