Born Bertha Felsenthal on June 9, 1905, in Chicago, Betty Felsen took her first dance lesson at age 8. Three years later, in 1916, she enrolled in the Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet School, named after Andreus Pavley and Serge Oukrainsky, who had been partners of the famed Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. The Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet became the official ballet of the Chicago Opera Association in 1919, and from 1920 to 1922 Felsen performed nationwide as a ballerina soloist with the Chicago Opera, notably in the Verdi opera Aida.

By the latter year, Felsen, now 17 years old, wanted to assert creative control over her dancing and expand her repertoire, so she left the Chicago Opera to take up vaudeville. Her first major performance, co-starring with singer Ruth Etting in the musical Rainbo Trail, ran over four months in Chicago’s Million Dollar Rainbo Room in 1922 and 1923. In 1923 she began performing with Jack Broderick on the B. F. Keith and Pantages vaudeville circuits throughout the U.S. and Canada. Over the next four years, their act evolved from a simple dance act to one with more than twenty dancers, an orchestra, and elaborate costumes and sets, garnering critical acclaim.

When Broderick quit the act at its pinnacle in late 1927, Felsen continued to perform with her own troupe, Betty Felen & Company, for several more months. Failing to find a new partner with whom she had the same rapport or possessing the brilliance of Jack Broderick, she left the vaudeville stage in late summer 1928, moving first to Worcester, Massachusetts, where she co-owned and operated a dance school with a local vaudeville dancer in addition to performing locally and on summer tours around New England with her students.

In 1932, Betty Felsen left Worcester for Cleveland, where she opened the Betty Felsen School of the Dance, first located in the Carnegie Hall Building on Huron Road and then moving east to 1706 Euclid Avenue. Offering affordable tuition for ballet, tap, and vocal lessons, Felsen’s school thrived with around 100 students. The school went through three name changes, first to Betty Felsen Studios, then Felsen & Burke Studios of Stage and Radio Arts (reflecting a brief partnership with David Burke), and finally the Betty Felsen Studios of Stage and Radio Arts.

Felsen and her advanced students performed an annual program called the Betty Felsen Revue at the Masonic Auditorium. Some of her students were active professionally, particularly in various Cleveland productions. These young professionals included Elaine Dion and the Lorenz sisters, Lois Jane, Virginia, and Lorna. Billy Shipman and Patricia McCormack auditioned for Eddie Cantor, a major figure in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures.

Felsen garnered appreciation for her selfless service to her profession. She judged singing and dancing performances for multiple amateur talent competitions, including one in 1936 sponsored by Cleveland News, and often gave free lessons at her school to the winners. The December 1936 issue of The American Dancer magazine also commended her for offering professionals appearing in Cleveland with free use of a studio in her school for rehearsal and practice.

Betty Felsen’s time as a dance instructor in Worcester and Cleveland proved but a short interlude between her days of ballet and vaudeville stardom and retirement. She closed her school soon after marrying Samuel Tonkin in 1937. Despite her short time shaping Cleveland’s performing arts community, the story of Betty Felsen’s dance school reveals a richness of talent that surrounded and transcended the grand stages and screens of Playhouse Square.

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Even before the Colonial Theater opened in 1903, vaudeville had emerged in America as a professionalized and more respected version of minstrel and burlesque shows. By the time the first act hit the Colonial Theater's stage, variety shows had grown tremendously successful as they evolved into 'polite vaudeville.' Like other Cleveland playhouses, the Colonial Theater embraced this style of entertainment.

Entertainers who appeared on opening night at the Colonial included Ida Fuller, "the greatest woman illusionist in the world"; Alcide Capitaine, who demonstrated her strength through acrobatics and other feats; a singing comedian; a ventriloquist; and an acrobatic comedy given by the Lavine Cameron trio. Not long after opening night, trick-performing animals, including dogs, monkeys, and a pig named "Connie," also appeared at the theater.

Beginning in the 1890s, large theater business began to control theaters across the country. Like other Cleveland playhouses, the Colonial Theater changed hands a number of times to both local and national big business owners. In the case of the Colonial, the switch meant a substantial change in the theater's productions. In early 1904, the Drew & Campbell Theater Company was able to secure a lease over the Colonial. In order to get control of the theater, they were obligated to sign a contract stating that they would not allow vaudeville to continue there. Two days shy of the once independent theater's one-year anniversary, Drew & Campbell surrendered the Colonial's stage to the Vaughan Glaser Stock Company.

After five years under Vaughan Glaser, the Colonial was back in the hands of an independent manager who was neither part of the big-business theater trusts nor connected to any outside stock company. F. Ray Comstock leased the theater in 1909. A year later, however, Ray Comstock leased the theater to the Shuberts — major business owners who controlled theaters across the country and who had showed interest in the Colonial since the fall of 1903. In the fall of 1918, the Colonial Theater's success under Shubert led to a name change. From that point on it was advertised as the Shubert Colonial.

Performances continued at the theater until 1930. Although Clevelanders at the time were unaware of the fact, "Mysteries of Love" was the Colonial Theater's last show. The show featured artist models and was advertised as being "For Men Only." It turned out, however, to be nothing more than a lecture-show. Because the show did not fulfill the expectations for risqué entertainment, Police Inspector George J. Matowitz put a stop to it, saying that the theater was "obtaining money under false pretenses." After Matowitz kept the theater from reopening the show, no other performances were given at the Colonial. In 1932, the long-empty theater was torn down to make way for a parking lot.

