POWERHOUSE WOMEN of CINCINNATI | a series by David Lyman
THE POWERHOUSES Women who shaped Cincinnati’s cultural landscape
T
his is the third installment in our occasional series of stories about energetic, influential women – particularly from the second half of the 20th Century – who profoundly enriched the cultural life of Greater Cincinnati.
Mur ph
and R u th, circ
a. 1996
Murph Mahler & Ruth Sawyer
e ETC what it is today ak m to s ve ee sl r ei th up was a part owner and the founding The women who rolled
I
t was more than 30 years ago, but Jeff Seibert and David A. White III both remember the incident with absolute clarity. Seibert and White launched Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, as the fledgling theater group was known, in 1986, before it dropped the “of.” Their first shows were presented in a ground-level meeting room in Memorial Hall. It wasn’t glamorous. But it was a beginning for their ambitious plan to create a professional theater using local actors, directors, designers and, as much as possible, local playwrights. But by the end of 1987, a week before they were to launch their second season, the money ran out. That’s when Ruth Sawyer stepped in. “When Ruth learned we weren’t going to make payroll, she dropped a $10,000 check on me,” recalls Seibert, managing director then, now an executive with the Mayerson Foundation (White is executive director of the Springfield, Mo., Arts Council). “Down on the memo line, she wrote ‘For the next phase,’ ” Seibert says. It was, at the time, a monumental gift, one that quite literally saved the company. It was something Sawyer and her friend and fellow ETC volunteer Murph Mahler would do again – several times. Eventually, along with their husbands – John Sawyer and Ken Mahler – they would purchase the building that would become ETC’s Vine Street home and 20
MARCH 2020
then put several million dollars into its renovation. “I don’t think they solicited my advice when they bought that building,” says Ruth’s brother, Dudley S. Taft Sr. “At the time, it didn’t seem like such a good decision. But in retrospect, it looks like they were visionaries.”
Without Murph and Ruth, there would be no ETC. This building wouldn’t be here. None of this would have happened. – D. Lynn Meyers, ETC producing artistic director
“Without Murph and Ruth, there would be no ETC,” says D. Lynn Meyers, the theater’s current producing artistic director. “This building wouldn’t be here. None of this would have happened.” The women’s patronage, which would continue until their deaths, was remarkable. But Mahler and Sawyer were ever so much more than that. It’s one thing to write a check, to be a philanthropic supporter of a favorite institution. It’s quite another
Movers & Makers
thing to give of your time as well. And Murph and Ruth did just that. Day in and day out, they were there, painting, working in the office, building sets and, in Murph’s case, occasionally appearing onstage.
Tireless workers “The first time I met Ruth, she was in her paint clothes, holding a Diet Coke can in one hand and a cigarette in the other,” recalls Shannon Rae Lutz, a student at CCM at the time. Today, she is ETC’s property master and runs the theater’s apprentice program. “I just knew that I wanted to work with this little powerhouse of a woman. She would spend hundreds of hours getting a show ready. It had to be just right.” “She had a cot in the old bank vault,” says White. (ETC’s building was originally a bank.) “I would get there at 9 a.m. and was never sure if she was there or not. If she was, you’d find her curled up on that old cot. She’d sleep for a while, then get up and paint for an hour or two, then go back to sleep. She was tireless.” Indeed, they were so involved at ETC that many people came to accept them as just a couple of middleaged women who had spent their lives working in various aspects of theater. To many people, Meyers included, it would come as a surprise when they learned the pair were matriarchs of two of Cincinnati’s most established old-money families. Sawyer’s husband John
president of the Cincinnati Bengals. He ran a massive farm in central Ohio and was himself a prominent philanthropist. For her part, Mahler was almost secretive about her full name – Mary Taft Mahler. And yes, she was one of those Tafts. Her father, Hulbert Taft Jr., was chairman of the Taft Broadcasting Company. Meyers met Murph in 1991, when Meyers was hired to direct a production of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” She already knew Ruth from her time at the Playhouse in the Park. Ruth was on the board, while Meyers, assistant to the producing artistic director, recorded the minutes at board meetings. But Murph, who played two small roles in the production, was new to her. “No one mentioned that Murph was one of the founders of the R uth a n d Mu r ph a t E
TC, 199
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