Three Troupes Without A Stage
If you drive along Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, an unusual, two-story brick building about a mile northeast of downtown may draw your attention. Ten gargoyles guard the building's roofline. On the second floor, four pairs of tall, leaded-glass doors open to nowhere and serve as nearly all the building's windows. Above the double entrance door, a six-foot-tall face seems to depict a cross between the mask of comedy and the Roman god of merriment, Bacchus. The stone ribbon above the face displays the motto, "Nunquam Renig," a hybrid of Latin and American slang meaning, "Never Renege." Yellow letters on the door's heavy lintel provide the building's only identification, "The Players."
The architectural jewel, which is even more impressive on the inside, houses three Detroit arts organizations: the Fine Arts Society of Detroit, the Theatre Arts Club of Detroit, and the Players Club. This is the story of the building and the three organizations that call it home.
Around the turn of the century, manufacturing—particularly that of automobiles—made Detroit one of the world's most affluent cities, earning it the title, "Paris of the West." Detroit's newly monied elite had the time and resources to acquire the trappings of culture, and many lived in imposing mansions between downtown and the wealthy Grosse Pointe suburbs. They entertained themselves by attending Detroit's many cultural events, including live theatre, opera, and concerts.
In 1904, a small exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts—reinforced by a larger exhibit the following year—spawned an interest in the arts and crafts movement. Several new arts organizations emerged in 1906. The Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts dedicated itself to promoting the creation of beautiful, functional art and evolved into the College for Creative Studies. In that same year, the Fine Arts Society of Detroit emerged to promote all forms of fine art, including theatre, visual art, and music.
A group of women—led by actress Nellie Peck Saunders, whose family owned the Detroit Opera House, and Lillie Lamed, the wife of a prominent judge—formed the Theatre Arts Club of Detroit in 1910. The women of the club rehearsed in the afternoon, playing both the male and female roles in their theatrical productions. The group's membership soon included many more Detroit society women.
Businessman Guy Brewster Cady and attorney Alexander Gage had an important conversation about amateur theater in the fall of 1909. Both men had belonged to the Comedy Club, a vaudeville-esque organization that had disbanded in 1903. Many former Comedy Club members comprised the core of the Fine Arts Society, yet Cady felt there was room for a theatrical club exclusively for men in the city. Gage agreed, and it took another year of discussions for the two to finalize their idea.
In December 1910, Cady, Gage, and three others convened the Players' first organizational meeting at Richter's, a German restaurant within Hotel Richter on State Street just west of Woodward Avenue. More men joined the effort over the next few weeks, and on January 11, 1911, the Players' first ten charter members met at Detroit's University Club to sign the organization's constitution and articles of incorporation.
For the next 15 years, the Fine Arts Society, the Theatre Arts Club, and the Players Club met and performed where they could, including the Garden Theater; the University Club; the Griswold Hotel; the Twentieth Century Club, now known as the Gem Theatre; and the Little Theater, behind the headquarters of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts.
A Grand Playhouse
Not having their own space proved to be a problem for the organizations, and as early as 1916, members of the Players talked about building a playhouse for the three groups to share. They formed a site committee in 1923 but decided to postpone construction until they could establish a building fund. By April 1924, they secured member pledges of $50,000. To aid construction, ten members, including Edsel B. Ford, contributed $10,000 each and formed a separate corporation to purchase the land and commence building.
The Jefferson Avenue site chosen for the playhouse was already historic. On July 31, 1763, British troops attempted to end Chief Pontiac's siege of Fort Detroit with an ambush on his encampment. The surprise attack failed, and the significant amount of British blood that stained Parent's Creek earned the encounter the name "Battle of Bloody Run." The city had since routed the creek into the storm sewer system, but bulldozers uncovered many arrowheads, brass buttons, and metal musket parts while excavating the Players' building site. The playhouse bears a Michigan Historical Marker commemorating the battle today.
During the planning, one founding member of the Players, Maxwell Grylls—also a partner in the architecture firm of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, which is now known as the Smith Group—offered his company's design talents free of charge. Soon, Grylls' bright young associate William Kapp appeared on the scene. Kapp proved himself capable and later designed other exceptional buildings, such as Meadow Brook Hall, the Rackham Building at the University of Michigan, the Detroit Historical Museum, and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum. He also received credit for interior work on the Buhl Building, Guardian Building, and the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Kapp designed the playhouse's interior in a sixteenth-century English Renaissance style, with brick, stone, and wood—often incorporating painted details. As visitors enter the playhouse through the vestibule, the first thing they may notice is an archway painted with words from Shakespeare's As You Like It: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."
The lobby bar displays dozens of caricatures selected from hundreds of past performances. The Players alone have put on 656 productions, called "frolics," since the group started counting them in 1913.
