Short North Stage is a professional theater company dedicated to bringing first-class live performance to the Short North Arts District. Residing in a distinctive performing arts venue, the historic Garden Theater, Short North Stage hosts and produces performances weekly, ranging from Broadway classics and edgy off-Broadway musicals, comedies and dramas to cabarets, dance and everything in between. With three performance venues within the Garden Theater, including the original main auditorium, the intimate Green Room, and Ethel’s Stage Left Lounge, each show brings a truly unique experience.
Our goal is to grow into a regional, and eventually, national showcase of music-driven works – celebrating familiar, reinventing less well-known, and nurturing new works. With the dynamics of the Short North moving uptown and The Ohio State University sphere of influence spreading south, the blocks bridging the two districts are ripe for revitalization. Short North Stage is helping lead the metamorphosis.
Resident arts organizations such as Short North Stage exert a significant economic impact on their neighborhoods. Examples can be found in downtown Washington, DC, Cleveland’s Playhouse Square and Theater Row in New York City. An arts-business partnership can drive the renaissance of the High Street commercial district from North 3rd to 7th Streets.
Already Short North Stage and the rebirth of the Garden Theater are having a positive impact on Columbus’s economy and will support the cultural allure of the city for decades to come.