Michigan Stage is a 501(c) 3 Professional non-profit theater arts organization offering year-round programming in Oakland county and surrounding Metro-Detroit communities.

Our mission is to produce accessible, often mobile theater which celebrates artists, audiences and collaborators, while inspiring the communities we serve to explore new cultures and opportunities; Expanding the boundaries of where theater can take us.

We present professional productions, concerts and developmental workshops, and year-round youth and community programs in underutilized arts and community spaces. We employ a mix of professional and amateur artists and educators. We work with our local public schools and municipalities to create an ecosystem for preserving the arts in our region.

Since conception, we’ve been growing our audience organically through youth and community programs. Two years later, we’re impacting 100+ students each semester, across ten groups, in partnership with six regional public schools, across Oakland, Wayne and Macomb Counties.

Our mission statement is supported by the following objectives: to be an integral part of the cultural fabric of Southeastern Michigan; to pursue innovative collaboration in every aspect of our work; to establish a Midwestern home for national artists to work alongside local artists; to engage audiences of diverse ages, cultures and economic backgrounds.

This mission is guided by our core values:

Artistic Excellence – We seek to become an unparalleled hub for creative excellence and a home for a new generation of great storytellers. Through Playlabs, and our young professional ensemble, we will continue to be a driving force for new works, while refreshed presentations of classics will challenge our notion of the here and now. We prioritize professionalism at every level. We speak to staff as professionals, never allowing conflict or tension to overrule the joy we share for our mission. We pay all of our staff members and artists professional wages.

Accountability and Access – We are committed to an environment that fosters diversity, openness, and integrity. We value mobility and non-traditional spaces which provide new points of access for our audiences. We respect varied backgrounds in work and life experiences. We work directly within our community to create opportunities for social, cultural, and civic engagement through theater. We value operational transparency. We hold ourselves accountable to uphold these core values transparently, providing access to financial records and annual reports.

Partnerships & Cost Innovation - Partnering with our schools, community centers and existing institutions allows us to balance artistic innovation with the insurmountable cost of maintaining a venue. Sharing resources, incorporating local talent into nationally-recognized productions and works, and promoting local residences for national artists, are a few of the ways we engage our partner communities.

Sustainability – We enhance the quality of life in our region by providing creative outlets, and advocating for professional pay for our artists. We invest in local talent and existing venues, preserving the vibrancy of our region’s future. We work with the region's public schools, municipalities, colleges and universities to create professional pathways for performers, technicians, artisans, directors, choreographers, administrators, teaching artists and more. We encourage our community to value theater as a means of economic development for our community and a worthwhile investment, artists as professionals rather than hobbyists, and the arts as a viable career path. (Though we support theater as a hobby too!)

Audience Development and Artistic Sustainability.

Realized in phases, over the course of four years - our strategic vision for our artistic growth is to create an ecosystem of programs and productions, to become a regional artistic hub for professional talent, while advancing our mission year-round, developing our audience, and enriching our community through the arts.

Phase 1: Began, Summer ‘21. Achieved Winter ‘23. Build a network of after-school programs and nurture a growing need in our community, simultaneously attracting donors, small grants, and program fee structure.

Financial Sustainability & Leveraging Resources. Everyone plays a part in our community. There is no one we don’t need.

Phase 2: Begin Fall ‘23. Expand our offerings, leveraging small grants, program fees, and individual gifts, with grant funding to bring our programs into new communities, and new time-frames. Bringing programs into daytime will leverage our roster of teaching artists, providing them full-time living wages rather than part-time salaries.

With new giving strategies, we hope to increase committed monthly donations by lowering the average gift size, and appealing to a younger crowd with our monthly giving campaigns, in addition to diversifying our grant and program income streams, and increasing our income model by adding three new productions.

GOAL 1: Increase monthly support and individual giving by 80%. We seek to diversify our donor database by appealing to younger, more socially conscious donors, at more accessible, recurring levels, and by expanding our volunteer opportunities through two new committees, Development and Special Events.

GOAL 2. Establish Volunteer Committees. Beginning Fall ‘23 Michigan Stage will establish two volunteer committees to advance their mission. Committees will be open to the public.

GOAL 3. Leverage Program Structure and Fees. Pooling funds from our school partners, individual donors, and increasing grant asks, allows us to leverage our current roster of fourteen teaching artists, bringing our existing programs into new communities at different times of day, and impacting new audiences. Fees generated from privately sponsored programs will amortize expenses, providing more sustainable wages for our staff.

GOAL 4. Increase our Grant Asks by 65%. Operational grant funding will support the expansion of our Playlab Programs, leveraging our existing resources, until we can achieve Phase 3 of our Strategic Plan for Sustainability.

Establish ourselves as an artistic hub with summer season, year-round programs, and community engagement.

Phase 3: Begins Summer ‘24. Establish a summer season of three professional shows, increasing opportunities for our audiences, students, and network of creative professionals, driving economic growth for our region (through payroll and ticket sales), and providing more cultural outlets for our growing future audiences.

