Welcome to WEMU's new segment about arts and culture that's local, homegrown and right under your nose. It's called "'Round Every Corner." I am Neda Ulaby. This week, a visit with the 8,000-pound gorilla of Chelsea, Michigan's art scene, the impresario of Purple Rose Theatre Company and the new JDs Stage Bistro. JD, of course, for Jeff Daniels.
"I don't have to care about Michigan actors. I don't have to care about local musicians or regional musicians, but I do because I used to be one, still am in a way. I've always thought of myself as a working actor, not a star from Hollywood."
It might be hard to believe, but Hollywood star Jeff Daniels built his theater in Chelsea, where he grew up, in part because he worried, always, that his hot streak on stage and screen would eventually come crashing down.
"We had a good run. I did three or four movies. Now, let's wait for it to end. And when it's over, I'll be home."
Right at the moment when he first made it big, he wanted to create a base for Michigan actors and playwrights and foster up-and-coming talent. But he says he and his wife, his high school sweetheart, were also guided by old-fashioned, Midwestern pragmatism when he first founded the Purple Rose Theatre in 1991.
"I don't have to leave Los Angeles or move out of New York. I'll already be home. I was very fatalistic about it."
This career Jeff Daniels was so fatalistic about included three or four movies right off the bat that were total career makers. In the Woody Allen movie "The Purple Rose of Cairo," made in 1985 long before the Allen scandals, Jeff Daniels starred as an old-timey, swashbuckling matinee idol. He magically steps off the screen to woo a movie-going fan played by Mia Farrow.
Jeff Daniels: "You know, I still can't get over the fact that 24 hours ago I was in an Egyptian tomb. I didn't know any of you wonderful people. I gotta speak to you."
Mia Farrow: "You mean me?"
Jeff Daniels' many hit movies included Oscar winners like "Terms of Endearment," "The Hours" and "Good Night and Good Luck." He starred in the cult classic "Something Wild," in "Dumb and Dumber" and in smaller independent movies like "The Squid and the Whale." Then, there were his starring roles on Broadway and his Emmy-winning work on TV shows like "The Newsroom."
"You're going to tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom! The UK, France, Italy... "
So, for this, he's fatalistic?
"Yeah, but how long is it going to last? And what parts of the business did I not like? The schmoozing, the having to go out to Hollywood and attend other people's premieres just to be seen. That whole kind of selling of yourself. I always wanted to be the guy, "If you want me, call me." Your talent should be the thing that brings them to you, not that ability to market yourself or brand you. I just couldn't do it."
On top of that, Daniels says he and his wife felt in their guts that they needed to raise their three kids surrounded by family in Michigan and old friends who'd known them forever.
"My kids were raised in a place we understood. You know, my joke was that I didn't know how to tell my kids that it's not normal to be going to an Easter egg hunt at Sly Stallone's house. I didn't know how to do that."
Daniels wanted his family to grow up someplace that, in his words, felt normal. Chelsea is his happy place. He remembers the first time ever he saw a show on stage.
Jeff Daniels: "I saw, I might have been five or six, and in the Chelsea High School, the Kiwanis Club put on a pageant. So you've got all these Chelsea businessmen, and my dad was one of them. And suddenly, you hear 'Swan Lake.' And out comes my dad in a ballerina outfit with a wig and black, high-top Chuck Taylor basketball shoes, prancing as only an untalented dancer could prance across the Chelsea High School stage. Never forget that."
Neda Ulaby: "I have to ask, is that the moment when you thought, 'That's what I want to do'?"
Jeff Daniels: "It's the moment I'll never forget, and that I go back to now. That's where you got it. That was in me."
It should be noted that Jeff Daniels' dad was a pretty prominent guy. He ran the Chelsea Lumber Company, and he was the mayor of Chelsea for a while, although Jeff Daniels does not remember if his dad was running the town at that moment when pranced out in that tutu.
"But if he wasn't, and then he was later, it certainly didn't hurt him. Perhaps it helped him win the mayoral election."
