Players Theatre Columbus was a professional resident

Regional theatre in the United States

Regional theaters, or resident theaters, in the United States are professional or semi-professional, theater companies that produce their own seasons. The term regional theatre most often refers to professional theatres outside of New York City...

 theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 company based in Columbus, Ohio

Columbus, Ohio

Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...

. Founded as the Players Club by Agnes Jeffrey Shedd in 1923, the company originated as a private club for local theatre enthusiasts. Over the course of 70 years, the organization evolved into a public community theatre

Community theatre

Community theatre refers to theatrical performance made in relation to particular communities—its usage includes theatre made by, with, and for a community...

, and finally into a professional resident theatre under contract to Actors' Equity

Actors' Equity Association

The Actors' Equity Association , commonly referred to as Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American labor union representing the world of live theatrical performance, as opposed to film and television performance. However, performers appearing on live stage productions without a book or...

. In 1989, the company moved its operations into the Vern Riffe Center for Government and the Arts, having formerly occupied the Davis Discovery Center on Franklin Avenue.

Players Theatre abruptly folded on September 11, 1993, just days before they were to open their 70th season. At the time, Players was the only professional theatre company in Columbus, as well as the city's oldest non-profit

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 arts

The arts

The arts are a vast subdivision of culture, composed of many creative endeavors and disciplines. It is a broader term than "art", which as a description of a field usually means only the visual arts. The arts encompass visual arts, literary arts and the performing arts – music, theatre, dance and...

 institution in continuous operation. An official report cited a range of systemic problems within the organization including "mismanagement, inaccurate and incomplete internal reports, continuing cash-flow crises, lack of cost and auditing controls, and unrealistic budgets and income projections."

At the time of Players' closing, executive staff consisted of Artistic Director

Artistic director

An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre company, that handles the organization's artistic direction. He or she is generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the organization is generally a non-profit organization...

 Ed Graczyk

Ed Graczyk

Edward Graczyk is a playwright originally from the U.S. state of Ohio. He wrote several children's plays early in his career, but became better known as the author of 1976's Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean...

, Associate Artistic Director Steven C. Anderson, Managing Director Jean Ann Klaus, and President of the Board of Directors

Board of directors

A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...

 Thomas Murrill. Anderson, in charge of Players' youth theatre program, went on to found the Phoenix Theatre for Children and currently serves as the artistic director of CATCO

Contemporary American Theatre Company

CATCO is a regional professional theatre company in Columbus, Ohio. Operating under an Actors' Equity SPT 6+ contract, it produces a five- to six-show season that commonly runs from October through June and consists of contemporary, classic, and new works.In January 1985, founding artistic...

.

Among Players' most acclaimed productions in its final decade were the first central Ohio stagings of the musicals Sweeney Todd and Evita. Players originated only a few new works, most notably several other plays by Graczyk.