- [Announcer] Production of "Applause", an Ideastream Public Media, is made possible by the John P. Murphy Foundation, The Kulas Foundation, and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

(upbeat jazz music) - [David] Coming up, we tell the story of a Gospel group made up of bus drivers from back in the day.

Plus, it's the end of an era for a local landmark as the wrecking ball looms.

And we share an award-winning excerpt from "Applause" performances, featuring a quartet of all-stars from the Tri-C JazzFest.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's David C. Barnett and it's time for another round of "Applause".

The Cleveland History Center has a new exhibit paying tribute to a musical group of bus drivers from the 1960s.

Thanks to the son of one of its members, the legacy of The Transiteers lives on.

Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia shares their story.

(jukebox clicks) ♪ My eyes have seen ♪ ♪ The glory of the coming of the Lord ♪ - [Kabir] The Transiteers cut two LPs in the late 1960s.

They were mostly spirituals with a few traditional numbers and even a selection from Verdi's "Rigoletto", all performed acapella.

♪ We are going to sing of Rigoletto ♪ Some vocalists study for years so they can seamlessly jump from Gospel to folk to opera, but The Transiteers did it while shuttling passengers throughout Cuyahoga County.

- They started in 1962.

- [Kabir] That's Ron Kisner, who grew up in Cleveland and eventually spent five decades as a journalist and in public relations.

- [Ron] I saw an article that said in the first 18 months, first 18 months, they had 75 engagements.

That's how popular they were.

There was a gentleman by the name of Severne Gainer, who was a very talented singer, choir director.

He was a choir director at several churches here in the Cleveland area and he also sang with the Cleveland Orchestra Choir.

And he was one of the first African-Americans to work for the Cleveland Transit System, which later became RTA.

- [Kabir] All known members of the group have passed away so Kisner hasn't been able to figure out why the group was formed, but he knows when they stopped making music, the early 1980s, right around the time his father, first tenor Samuel Kisner, retired from RTA.

♪ They ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ They ♪ - They opened up rapid transit stations.

Whenever the new rapid stations opened, they were called upon to sing for them.

They sang at Severance Hall.

They sang at churches.

They sang at Karamu House.

They had a motto.

They said, "We were a group of like-minded men who came together to promote the Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God through service and song."

And I thought that was a fantastic motto.

They rehearsed quite a bit.

They took their music seriously, but they took their civic work just as seriously.

(The Transiteer vocalizing) - [Kabir] Kisner spent seven years putting together the new exhibit after finding artifacts and group photos among his family's possessions.

- And I had the idea, just maybe, I wonder, I asked myself a question, "Do you think you might be able to turn this into an exhibit?"

I'm very proud of this, touches me in a special way because it has some of my dad's transit memorabilia.

That hat and that leather bag were his.

He retired in 1980.

He was in the Million Mile Club for his safety record and it talks about one of the key things he wanted to do and is quoted in here.

He wanted to spread happiness as a driver, but he also wanted to spread that happiness to the family and also to the community.

- [Kabir] In the mid 1970s, the Cleveland Transit System merged with Shaker Heights Rapid Transit to form today's RTA.

But Kisner says RTA didn't have much Transiteer's material and didn't seem interested in an exhibit until RTA CEO, India Birdsong, took over in 2019.

(The Transiteer vocalizing) ♪ My dear it wasn't real ♪ - [Ron] I wanted to make sure that this history was unearthed and that was brought to life again so that people knew that such a group walked this Earth.

Such a group was part of the public transit system.

Such a group, even though they worked hard and they were family men, still found time to form this group and to perform as The Transiteers and to really be able to create now what I think and hope will be a lifelong legacy.

(The Transiteer vocalizing) - [Kabir] The Transiteer's exhibit is on view now at the Cleveland History Center in University Circle.

(soft classic music) In 2009, the Cleveland Clinic bought the old Cleveland Play House building at East 85th Street in Euclid Avenue following the theater's move to Playhouse Square.

The old building is now scheduled for demolition to make way for the clinic's expansion.

But before that happens, let's look back at the history of the old Cleveland Play House theaters built back in the 1920s with this behind the scenes tour from 2011.

(playful classic music) - When we talk about the Cleveland Play House, we talk about two Brooks, Charles S. and Minerva.

Charles S. is perhaps more popular because not only of his affiliation with the Cleveland Play House but because he was a very much respected essayist and journalist.

In around 1915, he abandoned his father's business, left the position of being a vice president to pursue writing full-time.

And I think that's sort of interesting around at the same time is when we see the formation of the Play House.

All the people got together at the Brooks' house and he was the first-elected president of that organization.

By the time that they needed to move, their audience had grown, maybe eightfold, ninefold.

And so they're really, really crammed.

