Jack Rouse Is Cincinnati’s Unofficial Minister of Enjoyable

{Photograph} by Chris Von Holle

He likes to suppose he’s labored onerous and created his personal alternatives over a 50-plus-year profession in Cincinnati, however Jack Rouse isn’t so positive the remainder of us agree. “When your work is everybody else’s pleasure, it’s troublesome to persuade them you’re holding down an actual job,” he says.

Rouse has been directing pleasurable community-wide moments since arriving in 1969 to launch the famend musical theater program on the College of Cincinnati’s Faculty-Conservatory of Music. However the common Cincinnatian most likely isn’t conversant in his title or his repute—and nonetheless gained’t be for a couple of extra months, till Playhouse within the Park opens its new mainstage venue, Moe and Jack’s Place – The Rouse Theatre. The unconventional title is yet one more method he makes individuals smile.

Consider all of the enjoyable actions and locations you get pleasure from throughout town, and Rouse has seemingly had a hand in creating or enhancing them. He launched Kings Island’s leisure exhibits and repeated them at theme parks throughout the nation. He established a design firm to construct comparable points of interest all over the world, from Canada and Australia to China and Dubai. He led early efforts to rework the riverfront into The Banks and to protect Music Corridor and Cincinnati Museum Middle. He helped rent creative leaders for a few of the metropolis’s most revered arts organizations. He was the primary investor in Rhinegeist Brewery.

Rouse finds enjoyable in all places, whether or not it’s using bikes by means of a Colorado snowstorm or strolling the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with an enormous Scooby Doo balloon. He had his first style of Rhinegeist beer at an investor’s assembly earlier than it was out there to the general public. “I’m nonetheless smiling about that,” he says.

At 83, he not owns Jack Rouse Associates, the downtown-based design firm now known as JRA. He’s serving to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra seek for a alternative for Music Director Louis Langrée, and he helped lead fund-raising efforts to retire the Playhouse’s out of date Marx Theatre. In any other case, he says, he’s attempting to maintain an excellent lower-key profile than ordinary.

Rouse is commonly self-effacing in a gruff, nonchalant method. He says he didn’t do something to advance the Playhouse trigger aside from write a large examine. However as Keith James—his protégé, former enterprise companion, and present president of JRA—observes, “You may’t promote enjoyable for those who’re not having enjoyable.” Reality be advised, Rouse’s actual job since 1969 has been to stir issues up and reshape the leisure scene in Cincinnati and past. We should always all really feel fortunate he loved it sufficient right here to stay round.

“You may take your work severely, however for God’s sake cease taking your self severely,” Rouse says. “I’ve at all times tried to be open to alter and to understand whether or not you mess up or shit occurs, that’s not the essential half. It’s important to transfer on to the second factor, no matter it’s. Don’t carry round grievances, and don’t be unfavorable about how the world didn’t deal with you proper. Be constructive.”

{Photograph} by Chris Von Holle

Rouse’s life classes may sound a bit corny, however he’s been evolving and transferring on to the second factor for many years. Born in Tyler, Texas, and raised in Billings, Montana, he began doing magic at events throughout his teenage years for somewhat extra cash. He carried out briefly at Billings’s Pioneer Playhouse, a small summer time theater for teenagers managed by a hard-working highschool speech instructor and his spouse. Rouse admired their honesty and devotion, and towards the top he performed the grandfather in a manufacturing of The Rainmaker. “I feel that ended my performing profession, which was applicable,” he says.

Rouse’s pre-med main at Washington & Lee Faculty in Virginia (he characterizes it with a chuckle as “a faculty for gents”) led him to the College of Michigan, the place he found that medication wasn’t for him. He missed having enjoyable, which he discovered doing theater. As he pursued a Ph.D. in movie in Ann Arbor (his dissertation thought-about the 1922 documentary Nanook of the North), he labored on pupil musical exhibits, first backstage and finally because the director of huge productions of The Boy Buddy, Fantastic City, West Aspect Story, and Something Goes.

Rouse taught movie programs on the College of Wisconsin for a yr after graduating, however his theatrical credentials led him to a brand new alternative. He was recruited to UC’s Faculty-Conservatory of Music in 1969 to launch packages in musical theater, technical theater, broadcasting, and opera. He and Moe obtained married in Ann Arbor, and she or he got here to CCM to show broadcasting. The faculty musical theater program that Rouse established was the first of its kind in the U.S., and at present it stays probably the most revered.

Artwork pupil Paul Shortt, an undergrad at Michigan, designed surroundings for a few of Rouse’s exhibits there. He remembers that Rouse “was hands-on backstage. You title it, he was an all-inclusive, can-do man. He can promote issues to different individuals. He might recruit individuals to be a part of his large exhibits.” Shortt additionally remembers that Rouse liked using bikes, a ardour that enhanced his cool repute.

