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Welcome to the neighborhood! One of four gold-colored archways at the intersection E.14th and Prospect Avenue in Cleveland. The new structures are part of the outdoor transformation of Playhouse Square where conference attendees will take part in events during the Theatre Communications Group national conference in June 2015.

(Marvin Fong / The Plain Dealer)

They didn't hire stilt walkers or set off fireworks, and the world's largest outdoor chandelier was still an artist's rendering, but that didn't stop Cleveland's theater community from wooing and winning the nation's largest theater conference in 2015.

An estimated 1,000 actors, directors, choreographers, scenic designers and other theater professionals from around the country – and a good number from outside the United States – will converge in Cleveland next summer, when the 25th annual Theatre Communications Group national conference comes to town June 18 to 20.

The economic impact of the conference will ripple well beyond Playhouse Square and its 11 stages, where many events – workshops, performances and speeches – will be held. (Past keynote speakers have included the late playwright August Wilson and director Julie "Lion King" Taymor.)

"Northeast Ohio's theater scene is truly world-class," said David Gilbert, president and CEO of Positively Cleveland, one of the groups that partnered with area theaters to sell Cleveland and its environs to the national organization.

Gilbert expects the three-day conference will bring nearly $1 million in revenue to the region.

The pitch to land the prestigious affair came together in proper dramatic fashion last November, when leaders of host theaters Great Lakes Theater, the Cleveland Play House, Cleveland Public Theatre and Dobama Theatre learned they could apply to bring the conference to Cleveland in 2015, a year earlier than they first thought. That was if – and only if, remembered Play House managing director Kevin Moore – they demonstrated "a compelling reason to do so."

How's this for compelling? Next year, the Play House, the oldest regional theater in America, will celebrate its centennial season. Karamu House, home to Karamu Theater, founded in 1915, is planning a birthday bash, too.

The deadline for submissions some two days away, Moore asked for an extension and got it; then he and his partners started hammering out a bid.

They enlisted Playhouse Square and Cleveland State University, to make sure they had enough space to house all those breakout sessions and conference attendees. Positively Cleveland came on board to sell the city as a place you'd want to spend a weekend exploring – the Cleveland Museum of Art! Iron Chef Michael Symon! The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum!

The lighting of the GE chandelier in Playhouse Square May 2 drew nearly 20,000 to the renovated downtown arts district. Next June, more than 1,000 theater professionals from across the nation will flood the neighborhood for the 2015 TCG national conference.

Playhouse Square's large and loyal audience (more than 29,000 subscribe to its Broadway Series, the most in America) and the fact that its resident companies and year-round programming attract 1 million guests a year didn't hurt, either.

They kitted together a streamlined, 11-page proposal in 10 days, one good enough to earn Cleveland a site visit some three months later. Moore and company planned tours of prospective host theaters and a cocktail reception for the TCG scouts at The District, an airy restaurant on East 14th Street across from Great Lakes' Hanna Theatre.

"We invited everybody," Moore said.

On the guest list were educators from Cleveland State, Case Western Reserve University and Berea's Baldwin Wallace University. Folks representing long-established theaters from all over town were there, too, from Ensemble on Cleveland's East Side to Convergence-Continuum on the West. So were artists from newer companies on the scene, such as Alison Garrigan, executive artistic director of Talespinner Children's Theatre, Cleveland's newest professional children's theater company.

All in all, about 100 people showed. "There was so much energy in the room," Moore said. "They were kind of blown away. These are people I've known for a long, long time, so I could tell they were really excited."

The only drawback: The party was in the dead of winter. A bad Cleveland winter.

"We had to promise them that it would be nicer in June than February," Moore remembered.

"It was a rousing show of community support," he continued. "You'd have to ask TCG why they ended up choosing us, but to me, that made all the difference – and we didn't even have a chandelier yet!"

That warm reception on a frigid day was not forgotten, said Teresa Eyring, executive director of TCG.

The genuine enthusiasm from the Cleveland theater community, coupled with the upcoming centennial celebration at the Play House, made for pretty persuasive reasons to come to Cleveland in 2015, said Eyring, who is gearing up for TCG's 2014 conference in San Diego at the end of June.

Another deciding factor? Cleveland is earning a reputation as a creative, innovative theater town.

There's Great Lakes Theater's partnership with the Idaho and Lake Tahoe Shakespeare festivals, which allows the three companies to cut costs and share resources, producing plays and musicals in one venue and touring them through the others.

And the risky but rewarding decision by the nation's oldest regional theater to leave its longtime home at Euclid Avenue and East 85th Street — the Play House's address for more than 80 years — and relocate three miles down the road to Playhouse Square in 2011.

Visiting companies can learn from that entrepreneurial spirit and what Eyring calls "creative place-making"– theaters working together to carve out an artistic district in what was once a blighted area of downtown Cleveland.

The partnerships that are happening in Playhouse Square are "highly unusual," she said. "There are a few theaters that have done something like that, but it's fairly unusual, and I don't know that people in our field quite know exactly how that model works, so it's a great opportunity to share it."

Eyring has also heard that Cleveland theaters are championing and producing work by local playwrights, another plus in the city's column. They are also pioneering "some very exciting examples of audience engagement, and that's a real focal point for TCG right now," she said.

Helping resident and regional companies develop new ways to bring more people into the theater is a long-term goal of the organization.

But what about the 8,500-pound light fixture suspended 44 feet above Euclid Avenue and East 14th Street?

"I have been hearing a lot about that chandelier . . .," she said with a laugh.

"It felt like a really great time to come."