Thursday, October 29, 2009
CLEVELAND — John Kenley, a theater producer who ran a legendary summer stock circuit in Warren and other Ohio cities beginning in the 1950s, has died, a family friend said Thursday. He was 103.
Kenley’s productions attracted numerous Broadway and Hollywood stars to Warren’s Packard Music Hall.
He died last Friday at the Cleveland Clinic from complications of pneumonia, said Anita Dloniak, a friend and press agent.
Kenley produced hundreds of plays and musicals. His Kenley Players, a summer stock circuit that began in Dayton in 1957, featured such stars as Arthur Godfrey, Ethel Merman, Mae West, Burt Reynolds, Billy Crystal, William Shatner and Robert Goulet.
He later opened theaters in Warren, Columbus and Akron before moving into the Playhouse Square Center in downtown Cleveland in 1984.
“There was nobody like him,” said David Jendre of Youngstown, an actor who worked with Kenley in the Kenley Players’ heyday at Packard Hall in the 1970s. “He was a real mentor to me.
For the full story, read Friday's Vindicator or Vindy.com.