The Music Hall

The historic Music Hall provides the Detroit community with innovative and quality performing arts programming and education that reflects and attracts the diverse mix of cultures that make up Southeast Michigan. Music Hall is Detroit’s people’s theater – the place for consistently high quality but non-elitist, performances and performing arts education with an emphasis on dance, theater and music, particularly Jazz.  Music Hall aims to be the most accessible, inclusive and culturally diverse institution in the country.

History

M atilda Rausch Dodge Wilson, founder of Music Hall , was born to German Immigrants Margaret and George Rausch in Walkerton, Ontario, Canada in October of 1883. A year after she was born the Rausch’s moved to Detroit, where her father owned and operated the “Princess Saloon”and her mother ran the “Dry Dock” boarding house next door. In 1902, after graduating Gorsline Business College, she went to work for the Dodge Brothers,John and Horace, at their Hamtramck, Michigan company.

The professional relationship between John and Matilda developed into a person alone and on December 10, 1907, she married John Dodge. Incidentally, one year later they purchased the Meadow Brook farm land in Rochester, Michigan. In1920, while in New York City attending an auto show John contracted influenza and died. At the time, the Dodge Brothers Company held the second place standing in automotive sales. Sadly, John’s brother Horace died less than twelve months later. Some say he was so close to his brother that the loss was too much for him to bear. With the death of both brothers, it left the widows in charge of the company and consequently, they sold the company in 1925. By doing so, the Dodge widows became some of the richest women in the United States. That same year, Mrs. Dodge married her second husband, Mr. Alfred G.Wilson, a lumber broker from Wisconsin. Fun Fact:  It is rumored that they brought their architect, William Kapp, on their honeymoon.

On December 9, 1928, The Wilson Theater ,as it was originally named, opened with Florenz Ziegfeld’s production of“Rosalie.”  Mrs. Dodge Wilson and her architect had toured the great theaters of Europe, with the intention of building a theater in downtown Detroit that would rival those of London. Subsequently, Meadow Brook Hall was designed by the very same architect and was completed less than a year after the Wilson Theater. It is said that a house warming for 850 people was held just three weeks after the stock market crash of 1929.

What is interesting is that in 1928, Mrs. Wilson chose to build a legitimate theater.By legitimate we mean a theater designed for live stage and theatrical presentations. It was the age of the talkies and grand movie palaces. Everyone believed that the movie industry would eliminate “legitimate” theater presentations. At the time the theater was built, there were six legitimate stages in Detroit....