The Grand Rapids Civic Theatre and School of Theatre Arts celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. The Civic Theatre is one of the country’s oldest and largest community theater organizations. Every year, more than 800 volunteers act, dance, sing, help build sets, and design the shows put on by the Civic Theatre. For this Centennial season, the Civic Theatre will be putting on eight shows, some familiar and some new to West Michigan.
“We wanted to think about shows that would honor the past and we also wanted shows that would highlight the present,” said Allyson Paris, the theatre’s interim artistic director. Paris oversees the programming offer by the theatre with an eye toward making sure that it serves volunteers, patrons, students, and community partners.
A Season to Celebrate
The shows for the Centennial Season were selected with significant community input. A dedicated Centennial Season Advisory Committee oversaw the selection process.
Legacy productions (meaning those previously put on by the Civic Theatre) include longtime favorites such as Annie, Our Town, A Chorus Line, and Les Misérables. New shows for the Civic Theatre stage this season include Come from Away, a musical which tells the story of a small Canadian town in the province of Newfoundland that welcomed stranded travelers amid the chaos of September 11, 2001; and Finding Nemo Jr., a musical adaptation of the popular Disney children’s movie. Season passes, partial season passes, and tickets to individual shows are available through the Civic Theatre’s website, grct.org.
Paris emphasizes that the Civic Theatre is not just an attraction for Grand Rapids residents. It is an institution with a regional draw.
“I’ll be in the lobby sometimes and people will say I came from Traverse City, or I came in from Chicago,” Paris said.
In recent years, Grand Rapids Civic Theatre has presented primarily musical theatre, which reflects a shift in public taste.
“When I arrived in ’99, the theatre was doing one to two musicals each season. Now we’re doing one to two plays. Everything else is musicals. That’s responding to the interests of the audience but also the interests of the talent,” said Bruce Tinker, who is currently serving as a Special Advisor for the Civic Theatre. Tinker served for many years as the executive and artistic director of the theatre.
A Century of Community Theatre
A lot has changed in the world of arts and entertainment since a group of 30 residents helped establish Grand Rapids Civic Theatre in 1927. What hasn’t changed is the organization’s core mission.
“They felt that Grand Rapids and the surrounding communities deserved a space where people could come together and make theater. And that really hasn’t changed,” Paris said.
The organization began its existence as the “Civic Players.” They put on around four shows each year at St. Cecilia’s Music Center. St. Cecilia’s served for years as the on-again, off-again home of the theatre company. During the 1930s, the Civic Players evolved into the Grand Rapids Civic Theatre.
The Grand Rapids Civic Theatre emerged from a grassroots development in the 1920s known as the “Little Theatre” or “Community Theatre” movement.
“People decided ‘We can do this on our own. We don’t have to rely on outsiders. We can create all this entertainment locally,’” Tinker said. He describes the “Little Theatre Movement” as unique to the United States.
“In most countries, the standing theatres are professional theatres only,” Tinker said.
Grand Rapids Civic Theatre moved into the Majestic Theatre on North Division Avenue in 1979. Built in 1903, it served for decades as a movie house. In 1994, the Civic Theatre acquired three surrounding buildings (the Botsford Building, Wenham Building, and the Hull Building). The surrounding buildings were all built in the late 19th century and served a variety of commercial and light industrial purposes over the years.
A series of capital campaigns have helped integrate the four spaces over the past thirty years. Grand Action has figured prominently in the fundraising efforts. A substantial donation by Fred and Lena Meijer in 2005 led to the renaming of the Majestic Theatre as the Meijer Majestic Theatre. The most recent capital campaign led to the full integration of the four buildings in 2019 and 2020, according to Tinker.
“You feel the ghosts of the past when you walk into our space. When we do tours, people stand on stage and look out and really feel the weight of all those years,” Paris said.
A series of venues served as the home for Civic Theatre.
“Our first location was called Germania Hall. It was a German social hall on the city’s West Side,” Tinker said. After Germania Hall, St. Cecila’s housed the theatre for much of the mid-20th century. Before coming to the Majestic, the Theatre spent several years at an old movie house on West Leonard Street.
“We’ve been fortunate for the most part to perform at traditional theaters. Majestic was built originally as a vaudeville house,” Tinker said. Anyone around in 2026 who remembers its previous existence remembers it as a movie house. Paris has a friend who told her of seeing the film version of Mary Poppins at the Majestic during the 1960s. Decades later, she saw a live musical production of Mary Poppins at the same theatre.
More Than a Stage
As essential to the Civic Theatre as its programming is its educational mission through the School of Theatre Arts. The school works directly with local educational institutions and offers classes of its own throughout the year.
The Civic Theatre started working directly with Grand Rapids Public Schools during the 1960s. This partnership has grown over the years. Now, over 1,800 students from across west Michigan work with the Civic Theatre each year.
In recent years, the efforts of Civic Theatre’s productions and its educational program have become increasingly integrated. Kids working with the School of Theatre Arts are now playing a tangible role in putting on the shows each year.
Paris says that many volunteers at the Civic Theatre have told her that participating in community theatre has helped them overcome shyness, improve their public speaking skills, or cultivate other technical skills that come on the production side of theatre.
Through its educational mission, the Civic Theatre provides support to other theatres in the region through costumes, props, scenery, and expertise.
“Almost every theater in town at some point borrows something from us,” Paris said.
Tinker credits Paris with helping to integrate the Civic Theatre’s educational efforts and programming.
“They now dovetail with each other in sustainable ways,” Tinker said, which he characterizes as the biggest development in recent years with the Civic Theatre.
In all of its programs, Civic Theatre provides opportunities for local artists to share their talents with the community. It serves to inspire creativity while helping entertain.
Paris encourages people who are interested in getting involved with community theatre to take a class at the school during the fall, winter, or spring.
“You can also usher at the shows, which is a really low commitment way to come and serve and be involved and get to see a performance,” Paris said.
Collectively, the people of west Michigan have made Grand Rapids Civic Theatre an inclusive and sustainable organization with a multi-generational legacy in the region.
