info about the trumbullplex

[Ramsey Beyer]

Hi. I emailed Bobby for info about the Trumbullplex and how it operates. The Trumbullplex is in Detroit. He gave me a really thorough, awesome response. The Trumbullplex is a big old farm house with a separate barn/garage with a stage in it. There's also an elevated projection booth since it was like a theatre or something. All of the events are in the barn, as far as I know. 

"A (not all too) brief history: What we call the theater, which as you know is actually just a garage to one of the houses, has been an artspace for many decades, maybe since the 70s. The stage was built back then by artists and the house and theater have been in the hands of artists and activists since then. In 1993, some anarcho-punk types that were living in the house formed a low income housing 501c3 called Wayne Association for Collective Housing (WACH) and purchased the house that the garage (theater) is attached to, and the house on the other side of the theater. Trumbullplex is actually just the colloquial term for the boring but official, WACH. The theater itself has no official status. As far as the government is concerned, it's just part of a non-profit housing collective. I think technically, the building (the theater) is zoned as some sort of non-commercial artspace, but we're not allowed to charge mandatory entrance fees or sell booze or anything like that. So for 17 years, we've been able to avoid trouble by flying somewhat under the radar and toeing a line between official and unofficial. We don't have to pay taxes, or deal with any city/state licensing related to the theater, and we've been lucky to avoid licensing fees for music, but at the same time, we own the space and it's somewhat legitimate so we have a certain security in that.

For most of its existence, the theater was just operated by whoever was living in the houses at any given moment. I started going to, playing, and booking shows at trumbullplex in 2001 or 2002, but moved back to Detroit in late 2005 and got really involved in 2006. At that time, the theater was dreadfully underutilized and shows were dreadfully underattended. This was largely because a lot of folks who were living there, amazing as they all were, had little time or interest in running an artspace, as they were super busy doing their other projects, mostly urban agriculture projects and the bike co-op.

In 2007, a group of ex-plex, some folks that were living there at the time, and myself formed an independent theater collective, to manage the artspace component. The idea was to bring some more consistency to the running of the space, which was undermined by the transience of collective living, as well as to relieve the pressure from house residents who didn't want to deal with running a public space. There were roughly 12 of us, and we drafted our own mission, wrote naively over-detailed procedures for every conceivable thing, and opened a separate bank account to keep money from the space separate from housing share. Folks at the house still had use of the space and a say in things, but they just didn't have to worry about making sure events happened and were promoted.

In theory and practice, I think this was a good move. We have made huge improvements in quality, consistency, and diversity of events in the last three years, though we're still not to where we would like to be. But it has been way less organized and clear than it was intended to be. Of those original 12, I think there are two or three of us who are still left in the theater collective, and we have a whole new group of folks just 3 years later. The procedures we drafted are ignored. We have bi-weekly meetings, at which there's usually like 10 folks. Maybe 5 who are there all the time, and a random 5 of a larger group of folks who sometimes come. Membership is pretty loose, it's more like who shows up to things and participates, not some firmly delineated status. Somehow, things get accomplished and the space continues. I think, because it's relatively loosely organized, it is way bigger than any individuals (personalities) involved, and because it has had such longevity now, it is sustained by a huge community of people that feel invested in it and mostly just participate a little, but a lot of hands doing a little goes a long way.

So that's the organizational infrastructure. I could totally touch on sustainability, finances, and troubleshooting if you want, but I feel like I am writing your eyes off." 

[Nate Black]

That is the most compelling history of an art-space that has ever been written. I like the idea of loose organization based on a community of people that feel invested in the space. It would be difficult for us to adopt that model seeing as we are just starting and we don't have a time machine but I look forward to hearing Bobby go into brutal detail about sustainability, finances and troubleshooting. I am also curious about how they get their meetings to run smoothly with members rotating in and out on a regular basis.