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On April 8, 1921, the Capitol Theatre opened its doors to the public at the dedication of the Gordon Square Arcade and Community Building. Developed by the West Side Amusement Co. and Canadian motion picture theater promoters Jule and J.J. Allen, the theater began as a vaudeville and silent film house. During the surrounding neighborhood's prosperous years, the theater remained a centerpiece of Gordon Square. The arcade and theater slowly fell into disrepair, though, following the outmigration of both Cleveland residents and businesses following World War II.

In 1978, the parapet of the Gordon Square Arcade collapsed and damaged the marquis. Plans were quickly prepared for the demolition of the building. Although the building itself was spared through the efforts of the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization, the Capitol Theatre eventually closed down in 1985 due to years of deterioration. With the revival of the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood and the designation of the Gordon Square area as a cultural arts district, the theater was renovated and reopened in 2009. It is now owned by the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization and operated by the Cleveland Cinemas.

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Playhouse Square emerged in 1921-22 with the opening of the State, Ohio, Allen, Palace, and Hanna theaters near the intersection of Euclid Avenue and East Fourteenth Street. The brainchild of Joseph Laronge, four of the five theaters were interconnected. The largest theater, the Palace, was built to host B. F. Keith's vaudeville performances. In addition to vaudeville, the theater district featured plays, motion pictures, and eventually Cinerama films. By the end of 1969, however, all of the theaters but the Hanna had closed due to declining attendance.

The Junior League of Cleveland was instrumental in saving the theaters from demolition in the 1970s, forming the Playhouse Square Foundation and working with Cuyahoga County commissioners to restore and reopen the theaters. By the turn of the twenty-first century, all of the original theaters were again hosting performances, constituting the nation's second largest performing arts complex after New York's Lincoln Center. In addition to ticket sales, the Playhouse Square Foundation developed an extensive real estate portfolio stretching from the theater district to the suburbs, which supported ongoing preservation of the historic properties themselves while contributing to broader economic development.

In recent years Playhouse Square Foundation added dramatic arches at three major approaches to the district, along with LED sign boards and the centerpiece GE Chandelier at Euclid and East 14th. The Foundation also funded a 34-story apartment tower, the Lumen, just east of the Hanna Building.

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Eighteen months of planning and preparation preceded the opening of the massive Hippodrome Theater on December 31, 1907, with seating for 3,548 and the world's second largest stage. Architect John Eliot of Knox and Eliot designed the building to span the lot at 720 Euclid Avenue through to Prospect Avenue to the south. Ensconced in an eleven-story office building with theatre marquees and entrances on both streets, “The Hipp” was originally designed to host operas, plays, and vaudeville shows and prospered for two decades with a variety of live theater events. It hosted performances by the most famous performers of the early twentieth century, including Enrico Caruso, W. C. Fields, Will Rogers, Lillian Russel, John Phillip Sousa, and Al Jolson.

Modeled after the Hippodrome in New York, Cleveland’s version reflected developer Max Faetkenheuer’s dream of a theater that could house any size of production and staging. The central area in front of the stage held a pool which splashed the orchestra when horses paraded past. One backstage area was created that could dress up to 1,500 actors or be used for scenery staging. Faetkenheuer staged Aida with the Triumphant March to include elephants, horses, troops, and dancers. They continued circling onto and off the stage, “refreshed” by stage hands to look different for each circuit. The illusion supported the image of the largest theater to house so many animals and characters. Management evolved in 1912 when the B.F. Keith family of motion picture theaters leased the Hipp and managed it for the next decade of live theater operations.

The advent of projected film began to take popular hold during the 1920s, and the Hipp was primed to welcome and accommodate the new technology in 1922. Remodeling proceeded in 1931 with expanded seating for over 4,000 and an air-conditioning system utilizing water from Lake Erie. The Hipp became the nation's largest theater devoted exclusively to showing films and prospered for the next four decades, enjoying large movie crowds as Cleveland’s premier downtown movie house. The theater continued to show movies until the late 1970s, when declining attendance no longer supported the business.

The eleven-story office building to which the theater was attached became home to several tenants, including the longstanding street-level Green’s Jewelers, a haberdashery, and a shoe store. During its 73-year lifespan, the Hipp also was home to the Downtown Health Club and Danny Vegh’s Billiards and Table Tennis Center in the basement level between 1965 and 1980. The late 1960s brought increased challenges to maintain the building as tenants and visitors diminished. The Hippodrome closed all but its street-level operations by 1978. In 1979, a giant complex was proposed for the site to meet a perceived need for office space downtown. However, no tenants signed up and financing was not achieved. Similar to the campaign to rescue the theaters of Playhouse Square, the Cleveland Landmarks Commission was approached to initiate action to preserve the Hippodrome as an historic site, but the building’s condition was judged insufficient to warrant repair or restoration. In the summer of 1980, the Hippodrome fell to the wrecking ball to make way for a parking lot. In 2023, a 23-story tower called City Club Apartments replaced the surface lot.

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