So they moved over into this area.

That's why this theater is currently where it is located because the land was donated.

And they decided to build two different theaters at the same time under one roof, which is a very much novel idea for the time.

And they built this space as well as the Drury Theater next door.

(classical jazz music) - [John] When you walk into the building and you see the gargoyles that are at the entrance way, or what used to be the entrance way.

It's no longer the entrance way but they're still there.

The actors who were with the company enjoyed the chance to work in the Brooks because you're so much closer to the audience.

It's a wonderful theater to work in because it is so small and it is so intimate.

It brings its own problems, of course, with where do you store the scenery and that kind of thing.

But it's, from the actors point of view, it's always been a lovely theater to be in.

- I just fell in love with it.

It reminded me of an old New York City, off Broadway Theater.

And it has that feel about it.

There are too many ghosts here.

You can feel them.

As an actor you kind of sense those things.

It sounds kind of silly, but on the one hand, it's very literal and real for us.

And you can step on the stage and the stage has a great feel to it.

You feel the audience very close to you.

I just always felt very at home here in this theater.

And most people who do come through here, the actors, they fall in love with this theater and they love to take it home with them if they could.

(classical jazz music) Oh, the brick.

The brick is fabulous and it's just got a warmth to it.

It's got a warm feel to it.

The seats are a little uncomfortable at this point.

They've seen better days.

And you've got the outside traffic sounds coming through the doors when you're in production.

And then you've got the radiators clunking and clunking in the background when the weather's colder.

And then you have to turn the fans on above sometimes when it gets too warm in here.

So, this is an old place with a lot of action in it still.

Even with all those idiosyncrasies, it's still a great place to work and it's just a joy to work on this space.

As small and as sort of technologically limited as it is, it's still the best place to work in the world.

- [Jill] Equipment's old.

What they call a hemp house, where, I mean, the kind that you literally attach sandbags to to weight the scenery.

So, that's kind of old-fashioned and I think a little bit irritating to work with (chuckles), but it's neat to show it.

We've done shows where we like to expose that and even show the crew flying the scenery because if it looks right in the show, it's really exciting for the audience to see.

- This is old school.

This is very early theater technology as it were.

And now everything is counterweighted and you've even got, in some cases in the modern houses, you've got electronics running the flies coming in and all that.

So it's a different world, but this is old school.

This is theater history again at its best.

These old belaying pins and the tie lines, it's fabulous stuff.

It's a pain to work with, but it's fabulous stuff to look at.

But, yeah, you can see them.

Everything is, it's like working on a sailing ship with all the knots.

You have to know how to tie out.

- The Brooks was going to continue on experimental nature and to continue the idea of the art theater in which the initial play house was founded, doing works which would not get produced otherwise downtown.

This theater opened in 1927, of course the Depression comes shortly after and ticket sales decline.

It seems from my reading of history that this theater never lived up to its initial ideal.

There were a lot of different premieres, but I do think that they got away from that avante garde type of goal.

The famous group that the Play House founded, the Curtain Pullers, did a lot of their shows there.

So Joel Grey found his way onto the stage here as did a lot of people.

Paul Newman, again, is one of the other famous people to have been discovered by the Play House.

And what's fascinating is that in the long and much more than I think in a lot of other regional theaters, the people who have found their way onto the stage have immense loyalty to the Play House.

And part of it is probably is because of the history of this building and their experience.

- This is the backstage area of the Drury and the Brooks.

These dressing rooms are often used for both.

These old dressing rooms, again, keep talking about the theatrical ghost but they're alive and well in these dressing rooms.

You just don't see things like this in the regular dressing rooms anymore in modern dressing rooms.

Only in this place.

And again, you've got the bed for the actors to take naps on during the matinee between the matinee and the evening show and things like that.

But these old spaces, again, it's just the countless of thousands of actors who've sat in these chairs and worked in these dressing rooms.

It's our heritage.

- People love this space, but yet they want, they expect all the nuances of modern theater and they can't have both.

For example, if you ever see a show in here, you hear the helicopters coming from life flight next door.

You hear the police sirens going by.

And it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to soundproof this and in doing so you'd get all new walls and the Brooks would be a completely different theater.

- [John] When it was sold to the Cleveland Clinic, everybody wondered what was going to happen.

The Clinic has a reputation for expansion, but things change and the world moves on and the Clinic is doing wonderful things in other areas.

So this might be the end of the Play House.

And if it is, it'll be sad, but we hope for the best.

- The historian in me would love for this space to be preserved.

Exactly how it is used is always a debatable manner because it is now owned by the Clinic and they have every right to do what they want with the space.

There is always a way to cherish and respect the history while also still adapting it for new use.

