KENT, Ohio – Roe Green and the Roe Green Foundation have made a $1 million gift to Kent State University to establish the Roe Green Musical Theatre and Porthouse Artistic Directorship, benefitting the School of Theatre and Dance and Porthouse Theatre.
The gift provides $100,000 in funding each year for 10 years for a new program support fund to be used at the discretion of the School of Theatre and Dance’s musical theater coordinator and Porthouse Theatre’s producing artistic director.
The new fund will support university and Porthouse productions, the hiring of assistant directors, guest choreographers and guest artists, the hosting of master classes and the awarding of artistic merit-based scholarships to students. Students who receive such scholarships will be known as Roe Green Scholars.
“Roe is a remarkable representation of what a philanthropist can do to single-handedly change the future of the arts in a community,” Kent State President Todd Diacon said. “Her gifts to Kent State continue to secure opportunities for students – and professional actors – to perform, study and gain hands-on theater experience. Roe’s vision and her generosity are helping us preserve programs, facilities and scholarships.”
The gift is made in honor of School of Theatre and Dance Professor Terri Kent, who serves as the coordinator of Kent State’s B.F.A. Musical Theatre program and as the producing artistic director of Porthouse Theatre.
As a long-standing supporter of the arts and of Kent State, Green’s generosity has funded transformational educational programs and facilities in multiple university areas. Known fondly as the School of Theatre and Dance’s “fairy godmother,” she established the Roe Green Visiting Director Series in 2003 with an initial $25,000 gift, which allowed the school to invite a professional guest director once per year to work with students and direct a main stage production. After renewing the gift annually for 15 years, Green established an endowment in 2018 through a combined outright and planned gift totaling $2.2 million to continue the series for generations of future students.
After touring the former Music and Speech building (now the Center for the Performing Arts), where the School of Theatre and Dance is located, Green made a gift of $6.5 million in 2006 – the largest capital gift in the university’s history at the time – to fund a large portion of needed facilities renovation and expansion. The upgraded building, which reopened in 2010, is nearly double in size, and the portion dedicated to theater and dance is named the Roe Green Center for the School of Theatre and Dance in her honor.
Green’s other major contributions to Kent State include gifts to support Porthouse Theatre’s 50th anniversary capital campaign in 2016 and a significant pledge to the Global Education Endowment.
Green was honored in 2023 by the Kent State University Board of Trustees with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree in recognition of her transformational generosity to Kent State and her support and advocacy for the arts at the university, throughout northeastern Ohio, nationally and internationally.
Beyond her philanthropic support of Kent State, Green is an adviser who serves on multiple university boards and committees. She is also an experienced former stage manager for organizations such as the Singing Angels, Cain Park, the Cleveland Opera and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Additionally, she competed as a ballroom dancer for more than 12 years.
Pictured at top: Roe Green.