Finn Hudson Auditorium (also known as The McKinley High School Auditorium and also The April Rhodes Civic Pavilion) is a location at William McKinley High School where the New Directions used to practice their musical numbers and was also used for Glee Club auditions. The auditorium was named after April Rhodes. April was the mistress of Buddy Leibowitz, who died, and his wife gave April two million dollars not to leak the affair to the press. With her "hush money" she bought the auditorium for the Glee Club. Then in Dreams Come True, Sue named the Auditorium after the late Finn Hudson.
The school musicals of Cabaret and The Rocky Horror Picture Show would have taken place here, had they both not been cancelled. In Season Three, the school musical of West Side Story took place here, with Rachel as Maria, Blaine as Tony, and other New Directions members cast as characters/minor characters. Later on in Season Four, the school musical of Grease took place here, with Marley as Sandy and Ryder as Danny. The rest of the New Directions and former member Santana, were cast as the other characters from Grease.
Overview
In the Season One episode Home, Sue claims the auditorium, giving Glee Club no place to practice. Will starts looking for a new place and comes to Rinky Dinks where he meets April Rhodes again. They were acquaintances in high school and reconnecting earlier in Season One (The Rhodes Not Taken). April has become a wealthy old man's mistress, but he dies of a stroke and April is given two million dollars by the man's wife to keep quiet about the affair. April pays a little of it to Principal Figgins in order to permanently claim the auditorium for the Glee Club. The auditorium is renamed The April Rhodes Civic Pavilion, dedicated to April for her generosity. Since then, Sue has not once interfered with the New Directions' auditorium time. In Dreams Come True, Sue re-dedicates the auditorium to Finn Hudson, naming it the Finn Hudson Auditorium.
In the Seasons, various songs are performed, whether that be by New Directions, New Directions members performing by themselves or with someone else, auditions or competitions. Sometimes, scenes take place in the auditorium rather than just performances.
List of Songs performed in the Finn Hudson Auditorium
For Season One, they used a real auditorium, but to save time from rushing from place to place, they rebuilt the entire auditorium on the Paramount lot for the purpose of Season Two onwards. It is exactly the same with the exception of two rows of seats removed for the crane.
Le Jazz Hot, by Kurt was the first performance to be filmed in the new auditorium.
Rachel performed the first and last songs in the Auditorium in Season 2.
The number of songs performed here have gone up every season.
McKinley's auditorium had not hosted a show choir competition until the 2011 Sectionals championship, the last time was 48 years prior back in 1963 as quoted by Finn in Hold on to Sixteen. It was used then in Hold on to Sixteen for Sectionals and then in On My Way for Regionals. It was used for 2012 Sectionals in Thanksgiving, and for 2013 Regionals in All or Nothing. It was used for 2014 Sectionals in We Built This Glee Club.
Excluding I Kissed a Girl, someone from New Directions has performed a song in every episode of Season Three in the Auditorium.
There were more songs sung here in the third season then there were in first two season combined. (S1: 21, S2:30, S3: 59)
Season Three had more songs in its first 12 episodes than Season 1 and 2 had in their entire seasons (each, not combined).
We Are Young uses the same background as Dog Days Are Over, both being group numbers of winning the Sectionals performance.
A Wedding is the only episode from Season Six where not one song is performed at the Auditorium.
Despite being purchased by April Rhodes specifically for usage by the New Directions, Finn was told in Swan Song that he could only book the Auditorium for about 5 minutes after New Directions lost Sectionals. It is unknown if April was informed of the loss.
