Joseph Weaver and Mayor Jack Sensenbrenner

This undated, black-and-white photograph shows (left to right) Playhouse on the Green manager Joseph Weaver and Columbus Mayor Jack Sensenbrenner. They face each other, smiling, and appear to be exchanging a card. The photo was likely taken circa 1955-57.

Playhouse on the Green (POG) was central Ohio’s first professional theater, and operated north of Worthington during summer from 1955 through 1972. The theater was managed by The Columbus Theatre Company, with a director and Equity actors from New York City supplemented by central Ohio actors.

An article from the February 22, 1995 "Columbus Dispatch" reflected on the POG’s founders, Joseph and Enid Weaver. "The Weavers moved from New York to Ohio in the fall of 1954 with $1,000, a few letters of introduction from New York theatrical professionals and a dream: to establish a regional theater that would entertain and challenge Columbus audiences with serious American dramas."

The article quoted Enid Weaver: "We settled on Columbus as a good place to start a professional, summer stock company because at that time Ohio State University had a very successful Stadium Theatre summer program…We figured that Columbus audiences were already used to summer theater—and so it turned out to be."

Joseph Weaver said, "Playhouse on the Green had an informal country ambience…People enjoyed good theater in a setting where you wouldn't expect to find good theater."

Jack Sensenbrenner served as mayor of Columbus from 1954-1972.

This and other photos of POG and its founder are from the scrapbooks of Bernice Warner Letson, in the collection of the Worthington Historical Society. She is notable not only because of her revolutionary home-based business selling worm castings all over the world, but also because of her involvement with POG, often hosting actors at her home for the season.

According to the Columbus Jewish Historical Society, the photographer, Herb Topy, operated a commercial photography and photo processing business in Columbus from the late 1940s through the late 1970s, and was the leading photographer of Jewish events, organizations and businesses in Columbus during the postwar period.