Name: Untold Stories - Celebrating Women Important to Cleveland's History
Start: 2026-02-05T19:00:00-05:00
Location: Music Box Supper Club

Cleveland Stories Dinner Parties
Venue: Supper Club
Showtime: 7:00 pm
Doors open: 5:00 pm
Free Admission, Table Reservations Required
Storytellers: Julie Warren, Debra Rose, Ruth Pangrace & Robin Echols Cooper
Untold Stories – Celebrating Women Important to Cleveland’s History
Women In History brings the past to life. Celebrate the remarkable women who shaped Cleveland’s past and inspired its future. Four local actresses will portray famous women from Cleveland’s history, and share their personal experiences. Through engaging storytelling, Julie Wang Warren, Debra Rose, Ruth Pangrace, and Robin Echols Cooper bring to life the lives of Margaret Hamilton, Magdalena Baehr, Zora Neale Hurston, and Lucy Stanton. Their tales of resilience, creativity, and courage prove that Cleveland’s history is full of extraordinary women worth knowing.

Magdalena Baehr was a key figure in Cleveland’s 19th-century brewing history, taking over her husband Jacob’s brewery in 1873 after his death and running it successfully for 25 years. Known as “Cleveland’s window brewer,” she raised eight children while expanding the brewery’s production, which was eventually sold to the Cleveland-Sandusky Brewing Company. Her original brewery building is now home to Bookhouse Brewing, which honors her legacy by using original portraits of the Baehrs in its taproom. Performed by Julie Warren
Zora Neale Hurston, (1891-1960), writer, anthropologist, folklorist and documentary filmmaker was a key voice during the Harlem Renaissance. Often described as bodacious, outrageous, and independent (as if that were a bad thing), she traveled through the south and the Caribbean documenting oral traditions, protecting them for future generations. She wrote in the native, musical language that celebrated their own culture, giving permission for other women to speak in their own voice. Often criticized for her honesty in a time when other Harlem Renaissance writers focused on coming up from slavery, she saw beyond color, and celebrated the power and strength of the individual. Her book, Their Eyes are Watching God is one example. Cleveland was one her stops on the lecture circuit, and her collaborations with Langston Hughes at Karamu House, a cultural hub for black artists and writers even then, helped to foster an appreciation for black literature worldwide. Her legacy continues as her writing is frequently featured in academic curricula, book clubs, history programs and exhibitions at Cleveland State University, fostering themes of identity, resilience, and community, central to Cleveland’s own history. Performed by Debra Rose
Born in Cleveland Ohio in 1902, Magaret Hamilton was an actress with the Cleveland Playhouse during its earliest beginnings. Her roles on stage, in the movies, and on television spanned more than fifty years. She was also a kindergarten teacher and a devoted single mom. But what made her most famous of all was a movie role that lasted less than 15 minutes of screen time… as The Wicked Witch of the West. Performed by Ruth Pangrace
Lucy Stanton, born in Cleveland in 1831, was, along with her father John Brown the Barber, very active in the Underground Railroad helping freedom seeker’s in Cleveland as well as Columbus Ohio. Lucy was one of the first women and first African American to be admitted to Oberlin College. She was the first black woman to graduate with a degree in America. She helped start a newspaper in Cleveland and published a book of prose. Lucy later moved to California and started the Sojourner Truth refuge to help women seek better opportunities in life. Performed by Robin Echols Cooper