Stepping into the auditorium through the double door on the lobby's right side feels like entering the great hall of a Renaissance manor. Eight massive columns frame the room. The walls look like stone but are really made of concrete blocks—a material revolutionary for the time in which the building was constructed. Unlike buildings of today, which use a standard 8- by 8- by 16-inch block size, the Players' auditorium incorporates a variety of block sizes, often leaving theatergoers completely unaware that the walls and columns of the beautiful room are not stone but concrete.
Beyond several rows of chairs leading toward the stage are five rows of six round, tiger oak tables, which offer a unique, dinner theatre experience for those closest to the action. The stage itself is 35 feet deep and 41 feet wide, with an 85-foot II* ceiling that allows backdrops and sets to be "flown" in from above. Trap doors allow actors to disappear below the stage, where there are rooms for props, makeup, and costumes. OD Upstairs, the back hallway is lined with three dressing rooms and a storage room for paint and other supplies.
A spiral staircase leads to the Founders Room on the second level. The twisted, bronze handles on the door leading to the room were a gift from Oscar Bach, a New York metalsmith who also outfitted the Empire State Building. Inside the Founders Room is a massive fireplace, two 10 cabinets holding white ceramic mugs with a club member's name on each, and pictures of the 101 men who have served as the group's president.
Artistic Details
Artistry is everywhere at the Players Playhouse. Detroit sculptor Corrado Parducci contributed prominently to the building's architectural features, designing the exterior gargoyles, the face above the front entrance, the capitals atop the columns in the Founders Room, and the two huge terra-cotta urns that flank the stage. Parducci was so pleased with the urns that he created another just like them for the courtyard of his Grosse Pointe home.
The auditorium walls contain six Paul Honore murals depicting a traveling troupe of actors and musicians on canvas tapestry. Born in Pennsylvania as Paul Honner, the artist spent most of his life in Detroit and changed his name to the more prestigious-sounding Honore. He first gained critical attention when a 1917 exhibit of his work at the Detroit Institute of Arts earned him the museum's Founders Prize. He gained national attention in 1926 when he painted murals on both the inside and outside of the Midland County Courthouse and many other Michigan public buildings.
The Honore tapestries were not original to the building but were added to the playhouse after World War II. They are very large, running almost from floor to ceiling. Originally, eight tapestries were planned, but Honore only completed six before he died in 1956.
The work of Manhattan artist Thomas DiLorenzo can be seen everywhere throughout the playhouse—from the constellations dotting the ceiling above the staircase leading to the Founders Room to the stencil patterns on the rafters to his fresco depicting the Seven Ages of Man above the proscenium.
While the playhouse features several works of art by famous artists, some of the decorations came about more organically. In the hours before the playhouse's debut on December 10, 1925, architect Kapp thought the gargoyles high in the auditorium needed banners hanging from them. Purchasing a quantity of silk, he enlisted the help of his wife, Helen, to depict eight aspects of theatre: comedy, tragedy, set design, lighting, box office, music, script writing, and costumes. The Players reproduced the original banners in cotton in 1960 for the club's fiftieth anniversary and then again with durable nylon in 2018 when the Detroit Historical Museum featured the Players in a special exhibit.
The Show Goes On
Each group utilizing the building has its own traditions and schedule. The coed Fine Arts Society performs three plays a year in the fall, winter, and spring. Society members traditionally bring their own dinner to eat before performances.
The all-female Theatre Arts Club performs in the spring and fall but often gathers multiple times a month for other activities such as luncheons and book club meetings.
The all-male Players Club produces five frolics plus fall and spring invitationals to which members may invite female guests. Black tie is the required dress code for members, and beer is the official drink. Products from the Detroit-based Dragonmead Brewery are commonly served at the lobby bar.
Unlike most theatre clubs, the Players focuses on one-act plays, and a typical frolic evening features three of them. The group also performs one full-length play at its Fall Invitational in November. Many of the one-act plays are member-written, and other theatre groups sometimes produce them. Players' frolics can involve two meals: a pre-frolic dinner at a restaurant and an informal, late-evening frolic supper following the performances.
The Fine Arts Society, the Theatre Arts Club, and the Players often work collaboratively, providing each other with technical help or producing a play together. Each organization provides scholarship opportunities for aspiring theatre students at Wayne State University. Those may include the opportunity to perform in or direct a show in addition to financial support.
Since the Players built the playhouse in 1925, only a few things have changed. Many people still belong to two of the three organizations. The Theatre Arts Club now rehearses and performs in the evenings to fit the schedules of working women. Manual sound effects are a thing of the past, and crew members in the sound and lighting booth can play a phone, doorbell, or gunshot with the press of a button.
Being able to see the inside of the Players Playhouse is a rare treat. People who become members of one of the groups that use the building often stay for life, and it is not unusual for two or three generations within a family to belong. While the theater needs a lot of care, the playhouse has been fortunate to have members who consider themselves custodians dedicated to preserving this jewel of Detroit architecture.