Arts & Culture in Lakewood

Great Lakes Theater’s rich history dates back to 1962, when an English professor and his traveling Shakespearean theater troupe finally found a home to regularly perform classic plays. Today, the theater continues its mission to ignite a passion for the performing arts throughout the community by revisting celebrated theatrical works for as as wide of an audience as possible. In its eight-month seasons, Great Lakes’ resident theater company stages an array of productions, including Shakespearean plays and Broadway classics, in its recently renovated theater, which was originally built in 1921. Inside, wide-eyed audiences marvel at the structure’s marriage of modern and vintage elements, such as state-of-the-art lighting equipment operated by technicians who only speak in iambic pentameter.

Voted No. 3 on the 2011 Beacon’s Best for top movie theaters, Lake Cinemas 8 advertises a rotating octet of first-run films on a nostalgic marquee that heralds the refurbished theater's entryway. Viewers settle into comfy seats as they share puffed kernels of corn, sip sodas, and, as the lights dim, recall fond memories of tunneling into bank vaults. Visitors can choose from a selection of popular new releases or anxiously anticipate a bevy of coming attractions.

When a performance studio stages The Sound of Music as its first production only months after opening, you know it means business. For the staff of Olmsted Performing Arts, their dedication to developing students' acting skills and hunger for creative expression continues to generate inspiring performances, whether their protégés pay homage to a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical or dazzle audiences with song-and-dance numbers from Footloose, a rousing tale about the adventures of a barefoot podiatrist.

While theater plays a large part in the curriculum, it isn't the only focus within Olmsted Performing Arts. The center’s dance academy fine-tunes steps in a variety of styles, its music-education program teaches voice and piano lessons, and its new gymnastics program encourages children to express themselves through movement rather than conceiving abstract poems in their alphabet soup.