Read Mark Stryker on Music Hall’s capital campaign
Facing the threat of closing, Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts must raise $1.7 million by the end of April to avoid defaulting on debt dating back to the 2008 recession.
The venerable downtown theater, which opened in 1928 and was reorganized as a nonprofit arts presenter in 1973, has launched a five-year, $7-million capital campaign designed to once and for all eliminate $4.2 million in accumulated debt and provide enough cash reserves to stabilize annual operations. But the clock is already ticking on the $1.7 million Music Hall owes a private equity firm that came to the rescue of the bleeding organization during the darkest days of the recession.