Roe Green, MA ’80, is well known for her philanthropy and advocacy on behalf of the arts and theatre. Born in Beachwood, Ohio, she is the only child of Ben C. and Sylvia Chappy Green, who were instrumental in her arts education.
Her first experience with theater was narrating “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” to a group of adults when she was in kindergarten. While she enjoyed the limelight, she later found she preferred being behind the scenes directing or stage managing—although she was a competitive ballroom dancer for 12 years.
She graduated from Beachwood High School and received a bachelor’s degree in theatre and communications from the University of Colorado in 1970 before coming to Kent State to earn a master’s degree in theatre in 1980. She has extensive stage and business management experience, including at Cain Park in Cleveland Heights, with The Cleveland Opera and at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.
Green founded the Roe Green Foundation and stepped up her philanthropic efforts in 2003, shortly after her mother’s death. Much of the money she inherited came from her father, who died in 1983. He was a federal district court judge who had invested well and “led by example” says Green, who recalls many caring things he did for others, which inspired her own giving.
Her parents had a mixed-faith marriage; her father was Jewish and her mother was Catholic, but Green says her mother liked the Jewish way of thinking, so she basically grew up in a Jewish household, according to a 2018 profile in Cleveland Magazine. While not particularly religious herself, many of Green’s actions hearken back to religious tenets about “doing unto others” and the Jewish concept of basheret or “meant to be.”
“I have a philosophy of life,” she says. “If I have five oranges, I eat one, I save one, and I give the other three away. And everything I give away comes back tenfold.”
However, her foundation doesn’t accept applications or donate to individuals. Green supports institutions in line with her interests, many of which focus on arts education and other initiatives in Ohio, Florida and across the country.
“I have a philosophy of life. If I have five oranges, I eat one, I save one, and I give the other three away. And everything I give away comes back tenfold.”
The Roe Green Foundation established an annual visiting director’s series for the School of Theatre and Dance in 2003. Through the program, the school each year invites a guest professional director each year to work in residence with students and direct one of the school’s Main Stage productions.