Theater seeks new venue for mighty pipe organ

Story by Louis Aguilar/The Detroit News

The Mighty Wurlitzer 4/34 Theater Pipe Organ is a throwback to an era when cutting edge music technology meant an instrument with enough gadgets to fill six rooms and enough wire to stretch from Detroit to California.

The theater pipe organ was the killer app of its day -- that day being the time of silent movies of the late 1920s and early 30s. Its goal was to replace a full orchestra and provide the soundtrack for movies.

This particular theater organ was built for the Fisher Theatre, where it debuted Nov. 11, 1928. It contains four keyboards, hundreds of pipes ranging in size from a pencil to a flagpole, a glockenspiel, a xylophone, a police siren, a 4-foot Chinese gong, sleigh bells, a harp and a Wurlitzer grand piano. All of which can be played by one skilled theater organist.

For the past 45 years, the organ has remained intact and in performance at the Senate Theater on Michigan Avenue in southwest Detroit, thanks to the Detroit Theater Organ Society.

But the Mighty Wurlitzer has likely taken its final bow in Detroit. The organ's guardian angels, the organ society, can no longer afford to keep going. They have put the Senate Theater up for sale and seek a new home for the Mighty Wurlitzer.

"It will take six months for us to dismantle," said Dave Calendine, a member of the Detroit Theater Organ Society. "It could take a lot longer to re-assemble it." That's assuming they can find it a new home. It can't be any home.

Theater organs were only made for about 20 years, and they have elaborate mechanisms.

"This is all done with air and wire," Calendine said, who plays the organ at Detroit Red Wings' home games at Joe Louis Arena.

"There is no electrical part of this," which is why the organ takes up so much space, Calendine said. "There's over 300 hundred stop tabs on the console (of the organ). You pull a tab and it pushes an air line that connects to a wire. And that wire operates one of the instruments."

There's about a dozen foot pedals that help control the volume. Watching a theater organist perform -- hands jumping keyboard to keyboard and feet constantly tapping the foot pedals -- resembles a puppet whose feet and hand strings are being pulled.

The Mighty Wurlitzer is one of three left in Metro Detroit. The others are at the Fox Theatre and the Redford Theater.

"It's very different from a church organ," said Lance Luce, a professional theater organist who's performed at the Senate 17 times. "A theater organ is meant to be romantic and sweeping and can provide sound effects. Most theater organs simply get dismantled and that's it, no more."

Lance first saw a theater organ as a young boy at a Royal Oak theater. "It came rising up on the stage from below, and I thought it was magnificent," Luce said. "It was one of those 'ta-da' moments. I knew it's what I wanted to do."

His first performance at the Senate was at age 14. He's played theater organs throughout the U.S., England and Australia. He gave the last performance at the Senate earlier this month. Several hundred people showed up for the final performance; for years the audience size was often far less. There were very few patrons that looked under the age 50 and many were far older.

Luce played holiday songs, with all the bells and whistles and other sounds that the Mighty Wurlitzer can provide. They are sounds that sound old; having been far outpaced by decades of modern technology. And the sounds pale in comparison to a real orchestra, which it never fully killed.

"Ever music has its place," Luce said. "And I really hope we can find a new home for theater pipe organ."