About Us
Our Mission
The Music and Drama Club, a Cleveland-area 501(c)(3) promotes interest in and appreciation of the arts of music and drama and also provides scholarships and aid to those fields to Cleveland area organizations and schools.
Who We Are
Originally founded as a “study club”, today we are primarily a social club hosting luncheons and teas for members and their guests throughout the year.
The Music and Drama Club is comprised of nearly 100 members and offers more than $10,000 in scholarship funds annually to Cleveland area arts organizations.
The Early Years
In 1904, three ladies-who-lunch discussed the possibility of forming a study club. Within a few months, Mrs. Minette Stahl (a soprano) and Mrs. Margaret Taylor Spitz (a reader and dramatist) met with five like-minded friends to form The Music and Drama Study Club.
In the fall of 1904 the Club’s original seven members began meeting in their homes on a bi-weekly basis. They presented programs focusing on the lives of the early composers. By 1911, the membership had grown to 40. They were equally divided between active members, who entertained the Club and associate members who served as hostesses at the formal afternoon teas that followed each performance.
When the United States entered World War I in 1917 several members suggested the Club disband. Rather than dissolve the Club co-founders Stahl and Spitz reorganized the meetings into benefits for the Red Cross.
During the Great Depression Club President Mrs. W. R. Jeavons opened her home for meetings so the Club could stay afloat. In World War II Music and Drama President Mrs. Dieter turned the Club’s efforts to fundraising for the Red Cross.
On September 12, 2001, after the devastation of 9/11, in true “the show must go on” form, and in defiance of those who sought to destroy our democratic way of life, Club members gathered at the home of Bob and Gay Cull for the annual Prospective Members Luncheon. In deference to the solemnity of the day the group observed a moment of silence before singing “God Bless America”.
Philanthropies
Although the Club had always been involved in charitable giving, ranging in the earliest day from donations to seeing-eye dogs for blind soldiers to contributing to the Queen’s Hall in London, England, the first official Music and Drama Scholarship wasn’t awarded until 1936.
As the years passed, that original $50 donation to The Cleveland Music School Settlement grew and evolved into the present scholarship program, which is now one of the primary focuses of the Club. Beginning in 1941, members amassed the majority of scholarship monies by collecting and redeeming Ohio Sales Tax Stamps.
in 1960, Scholarship Chairman Floyce Belhobek recognized a need to create a capital fund that would eventually produce interest income sufficient to support the scholarship program. The annual holiday scholarship event is the highlight of every Music and Drama season and one of the major sources of scholarship monies. Profits from Holiday events and contributions from members currently result in more than 16 Music and Drama organizations in Northeast Ohio receiving scholarships ranging from $500-$1000.
Although hats have gone the way of crinoline and corsets and gloves are now consigned to a forlorn corner of a darkened closet, a collective smile can still be felt rippling through the audience when the hostesses rise, encourage us to greet the artists, and speak the words that have been music to our ears for more that 100 hears:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, it is our pleasure to invite you to tea.”