62 | OCTOBER 13 • 2022 

T

he sign identifying the 
Jewish Ensemble Theatre 
(JET) in Walled Lake 
has been placed in somebody’s 
garage. 
The properties that are nec-
essary to JET stage productions 
— from lights to décor — are in 
a storage facility waiting to be 
sold or, if necessary, given away 
to other stage companies. 
Letters are being prepared 
for subscription holders unable 
to watch the shows originally 
scheduled for the end of the 
2022 mainstage performance 
season. The letters are to serve 
as reasons for tax deductions 
to compensate for payments 
already made to cover plays 
that have been canceled.
No arrangements have been 
provided for the associated pro-
ductions developed for young 
people as an important out-
growth of the theater repertoire 
— The Diary of Anne Frank and 
anti-bullying dramas planned 

for other venues.
JET, an award-winning the-
ater company that became the 
largest Jewish theater in North 
America, has closed and board 
members are doing their best to 
make the ending honorable.
The happy times derive from 
looking back on some 33 years 
of developing between three 
and five yearly mainstage pro-
ductions arranged for its own 
stages, thinking of JET as pro-
ducing the most enactments in 
the world of The Diary of Anne 
Frank and being a voice for the 
Jewish community.
“We’ve had 
insufficient oper-
ations funding 
in the last six 
months,
” said 
Phoebe Mainster, 
president of the 
JET board of directors for the 
second time in 20 years. “The 
problem of getting people to 
come to the theater during the 

COVID scare just was devastat-
ing for us.
” 

A STORIED HISTORY
It was in early 1990 when The 
Man in the Glass Booth by 
Robert Shaw became the first 
play opening JET at the Aaron 
DeRoy Theatre at the Jewish 
Community Center in West 
Bloomfield. The stage company 
was started by Evelyn Orbach, 
who had appeared in New York 
and Detroit theaters and went 
on to accept acting and direct-
ing roles for JET.
Orbach, who established JET 
as an Actors’ Equity Association 
and made it a professional 
stage company, died in 2020, 
also suffering from the reach of 
COVID. She started the troupe 
with the help of Henrietta 
Hermelin Weinberg and Mary 
Lou Zieve, who still have input 
into the company with some 
30 community leaders on the 
Board of Directors.

“Predominantly, our audi-
ence is older, and they were the 
most frightened to come back 
to the theater,
” Mainster said. 
“We did our best. We did every-
thing we should have done, but 
we just couldn’t survive.
” 
Posted on the theater 
company’s website is a letter 
explaining the closing and 
thanking the demonstrations 
of support as 
signed by Mainster 
and Christopher 
Bremer, who 
became execu-
tive director after 
the late David 
Magidson, a 
theater dean and professor at 
Wayne State University.
“The Jewish Ensemble 
Theatre served as a force for 
Jewish continuity, a platform 
for new voices and a bridge of 
understanding to the general 
community,
” communicated the 
letter signed by Mainster and 

ARTS&LIFE
THEATER

JET Theatre closes its doors.

SUZANNE CHESSLER 
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Christopher 
Bremer

Phoebe 
Mainster

JET

A JET production 
of Cabaret in 2019.

End 
 of anEra