And so I certainly hope that there is some kind of happy medium that the Cleveland Clinic can find.

- There are a lot of people in the city, a lot of theater people in the city, who would love to have these two spaces, the Drury and especially the Brooks, spared somehow, spared the wrecking ball.

It's theater history.

It's America's theater history.

(classical jazz music) - [David] For more than a century, the Cleveland Museum of Art has presented the best in visual art and the best in performance art.

We'll celebrate CMAs musical traditions, both old and new.

- It was a really fun, high energy night, sort of a spasm of love and music and energy, and just a ton of fun.

- [David] Plus, discover comic book creations from the fertile minds of Cleveland Institute of Art students.

All this and more on the next "Applause".

Despite cell phones and computers, old school wristwatches are still in fashion.

One Akron artist is keeping that tradition alive as a 21st century clocksmith.

- The day I no longer had a real job, I've never smiled so much.

I wasn't afraid of, you know, "Oh my God, I need to find another job."

I was like, "This is it.

This is my job.

I'm doing this for the rest of my life.

I can't go back."

(laughs) (upbeat music) My name is Alex Draven.

I'm the owner of The ExCB where I design handmade jewelry and timepieces.

I always wanted to be an artist.

My mom knew I was going to be an artist so she helped nurture that.

It wasn't until college that I even considered metalsmithing.

I took a metal class on a whim and at that point really fell in love with it.

And I was in a metals class every semester since.

Towards the end, I was like, "Oh, I need to figure out what I'm gonna do with my life."

And so I decided to start a jewelry company.

And I got into watches because I couldn't find one that I liked.

So I was like, "Fine, I'll make my own."

I was wearing it out, showing it off, catching everybody's eye.

And they're like, "Where can I get one of those?"

And I was like, "I made it."

(laughs) So, I started doing production pieces.

At the time, I would make five and then turn to 10, and now I'm making 20 at a time.

But 20 is my limit.

I don't outsource anything.

I need to make it.

If I didn't make it, it's not handmade, right?

When I say everything is handmade, I don't mess around.

Even the little knobs that hold the court's movement in place, I set exactly where they needed to be.

I soldered them, I cut them to length.

That's part of the process.

In 2015, I became a full-time artist.

I live in my studio.

I come in about eight in the morning, I leave about six at night and I just make things all day.

I love it.

It's nothing but happiness.

Most pieces, I see completed in my head.

Once that happens, I can sketch it out.

I can actually draft it to all the specifications that I would need to build it.

Other times, I don't know what I'm doing, so I'll just kind of wing it.

I'll make a piece that's just on the fly.

And it all starts off as just sheets of metal.

Then I cut it, (metal clanks) forge it, (hammer pounding) solder it, do everything that needs to be done all just using hand tools.

It's all very tormenting, but I don't want to use machines.

I'm doing it because as much as I hate it, as much as my hands hurt at the end of the day, I love that process of just, you know, doing something by hand.

My timeline, it's for doing a line of like 20 watches from my first cuts of metal to my final buff of leather, I'd say about 250 hours.

It's very involved.

(laughs) You won't see anything like this, ever, and I like to keep it that way.

That's the point of it.

I want showstoppers.

I want you to be stopped in the street and say, "Well, tell me about that watch."

There's no point of making something that looks like every other, so I make it weird.

(chuckles) I'm always trying to outdo the last piece I made and I don't think I'll ever be done doing that.

That will be in every evolving process.

(light rock music) - [David] Whether it's watches, comic books, or popsicles, northeast Ohioans are making it.

Find out more at arts.ideastream.org.

This year, the Tri-C JazzFest returns to the theaters of Playhouse Square, following online and outdoor performances during the pandemic.

In 2021, Ideastream and the JazzFest partnered on an award-winning program featuring a quartet of all-star musicians.

Let's listen back now to Akron guitarist Dan Wilson along with bassist Christian McBride, drummer Jerome Jennings and festival educator Dominick Farinacci on trumpet playing Wilson's composition "Who shot John?"

(light jazz music) (upbeat jazz music) (relaxing jazz music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light jazz music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light jazz music) (light jazz music) (light upbeat music) (relaxing jazz music) (relaxing jazz music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light jazz music) (light trumpet music) (light jazz music) The 2022 Tri-C JazzFest is on stage this weekend at Playhouse Square.

And to see more of this award-winning edition of "Applause" performances, visit the PBS app.

(light jazz music) Okay, that's a wrap.

We appreciate your time and attention as always.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's David C. Barnett inviting you to join us here next week for another round of "Applause".

(upbeat jazz music) (drum rolling) (light music) - [Announcer] Production of "Applause", an Ideastream Public Media, is made possible by the John P. Murphy Foundation, The Kulas Foundation, and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.