Holding the Heart of The Michigan Theatre
By Jaime Lawrence, MT-BC
For many in Jackson’s arts community, the recent removal of Steve Tucker as Executive Director of the Michigan Theatre has felt less like a routine leadership transition and more like a sudden break in a story long defined by our local community.
Leadership changes happen; institutions evolve. Yet when someone so closely tied to the identity of a place disappears abruptly, the impact extends beyond governance and into the shared memory of the community itself.
Public statements from the Theatre’s board and from Steve offer differing accounts of how his departure unfolded, leaving observers to navigate competing narratives about retirement, termination, and organizational direction. The procedural details may remain internal, but the effect has already moved outward, reshaping how many people understand the Theatre’s present moment.
Steve stepped into leadership in 2012 when the Theatre faced financial instability and an uncertain future. In the years that followed, the organization stabilized, completed a major restoration through a multi-million-dollar capital campaign, and expanded programming that reflected the breadth of Jackson’s creative life. These achievements were collective, supported by donors, volunteers, artists, and staff, yet leadership provided the continuity that allowed momentum to build.
To describe Steve solely as an executive director, however, misses the deeper truth.
He has been a musician, collaborator, and constant presence within Jackson’s cultural ecosystem - someone whose work unfolded through relationships as much as through administration. Under his tenure, the Theatre came to feel like a venue and like a gathering place: songwriting nights that blurred the line between audience and artist, partnerships that expanded access for individuals with disabilities, and programming that centered local voices alongside broader artistic offerings.
Those details may seem small from a distance, but they accumulate into something larger: a sense that the Theatre belonged to the community and that the community belonged there.
During the uncertainty of COVID, when public spaces felt fragile and disconnected, I remember a line of cars pulling up outside the Theatre for a drive-by moment of connection - free popcorn handed through windows, Steve standing there himself, a simple gesture that carried more reassurance than any announcement could. It was a reminder that institutions are ultimately held together by human presence.
Leadership in community arts spaces should look like stewardship rather than authority.
It requires balancing financial realities with creative risk, honoring history while imagining what comes next, and sustaining relationships that extend far beyond a single role or title. People who choose this work rarely do so for recognition; they stay because they believe deeply in what local arts can offer a community.
From my perspective as a music therapist whose work increasingly intersects with community systems and cultural health, I have watched how relational leadership shapes not only organizations but the people who gather around them. When that kind of leadership changes suddenly, questions emerge - not only about governance, but about whether the intangible qualities that made a space feel alive will continue.
Those questions are already present in Jackson. Will the Theatre remain rooted in local voices? Will creative spaces that welcomed emerging artists, families, and underserved communities continue to flourish? Will the relational culture built over years endure through transition?
Transparency matters here, not as a demand for conflict but as a foundation for trust.
The divergence between public statements, combined with visible concern from donors, community leaders, and even voices within the Theatre’s own leadership, suggests that the story is still unfolding. How it unfolds will shape not only perceptions of the past but the Theatre’s relationship with the community moving forward.
The Michigan Theatre has always been more than a building. It has been sustained by people who believed in local creativity and who invested themselves in its survival. Steve Tucker is inseparable from that history. To honor that truth openly - and with clarity - would not diminish the Theatre’s future; it would reinforce the values of relationship and care that allowed it to thrive.
Communities remember how transitions are handled. They remember whether leaders are treated as stewards or as replaceable parts. And those memories shape whether people continue to invest their time, their dollars, their creativity, and their trust.
I believe in the power of the arts to hold communities together, especially in moments when they feel pulled apart. I believe in honoring the people who gave their lives to building spaces that matter.
