Media Archive

Town Hall seeking a diverse audience
By Sarah Crump
09.23.02 Plain Dealer Reporter

Town Hall of Cleveland, the nation's longest-running lecture series, has brought speakers from ex-presidents and former prime ministers to Ralph Nader and chimp researcher Jane Goodall to its lectern. Crisis icon and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will kick off the season Sept. 30.

But last year, after a popular lineup that included Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and Titanic explorer Robert Ballard, Town Hall trustees took a long look at the 72-year old institution.

The problem wasn't the lecturers. It was the listeners.

The mostly white, wealthy audience was dwindling as subscribers were lost to ill health and moves to Florida.

Town Hall decided to seek a more diverse audience, a decision that has pleased the 10 foundations and companies that provide nearly half of Town Hall's lean operating budget.

But how to lure the youthful zing and cultural mix that young professionals and students could bring to Town Hall - and still make money? Some solutions:

• Order a package deal from a Washington speaker's bureau that brings in Giuliani and other name-worthy lecturers. (The former New York mayor will kick off the 2002-03 season of seven lecturers, including Air Force Capt. Scott O'Grady. O'Grady, who survived on bugs and rainwater after his F-16 was shot down in Bosnia, and "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" journalist Ray Suarez, whose book "The Old Neighborhood" has a chapter about Cleveland.)
• Relocate from a Public Square hotel to vibrant Playhouse Square, which soon will be bustling into a strong season featuring Broadway touring shows of "The Producers" and "The Lion King."
• Break a 72-year-old tradition. Have the lectures after work, instead of lunchtime.
• Partner with civic and business groups that can't afford a noteworthy speaker of their own. They can buy a block of tickets to a Town Hall lecture, then convene afterward for a meeting.
• Persuade area colleges to factor Town Hall lectures into their curricula, then arrange transportation for the students. Students would buy discounted tickets to the lectures.
• Distribute numerous free tickets to high schools across eight counties.
• All bold moves for the lecture series that has brought eminent people to Cleveland since 1931.

During Town Hall's first year, a little-known British politician may have warned of an emerging threat in Europe. (Years before his wartime oratory stiffened the upper lip of England and the world, Winston Churchill's Town Hall date didn't rate a newspaper mention.)

In November 2000, Barbara Bush wondered along with the rest of the national whether she would be the mother of the next president. "If you don't ask me about chads, I won't ask you about the Browns," she told the crowds.

Town Hall is where Yolanda King said that her father would abhor that Martin Luther King Day is often spent at the mall rather than in reflection.

It's where former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, when asked why Britain had a woman prime minister before the United States had a woman president, said: "If I'd run for office here, I might have done the same thing."

And it's where Dr. Ronan Tynan, who earned a degree in sports medicine and sang his way to being one of the Irish Tenors after his legs were amputated filled the ballroom with a glorious, a cappella rendition of "Amazing Grace."

Staying Alive

Town Hall's 30 trustees, determined that its legacy go on, began exploring a new direction earlier this year.

Their hand was forced by an ultimatum by the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel. For years, its grand ballroom has hosted Town Hall lectures and the luncheon question-and-answer sessions with the speaker. They had to either put up with the noise form the renovation of the hotel's adjacent garage, or move to a smaller room, a cramped solution for Town Hall, which attracts audiences from about 800 to 1, 000 subscribers and single-ticket holders.

Four volunteers (the only paid Town Hall staffer is its administrative secretary) called all 600 subscribers to get their reaction to a possible move to Playhouse Square. "We let them vent, if they need to," said Kathy Butler, retired teachers and past president of Town Hall, who made many of the calls.

Especially sticky was the plan to hold lectures in the evening. A 6 p.m. starting time was a must, dictated by a lack of daytime parking in Playhouse Square for such a large group. No meal will be added to lecture ticket prices of about $40 each, but a couple of nearby restaurants will stay open Mondays, the night the theaters are generally dark, to enjoy the Town Hall influx. There still will be a question-and-answer period following the talk - the most interesting part of the lecture many say.

With an eye on a $465,000-a-year budget and speakers' fees that chew up $155,000 of that (Giuliani will allegedly get about $100,000), Town Hall is determined to sell itself a broad audience.

It's called staying alive after five in downtown Cleveland.

New Interest Grows

Town Hall was begun in 1932 by high-minded wives of Cleveland millionaires. These were educated women who craved intellectual stimulation, but were banned from other lecture groups. That spirited tower of free speech, the City Club of Cleveland, only allowed men at the time.

Though males currently make up about half of Town Hall's trustees, the majority of its season subscribers are women, many of them past retirement age, who enjoyed meeting for a lecture and the lunch that followed. Because of the change to Monday evenings, "We lost some people," said Joan Schaefer, the organization's president. But others refused to give up the seat they'd held for decades. Instead, a little jittery about being downtown at night, they'd bring along their husbands, they said.

Speakers were selected by a Washington speakers' bureau before Town Hall's push to recruit younger subscribers. Surprisingly, sons, daughters and under-30 friends react with unexpected interest to Segei Khrushchev, the expert on Russia who will appear Oct. 7 at Town Hall.

They remember his father, Nikita, and his 1960 "We will bury you" threat at the United Nations from their history books.

"Did you know that when he pounded his shoe on the table, that it was just a prop?" a young woman told one trustee. "He had shoes on both feet."

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