Detroit Repertory Theatre

Bringing people together with inspiring stories, unforgettable performances, and the power of live theatre on a professional stage.

Since 1957, Detroit Rep has been the artistic and cultural oasis for all those looking for entertainment, inspiration, and a shared experience. Live theatre brings friends and strangers together in person, in the same space with live, union actors performing stories that reflect our world. It is a welcoming place where people from all walks of life can gather and share fun, food, theatre, and art, reminding us that we are more alike than we are different.

Join us here, in the heart of the city, and discover how powerful community is and can be.

Compelling vision. Bold voices. Historic impact. Sixty-eight years ago, a small, radical band of theatre artists—writers, actors, designers—formed a company that created and performed original plays for children using professional actors with racially integrated casts. The company was guided by its belief in the basic, but powerful, children’s story themes of fairness, sharing, and cooperation. And most important, its open casting policy foretold a radical movement that Broadway producers now follow: cast the best actor for the job, regardless of the color of skin, ethnicity, or gender—unless germane to the story. That dream started here in 1957, when race and class had been dividing people all across America. Determined to make a difference in the economic and racial disparity of segregation, the company opened its professional, union theatre, playing for all ages on Woodrow Wilson in the heart of the city.

The Detroit Rep is essential to the cultural fabric of metro Detroit. The Rep has remained here in the neighborhood with the same mission: to open wide the stage doors and welcome all colors, beliefs, and walks of life. The Detroit Rep was here through the 1967 Rebellion, through the city bankruptcy, and even our own building fire. And unlike so many others, we stayed here and we continue to demonstrate that diversity, equity, and inclusion benefit us all.

You can be part of the Detroit Rep story, because your gift makes a difference.

Your donation brings results. Our award-winning programs and policies have real impact. Over the past 68 years, the Rep has created numerous programs centered around our mission to democratize the arts—to create the most accessible theatre possible. With your help, this mission continues to guide the Rep’s policies of prices, admission, programming, and employment.  

Your support helps:

• Keep our ticket prices the lowest for professional theatre in the state. 
• Serve social service agencies and their clients, a demographic always overlooked in the arts and culture world. 
• Provide low-cost opportunities for charitable, family, and community groups to use our theatre as a fundraising tool. 
• Keep our local union and other professional actors working in Metro Detroit.
• Support our gallery space for local artists to show and sell their work, with no fee or commission. 
• Offer low-cost acting workshops to anyone who wants to explore the arts, regardless of experience or career goals. 
• Continue to prioritize hiring that promotes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
• Produce premieres of many original plays, offering our stage to new voices in theatre.
• Support a union theatre, committed to providing a living wage and benefits to all of our theatre makers and artists, so they are able to stay and work in the theatre in Michigan.

The Millan Theatre Company, named for our founders and dreamers, Bruce Millan and Barbara Busby Millan, had a very direct and demanding vision: to use the power and the joy of live theatre to unite our divided world.  

Support the Vision now

Help us reach our $100,000 goal!

Suggested Donation                     Name of Program

$52	Anna Holley Dollar-a-Week Pledge
$104	Double Up Pledge
$150	Gold Pledge
$300	Citizen Sponsor
$500	Major Citizen Sponsor
$1000	Diamond Donor
$2500	Platinum Partner

We are nonprofit. That means we cannot produce anything without help from you.