In 2006 the Strong Museum in Rochester, New York reopened as the Strong National Museum of Play. Devising a new interpretive plan proved crucial to transforming the institution's mission and decisive in leading toward a $37 million expansion that drove strong gains in attendance. Still, the new interpretive direction, articulated in the museum's internal interpretive document, "A Framework for Interpreting Play", first drafted in 2002, was but one of the steps among many along the way toward the institution's re-birth. (Contains 8 notes.)