Our Performance Partner Network allows us to mount mobile, itinerant productions in place of a traditional theater. We seek underutilized arts venues and community spaces for our programs. In our first season we pioneered this type of partnership by presenting the world-premiere of Looking Back Through Stained Glass at Planet Ant in Hamtramck, which has since been workshopped in New York at the Astoria Performing Arts Center.

We developed our year-round Playlabs in the vacant classroom studios at Go Comedy! Improv Theater during unused hours, and presented our first ever Broadway in the ‘Burbs concert in the new parking garage with Downtown Ferndale. In Winter of ‘23 we revived Broadway in the ‘Burbs activating Ferndale High School’s auditorium during Winter Break.

GOAL 1. New Income Streams. The final phase of our fundraising plan will consist of new income streams, creating sustainable methods for maintaining our program growth. Our focus will be on raising sponsorship funds for three summer productions, and promoting sales to our summer season, featuring professional performers, technicians and crew, and providing further opportunities for local students to shadow professionals by presenting 2-3 professional scale productions. Income generated from these productions will impact our region and continue to fund our year-round Playlabs.

Need & Evaluation.

In this age of anxiety, students need creative, social and emotional outlets more than ever. We're seeing stunted social development, lack of impulse control across all programs. Teens operate on the social level of 4th graders; outbursts in class, constant use of phones, inconsistent attendance (oftentimes mirrored by, or learned from parental units). Rampant anxiety is only escalated by social media, mounting political unrest in the world, and economic hardships. We were founded in 2021, during the height of the pandemic. The rapid growth of our programs is a direct extension of these social issues, and how our curriculum addresses them. Our Teaching Artists serve as consistent, affirming mentors and role models. We provide activities that help participants to further explore their individual interests and to express themselves creatively when feeling stifled, lost, or frustrated. Building an ecosystem of support to raise confidence in the student’s abilities and expand the possibilities for where their futures can take them.

Loneliness in children is really interesting. They recognize loneliness doesn't mean no one else is around. It represents a disconnect. Playlabs are a strengths-based arts program. We meet our students where they are—regardless of ability or experience, affirming their positive attributes, and inspiring them to be compassionate to themselves and others throughout the creative process.

More than 15 million students—including approximately 3.7 million middle schoolers—are alone and unsupervised between 3 and 6 p.m., the peak hours for juvenile crime and risk experimentation. Incidences of violent crimes committed by youth peaks in the hours immediately following the end of the school day. The hours after school are lost opportunities to help students grow and develop the skills and competencies to make positive life decisions that can lead to future success. Our programs take place during peak unsupervised time. Our curriculum nurtures creative expression, develops positive social and emotional identity, and encourages curiosity, collaboration and critical thinking, all through the performing arts.

Beyond youth, nearly one-fourth of adults aged sixty-five and older are considered to be socially isolated. Social isolation was associated with about a 50% increased risk of dementia. Poor social relationships (characterized by social isolation or loneliness) was associated with a 29% increased risk of heart disease and a 32% increased risk of stroke, higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide. Immigrants and LGBT higher risk.

Our work directly impacts 500+ youth annually, 60 seniors, and thousands more through performances.

Audience Impact. We currently retain more than 80% of students across all Playlabs, and we generally fill to a waitlist capacity within the first week of open enrollment. Our Spring ‘23 Playlab Performance tour impacted more than 600 local students, school staff, and community members, including several hundred students under the age of ten. Our mainstage productions, concerts and workshops impact thousands annually. We anticipate this will increase to 25,000 with your support. Our direct Playlab impact will increase to more than 500+ youth and 60+ seniors annually.

Artistic & Economic Impact. We prioritize professionalism at every level. We speak to staff as professionals always, never allowing conflict or tension to overrule the joy we share for our mission. We speak to our students as fully-formed humans. We pay all of our staff members and artists professional wages. We encourage our community to value theater and live entertainment as a means of economic development for our community and a worthwhile investment. We encourage our community to value artists as professionals rather than hobbyists, and the arts as a viable career path. (Though we support theater as a hobby too!). With your support we can increase our economic impact to our region by $500k through taxes, ticket sales, volunteer time and wages.

SEL Impact. We know that 100% of all students receive access to acting, improv training, heightened social and emotional competencies, tools for conflict resolution, increased self-confidence, social engagement, and fun and friends. With your support, we will continue our work with Spark Group Consulting to further understand the correlation of our curriculum with our SEL outcomes.

Regional Impact. We know that for more than 30+ hours each week local students, seniors, and families have access to theater programming taught by professionals, for almost thirty weeks out of the year. This will increase to year-round programming with your support. We measure success in healthy partnerships with the Warren Consolidated School of Performing Arts, Wayne State University, Oakland University, Michigan State University, and Go Comedy! where we find teaching artists, creating pathways to preserve the arts in our region. We measure success in our impact footprint; currently we serve students from Ferndale, Royal Oak, Oak Park, Huntington Woods, Lathrup Village, Detroit, Bloomfield Township, Berkeley, Pleasant Ridge, Madison Heights, Hazel Park, Warren, St. Clair Shores, Eastpointe, Harrison Township, West Bloomfield, Clarkston, Sterling Heights and Roseville.