MTJ Board Co-Chairs Martha Fuersteneau and Phil Curtis presented Steve Tucker with a sizable donor-funded check.
Actor and Chelsea native Jeff Daniels performed an acoustic set of his original songs.
A view from the balcony during Jeff Daniels’ performance
By ELIZABETH FERSZT
Contributing Writer
The Michigan Theatre of Jackson was packed Thursday evening, June 11 for a free community-wide event to celebrate the return of Steve Tucker as executive director of the theater.
Tucker mingled with guests in the cordoned-off parking lot on the south side of the theater before the event started.
When asked about what it has been like to transition from being fired to being rehired, Tucker said he’s “right back at it” after being involuntarily absent from the theater since January.
“Last night we stayed here until 9:30 p.m. and got up today at 6 a.m.” — ready to restart. But as far as not getting burnt out over his previous pace of a 60-hour work week, Tucker said that “the Board is committing to hiring a development director — someone to take care of the operations portion” of the job.
State Rep. Kathy Schmaltz, who is also an MTJ board member, was in attendance and supporting Tucker. “I’m so happy Steve Tucker is back as executive director of the Michigan Theatre in Jackson and so is the community!” Schmaltz said later in a Facebook post. “So, after some five months of unnecessary turmoil we are back on track and the theatre is better than ever.”
Paul Kofflin, long-time staff member at the theater, said he was happy to get his former title, technical director, back. “I still have projects to do in that capacity,” he said. The previous board had demoted him to maintenance technician.
Attorney and MTJ Board Member Phil Curtis was lauded for being “the real hero here,” in that his actions at the court or legal level which led to a new board, “which took as it first action to reinstate Steve as executive director,” said Martha Fuersteneau, board co-chair.
Curtis and Fuersteneau also awarded the theater a check for $250,000 — representing the renewed effort at donations that had virtually stopped during Tucker’s absence. Curtis stated that the new board had said, “We don’t need donors.”
“Thank you again to Phil Curtis and his team, American 1 Credit Union president and CEO, Martha Fuerstenau, Marc Daly, Hattie Oliver, all our new theatre board members and the community for helping us right a wrong and get Steve back where he belongs,” said Schmaltz in her post.
Chelsea native, actor Jeff Daniels took the stage and played a full 60-minute acoustic guitar set. He also told an extended anecdote about his first meeting with Clint Eastwood on set in Los Angeles.
Daniels is no amateur on the acoustic guitar — his songs are all original, and his lyric writing is personal and intense; for example, his tune about “My missus has been reading ‘Fifty Shades of Gray’” got a rousing response from the packed theater.
Daniels also talked about his many appearances on television talk shows over the years going back to Johnny Carson and David Letterman, and recently The Kelly Clarkson Show. They asked him to perform, so he played a song about how he composes new tunes on his guitar, a la George Harrison, “While my guitar gently weeps.”
An audience member shouted out, “How nice is Kelly Clarkson?” Daniels responded that Clarkson now plays that soulful tune as her opening song on tour.
Daniels founded the Purple Rose Theater in Chelsea in 1991.
The current board of directors of the theatre include Co-Chairs Phillip J Curtis and Martha Fuersteneau, Treasurer Hattie Oliver, Board Members Sue Stevens, Eric Cole, Michelle Woods, Kathy Schmaltz, Marc Daly, Rebecca Armstrong, John Butterfield, Richard Collins, Ronald Ellison, John Macchia Jr., Jessica Embury, and Christopher Lock. Advisory Board Members are Linda Furgason, Dave Heins, and William Rayl.
