My Town Monday, Detroit: Players Club

Elmore Leonard reading.

Detroit Players Club-

Funny how institutions can exist in your neighborhood and you know nothing about them. I pass the building below about once a week and have always wondered what it was about, yet never investigated the matter.

Then John Gallagher, a member of my writing group, announced his twelve-minute play was being performed by the Players Club.

"I'll be there," I said. "

Well, no, you can't come," he said. "Only men are allowed to view the performances, men dressed in tuxedos and brandishing their own special beer mugs." (And the plays are performed by men too--all the parts. Men direct, produce, light, write and star. The Friday night productions last up to seven hours. Gourmet dinner precede them, an afterglow follows). However, you can come and see the dress rehearsal on Thursday night."

So that's what we did. Three one-act plays were performed, as happens every month at the Players Club. The members perform all the functions of any theater--because the Club is devoted solely to theater. John's play was the 577th produced in the theater's 90 year history. The building itself is a treat. Huge murals grace the inner theater walls, caricatures of every play ever performed dot the lobby, done by the resident Players' artist.

John Gallagher, the two actors in his play and the director. (Picture taken on a cellphone by Patrick O'Leary)

Here's a bit of its history.

Founded in 1910, Detroit’s Players Club is an all-male club devoted to the production of theater by members for other members’ enjoyment. Called simply “The Players,” members of the club design, direct, and act in the shows, including playing the female roles.

The Players developed during a nationwide vogue for community and art theater and also as Detroit’s auto elites were in the midst of forming new private clubs to add to their own sense of prestige. By the 1920s, The Players had built their own playhouse and established most of their significant traditions, including the monthly frolics, at which the members perform for each other. At the frolics, members in the audience would wear tuxedos and drink beer out of personalized mugs, customs that remain to this day.

Prominent Detroiters have always been among the ranks of the Players, and several well-known auto industry figures were members from the beginning, including banker Henry B. Joy, Oldsmobile sales manager Roy D. Chapin, and Ford executives James Couzens and Edsel Ford. Over the decades that followed the club’s founding, its membership and traditions have remained strong despite major world events that shook Detroit such as Prohibition, the Great Depression, and World War II.

And here is one of the oddest facts. On each side of the stage, sit two huge urns. These are reliquaries, where the remains of former Players rest for eternity.

I really enjoyed my evening at the Players' Club and I won't even get into the issues raised with excluding women in institutions such as this.

Check out more MY TOWN MONDAY posts at the blog of Travis Erwin.