Who could have guessed that moment would lead, decades later, to the mayor's son creating an entire industry around theater and music with a distinctly Michigan flavor at the Purple Rose Theatre?
"Twenty years ago, maybe 15 years ago, we were told we'd bring in 40,000 people a year to this little town with two stoplights that weren't coming before."
Chelsea, by the way, has a population today of about 5,500 people.
"I would say 95% of the people that buy a ticket at the Purple Rose are not from Chelsea."
But Jeff Daniels says they go to all the restaurants, nearly a dozen that have popped up downtown.
"And suddenly, we got hotels out by the highway, and you got an art gallery. You got a coffee shop. I mean, people are wandering around."
It's been estimated by town officials, Daniels says, that the Purple Rose Theatre alone brings the town about $4 million of revenue every year.
"And I've had big-time business guys say more like 10. And now with JDs Stage Bistro, you've got another 125, 150, 170 people coming in, whether it's for a show, whether it was for dinner and drinks and whatever it might be, there's a lot of purses and wallets walking around. And what's bringing them in? It's the art."
JDs Stage Bistro is a family business. He's running it with his kids.
"125 seats, kind of like a speakeasy in a small town, you know?"
That's from a recent show in September. Daniels says the first month of programming sold out immediately. It included performances by, well, Jeff Daniels.
"But also, it's a celebration of the talent that is around here and regionally. And occasionally, some national guy might do us a favor and come through. But it's more aimed at those that you don't know who are really good."
The possibilities are exciting, Daniels says.
"We've got a video screen that will come down. Lions games are going to be done here. You can get creative too. It's not just about live music and artists and all that, which we're gonna focus on. But my wife Kathleen does sing-alongs, and she loves Carole King. I mean, whenever we're in the car driving like to New York, we have an apartment, a little apartment in New York, we'll drive the dogs to New York. And it's Carole King for 11 hours, which, God bless her, but, you know, Kathleen and Carole. But we could put Carole King videos on that video screen and 125 women with several bottles of wine, and you're going to have to call Uber a lot!"
Of course, his celebrity makes JDs Stage Bistro a draw, but Jeff Daniels hopes to use it to help shine a light on regional musicians.
"We want people coming to see bands that they don't know."
Buying tickets to see local folks and maybe telling the audience towards the end of the show.
"'Stick around! Jeff will be here in 15 minutes.' And then you sit around and you talk about or tell him to play something that you don't usually play. And then you ask the guy, 'Why'd you write it? Where'd it come from? Why'd that song happen?' And then the craft and then all of that of putting it together, the mechanics of putting some piece of art together, in this case, songs. I think people are fascinated by that, at least people who care about the arts."
I asked Jeff Daniels to tell me about this song. He said he wrote it right after he turned 50, driving his RV from a movie set in Vancouver back home to southeast Michigan.
"And east of Nauvanoe, in the Upper Peninsula, on Route 2 is a rest area. And it's on the UP side, Lake Michigan, and it's beautiful, and it's maybe 30, 40 minutes from the bridge. And I stopped there and it was sunset, and I turned 50, and I was by myself, and I just drove across the country. And I just had one of those self-assessment moments of, 'Who are you? Where are you from? Is this really home?' And the answer was, 'Yes, it is!'"
Every week, we'll close the podcast by asking someone in our community about what inspires them in the area's arts and culture scene. I stopped by Ypsilanti Art Supply downtown to ask if there's anything the artists there are looking forward to.
"Hi, my name is Lena Ellis-Boatman. I am a local artist and art educator. I do printmaking and fibers. An event that I'm really looking forward to in November is the Holiday Art Fair at Riverside Arts Center. It's usually shortly before Thanksgiving, and it's just completely full of local artists and craftspeople and sometimes vintage things and sometimes food items. And it is just a lot of fun and very fun for the community!"
For more of the local arts and cultural coverage that helps make this area someplace you love, please keep listening to WEMU's new podcast, "'Round Every Corner."
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