When Rouse invited Shortt to return to Cincinnati to show scenic design, he jumped on the alternative. Shortt nonetheless lives right here after a 37-year profession at CCM and worldwide theater and opera set design credit.

Rouse’s success at CCM introduced him to the eye of Taft Broadcasting executives who have been seeking to current summertime exhibits at Kings Island, their new amusement park north of city. He took on the seasonal activity in 1971, and earlier than lengthy he was answerable for dwell leisure and design for the corporate’s increasing array of theme parks. He left CCM in 1975 for full-time work with Taft Points of interest (later Kings Productions) and was a part of the crew that undertook a leveraged buyout of the Taft parks in 1983. He led Kings Leisure till 1987.

That yr he and colleague Amy Merrell, constructing on their theme park expertise, based Jack Rouse Associates (JRA). For greater than twenty years, their experiential design agency labored with tons of of venues and points of interest all over the world, together with Common Studios, Chicago’s Discipline Museum, and the Inexperienced Bay Packers Corridor of Fame. He knew how one can entertain individuals no matter their explicit ardour, and he’s particularly happy with creating three “museums of conscience” which might be classes in empathy: the Nationwide Underground Railroad Freedom Middle and the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Middle in Cincinnati and the Arab American Nationwide Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

James, president of JRA since Rouse offered it in 2008, was the son of Rouse’s secretary at CCM. He graduated from Walnut Hills Excessive Faculty, and the next summer time he and Rouse rode bikes cross-country collectively. James earned his diploma at CCM throughout Rouse’s tenure there, and so they labored collectively at Kings Island below each Taft Broadcasting and Kings Leisure. James joined JRA in 1992 after stints with theme parks in Orlando and Toronto.

James says the design agency’s “job is to create reminiscences. Jack was superb at main us down that path to create miles of reminiscences that final a lifetime.” He cites Rouse’s description of JRA’s fundamental job, utilizing “experiential design to create a smile or to open a thoughts or to the touch a coronary heart.”

“There are only a few individuals like Jack,” says James. “He’s a dynamic particular person, a magnetic persona, a personality, and an incredible chief. He’s the one chasing the windmill and doing it exceedingly effectively.” Their lengthy friendship continues. “He nonetheless pops into the JRA workplace,” says James, “and we have now dinner every now and then.”

{Photograph} courtesy JRA

While Rouse labored for Taft Broadcasting within the Nineteen Seventies, the corporate’s company management inspired executives to get entangled in group affairs. He joined the board of an Over-the-Rhine group middle, and earlier than lengthy he was on the board of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. “Regardless of my tendency to verbosity, I additionally knew how one can shut up and hear,” says Rouse. “That’s what I did for my first two years on the CSO board. It’s a lot simpler to maneuver as a frontrunner from the performing arts into the company world than it’s to maneuver from the company world to performing arts. Within the arts, you’re frequently beginning over with a brand new ballet manufacturing, a play, a live performance.”

Rouse continued to start out over, and his rising expertise led him to acknowledge the function that arts, tradition, and leisure venues might play within the bigger context of financial growth. The significance of the humanities as a vital part of civic involvement and management turned a core worth for him.

His repute as a succesful group chief grew, and he was recruited to bigger roles. In 1998, after two years of public hypothesis and disagreement about how the acreage on Cincinnati’s central riverfront would be developed between the new sports stadiums, elected officers envisioned a mixture of residential and industrial elements however with minimal element. A brand new group, the Riverfront Advisors, was convened by metropolis and county leaders to make particular suggestions; Rouse was named its chair.

“Everybody clearly understood that Jack was the man to steer the method,” says then- Mayor Roxanne Qualls. “Everybody knew of him, if not personally, then due to his arts involvement and his understanding of what individuals’s wants are in the case of areas. His expertise was essential and related.” Beneath his management, the Riverfront Advisors put into movement the housing and leisure atmosphere that The Banks gives at present.

That engagement led to Rouse’s appointment as founding chair of the Port of Better Cincinnati Growth Authority, a place he crammed between 2002 and 2011. When the Cincinnati Middle Metropolis Growth Company (3CDC) was fashioned in 2003, Rouse was a founding member. And when severe efforts started relating to the renovation of Cincinnati Music Corridor in 2010, he was an authentic board member of the Music Corridor Revitalization Firm.

His arts and leisure involvement continued into the brand new century. As a member of the Cincinnati Symphony board, he chaired the search committee that introduced Cincinnati Pops Conductor John Morris Russell again to city in 2010 to succeed the late Erich Kunzel. Immediately Rouse continues his CSO assist, serving on the search committee for a brand new music director to observe conductor Langrée. He’s been on government boards for the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Backyard, ArtsWave, The Kids’s Theatre of Cincinnati, and chamber music presenter Live performance:Nova. His lifelong ardour for theater landed him management roles with the Playhouse within the Park board, and he chaired the 2011 seek for Blake Robison, its present creative director. And, in fact, Rouse and his spouse Moe are principal benefactors of the Playhouse’s new mainstage theater, set to open in March.

