Performing Arts

Theaters have always been the places where memories are made. There, on Saturday afternoons, children could escape the pressures of growing up to live for two hours in a fantasy world of daring heroes, dastardly villains, and dazzling magic. They were the places where awkward teenage boys could nervously, and often clumsily, put their arms around equally nervous girls. In years past, every neighborhood had its own local theater. Downtown was home to the great movie palaces, ornate portals to a world of motion picture thrills. For a unique experience, nothing could beat a hot summer night at the drive-in. Today, in the era of the corporate multiplex, the great movie palaces are just memories. Some neighborhood cinemas are now churches or venues for meetings, wedding receptions, and small concerts. Images of America: Cincinnati Theaters looks back at these marvelous old theaters and the days when they were in their prime.

Cincinnati Television provides an informative entertaining look at Cincinnati's broadcast history through the images and stories of its participants.

Cincinnati has a distinguished television history. Beginning before WLW-T signed on the air in February 1948, its experimental station W8XCT broadcast from the 46th floor of the Carew Tower. WKRC-TV and WCPO-TV signed on in 1949, WCET in 1954, and WXIX-TV in 1968. Since then, television has become part of the family.

Uncle Al, Skipper Ryle, Batty Hattie from Cincinnati, the Cool Ghoul, Peter Grant, Al Schottelkotte, Nick Clooney, Ruth Lyons, Paul Baby, Bob Braun, and Jerry Springer visited Cincinnati living rooms on television. Remember Midwestern Hayride, TV Dance Party, PM Magazine, Juvenile Court, Young People's Specials, Lilias, Dotty Mack, Bob Shreve, Mr. Hop, Bean's Clubhouse, The Last Prom, and Ira Joe? They are part of the collective Cincinnati history, part of the Cincinnati culture, and part of the Cincinnati family.

Jim Friedman is a Cincinnati native and resident wordsmith who has created television shows since 1979. He has won 56 regional Emmy Awards for writing, directing, and producing television shows for WCPO-TV, WKRC-TV, WLWT, WXIX, and WCET. He created The Celebrate Series, The Dooley Show, Everyday Freedom Heroes, and the Dreambuilder movies. In Cincinnati Television, he shares memories from in front of the camera, behind the scenes, and all over town.

The nineteenth century was the golden age of the circus in Ohio. Before the Ringling brothers became synonymous with the American circus, Cincinnati’s John Robinson and the Sells brothers of Columbus wowed audiences with stunning equestrian feats and aerial exploits. For good measure, the Sells brothers threw in a sharpshooting show with a young Ohio woman by the name of Annie Oakley. The Walter L. Main Circus of Geneva and a number of smaller shows presented their own unique spectacles with exotic animals and daring acrobats. But for all the fun and games, Ohio’s circus industry was serious business. As competition intensified, advertising wars erupted and acquisitions began. Eventually, Ringling Brothers swallowed many of these circuses one by one, and they dropped out of memory.  Author Conrade C. Hinds brings this fascinating piece of Ohio show business back into the spotlight.

Cleveland's Playhouse Square documents the fascinating history of the five theatres which boomed, beginning in the 1920s.

In the early 1920s, five opulent theaters--the Allen, the Ohio, the State, the Palace, and the Hanna--opened on a stretch of Euclid Avenue in Cleveland. They offered legitimate theater, vaudeville, name bands and entertainers, and films for the affluent and hardworking citizens of this booming industrial city. Unfortunately, the introduction of television and the flight to the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s turned the theaters into ghost palaces destined for the wrecking ball. In 1970, a bold group of planners led by Raymond K. Shepardson formed the Playhouse Square Association, a nonprofit group dedicated to saving the theaters. A 25-year restoration endeavor emerged that raised $53 million, culminating in the largest theater restoration project in the world. Today Playhouse Square Center ranks second only to New York's Lincoln Center as North America's largest performing arts complex.

Capturing the first 50 years of Cincinnati's radio broadcasting golden era with both words and rare and often unpublished images.

Like radio listeners in many other cities its size, Greater Cincinnatians have kept their ears tuned to their local radio stations for music, news, and entertainment for nearly a century. However, unlike those cities, Cincinnati enjoyed several unique broadcast stories ranging from some of the earliest forays into radio dramatics to the country's first 500,000-watt superpower radio station. The listeners were treated to several up-and-coming celebrities like Doris Day, Rosemary Clooney, Andy Williams, and ""Fats"" Waller; the rise of three major communications corporations; and ultimately, an amazing array of nationally broadcast network shows and talents that, for a brief period, placed the city's broadcasters behind only New York and Chicago in terms of importance.

The first movie theaters in Cleveland consisted of converted storefronts with sawed-off telephone poles substituting for chairs and bedsheets acting as screens. In 1905, Clevelanders marveled at moving images at Rafferty's Monkey House while dodging real monkeys and raccoons that wandered freely through the bar. By the early 1920s, a collection of marvelous movie palaces like the Stillman Theater lined Euclid Avenue, but they survived for just two generations. Clevelanders united to save the State, Ohio and Allen Theaters, among others, as wrecking balls converged for demolition. Those that remain compose one of the nation's largest performing arts centers. Alan F. Dutka shares the remarkable histories of Cleveland's downtown movie theaters and their reemergence as community landmarks.

Two professors and a preacher invented Columbus radio. It began with science experiments in classrooms and a minister's desire to expand beyond his churchgoing audience. By 1922, government licenses had been issued for WEAO at Ohio State University and WJD at Denison University. At this same time, a Baptist minister went on the air for an hour each Sunday morning using a 10-watt transmitter licensed as WMAN. In this story of Columbus radio, the work of the professors and the preacher will evolve into radio with advertiser-supported programs of information and entertainment. Three important radio stations will serve a growing Columbus radio audience in different ways: WEAO becomes WOSU, a national pioneer in using radio for teaching; WMAN becomes WCOL and in the 1960s is number one in audience size; and CBS affiliate WBNS becomes the class act of Columbus radio, retaining the major share of local listeners for many decades. Including many other stations of lesser influence, the illustrated stories of Columbus radio are told in this book.