For five decades, the late Milton Jacobson ran the Stone Burlesk, a legendary Detroit burlesque house that ran a mix of live dancers, vaudeville-style acts and naughty short films. When he died, his grandson Matthew inherited what amounts to a history of 20th century adult entertainment — thousands of vintage film loops, untold hours of audio recorded inside the club, ancient playbills and posters, and other sexoterica.
Now Matthew is barnstorming the country, recreating a night in his granddad's theater with the help of modern-day burlesque performers and selections from Milton's treasure trove. He'll be at The Belcourt presiding over tonight's "A Night at the Stone Burlesk" at 10:30 p.m., raising funds for a documentary on the now-defunct club. We caught up with Matthew en route to Nashville, and he was gracious enough to answer a few questions by email (and share some remarkable photos and ads) as his caravan of curvaceous comeliness wends its way toward Music City.
What would a typical night at the Stone Burlesk have been like in its glory days, and did that change over the years?
What someone would experience inside the Stone on a given night definitely depends on the era in which they walked inside. In the early days there were dancing girls, comedians, and a small rag-tag band playing the music the girls would dance to. Little by little, the comedians were replaced by more burlesque dancers, the band was replaced by a jukebox, and gradually the live girls were replaced by films of girls. In the beginning, the films were very tame and campy by today's standards and would play only during the dancer's breaks. As the years went by, the films got racier, but the girls still had to abide by strict regulations. It soon became obvious that people were coming more for the movies.
Another big part of the show, in the early days, was the giveaway of various sundry items to patrons who happened to be carrying a hard-boiled egg, a tomato from their garden, or some other random item that my grandfather would ask for from the stage. As a result, people would come to the show with bags of produce from their garden and various items from their drawers in the hopes that they would have whatever my grandfather would get up on stage and ask for in exchange for prizes. We are doing something similar for our show.