“Jack was the primary particular person I met from Cincinnati,” Robison remembers. “I used to be impressed by his informal method, his candor, and his ardour for the Playhouse. He’s an amazing ambassador as a result of he’s so charming and disarming. He makes an incredible first impression.” Throughout Robison’s recruitment, Rouse hosted him for lunch with main Playhouse patrons Lois Rosenthal and David Herriman. A businessman who knew them stopped by to say good day, Robison remembers. “He appears at me and says, Effectively, I don’t know who you’re, however for those who’re having lunch with these three, you have to be essential. I assumed, If these are group leaders, that is the place I need to be.”

Whereas those that don’t know him effectively might need an impression of Rouse as somebody with a colourful vocabulary and sharp elbows who simply “will get stuff achieved,” Robison says Rouse can also be deeply considerate and sneakily strategic about laying the muse for future success. “It wasn’t simply the big monetary pledge that he and Moe made to launch the capital marketing campaign for our new theater,” he says. “It was additionally the planning and sensible, strategic considering that goes right into a marketing campaign like that. That’s a aspect of Jack that individuals don’t typically see until they’re serving with him.”

Rouse’s enterprise sense helped Rhinegeist recover from the hump in its early days, says cofounder Bob Bonder. “Jack was the very first investor to truly give us a Sure at that time on our entrepreneurial path the place we’d pitched 20 or 30 instances and have been beginning to get this sense like, I don’t know, is that this gonna make it or is it not? He simply lower by means of our marketing strategy so quick and requested actually incisive questions. I look again to that and notice our preliminary dialog turned fairly rapidly right into a backwards and forwards. He obtained not simply our plan, however he obtained us!”

Bonder requested Rouse to do management courses for Rhinegeist’s staff, and his entertaining demeanor rapidly reached the brewery’s younger employees. “He’d are available in and actually join with our employees in a novel method,” says Bonder. “He’s like a 22-year-old with the knowledge of an 80-year-old.”

Since 2013, Rouse has flown month-to-month to New York Metropolis at his personal expense to co-teach a graduate class at Columbia College’s Faculty of the Arts. Teaming with skilled stage supervisor Michael Passaro—who spent a number of years working for JRA and who’s at present stage supervisor for Moulin Rouge on Broadway—Rouse teaches “Management and Ethics within the Arts” to younger stage managers and firm managers. Passaro, who’d by no means taught on the college degree, requested Jack for steering.

“He got here to New York and ‘stayed’ for 10 years,” says Passaro, chuckling. “I assumed it will be a one-off, and he simply saved coming again. Anybody can educate them how one can do a cue sheet or name a present. Jack exhibits them how one can lead individuals from numerous backgrounds and work towards a standard purpose.”

When he’s again in Cincinnati lately, Rouse has a extra elementary instructing gig as a math tutor with third graders on the Cincinnati Faculty Preparatory Academy (CCPA), primarily based within the West Finish. “These children are as a rule residing with a guardian or a grandparent,” he says, recalling how one among his college students didn’t have time for extracurricular actions as a result of he was instructing English to his mother and father. Rouse encountered the younger man a couple of years later together with his mother and father and discovered they’d change into U.S. residents.

“I used to be crying on the spot,” he says. “Educating at Columbia hits one aspect of your feelings, however this was utterly totally different.” He’d questioned if the youngsters would reply to an “previous white man,” he says, however found they have been merely grateful for somebody who cares.

{Photograph} courtesy JRA

With his worldwide attain and impressively numerous credentials, what’s saved Rouse in Cincinnati? “It’s simpler to make a distinction and to assist of us alongside in a group this measurement,” he says. “If I have been nonetheless chasing tasks for JRA, I’d have left a protracted, very long time in the past. However I feel Cincinnati has a mix of labor ethic and honesty.” That’s how he’d described his Montana highschool theater instructor.

In keeping with Robison, “In a board world populated by CEOs and VIPs, Jack stays refreshingly right down to earth. When a difficulty arises on the Playhouse, we’re extra more likely to resolve it at my kitchen desk sharing a beer—Rhinegeist, in fact!—than with a elaborate advisor. That’s the best way Jack rolls, and we’re all the higher for it.”

Mary McCullough-Hudson incessantly intersected with Rouse throughout her years main the Advantageous Arts Fund, now often known as ArtsWave. He was on a number of arts boards, in addition to hers. “He has a lot respect for the artwork kind and for the artist,” she says. “He cuts by means of the bullshit. There’s a number of custom and politics round placing the humanities collectively. Jack has such deep appreciation and feeling for the artists concerned.”

Qualls remembers Rouse’s method of getting issues achieved. “He simply picks up the telephone and is informal, relaxed, very open, nonjudgmental,” she says.” That’s how he does issues. That makes you say, In fact I’ll have espresso with you and have a dialog. He’s emotionally accessible and is aware of how individuals really feel.”