The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Tuesday, September 29, 2015 — 5A
One Hundred Twenty-Fifth Anniversary

An illustrious literary history at the ‘U’

Ann Arbor writing 

community 

continues to grow

By HAILEY MIDDLEBROOK

Daily Arts Writer

Last January, on one of those 

frozen nights where the coffee 
shop windows fog up too much to 
see in from the outside, I journeyed 
across campus to a cozy bookshop 
called Literati. The store, still in its 
infancy, opened by Mike and Hil-
ary Gustafson in 2013, is a beacon of 
literary light for Ann Arborites and 
college students alike: a small but 
rich collection of books, spread on 
repurposed shelves, sided by an old 
typewriter on which visitors leave 
their own words behind.

The store’s second level hous-

es The Espresso Bar, a clinking 
counter that keeps a running tab 
of guests’ coffee. The room, light 
and airy by day, becomes dim and 
smoky by night; particularly that 
night, as dozens of writers and bib-
liophiles tucked in to hear Rebecca 
Scherm, recent MFA graduate from 
the University’s Helen Zell Writ-
ers’ Program, read from her debut 
novel “Unbecoming.” The reading 
was the first of a country-wide tour; 
it was fittingly in an Ann Arbor cof-
fee shop, much like those where she 
had first typed her story. I squeezed 
into a corner and watched Scherm 
as she watched us, her eyes welling 
up in tears.

“This is just so weird,” Scherm 

said. “All of you here. Wow. Thank 
you, all of you. I wouldn’t have this 
book without you.”

Her wavering voice clarified as 

she began to read. The room grew 
silent save for Grace, living under-
cover in a Paris antique shop, run-
ning from her dark past. Professors, 
peers and I listened, enrapt, cof-
fee spitting in the corner and the 
typewriter humming below. Words 
were alive here.

Rebecca Scherm is not the first, 

nor will she be the last, brilliant 
writer to come through the Uni-
versity. In the 1920s, Betty Smith 
moved from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Ann 
Arbor for her then-husband to pur-
sue a law degree. Though she hadn’t 
finished high school, Smith enrolled 
in University classes; under the 
guidance of Prof. Kenneth Thorpe 
Rowe, she mastered her skills in 
writing and drama, winning the 
Avery Hopwood Award for Drama 
in 1931. A little over a decade later, 
in 1943, Smith published her inter-
national bestseller “A Tree Grows in 
Brooklyn,” drawing from her own 
childhood experiences.

During his tenure at the Uni-

versity, Prof. Rowe also taught two 
of the biggest names in literature: 
playwright Arthur Miller, class of 
1938 and a Michigan Daily alum; 
and poet and art critic Frank 
O’Hara, class of 1951. Like Smith, 
Miller also grew up as a poor 
Brooklynite, delivering bread in the 
mornings to pay for college tuition. 
Miller thrived as a journalism major 
at the University, but his playwrit-
ing talent prompted his switch to an 
English major. In 1936 he won the 
Hopwood Award for his play “No 
Villain,” then received the award 
again in 1937 for “Honors at Dawn.” 
Miller went on to become a Broad-
way legend — his plays “Death of a 
Salesman,” “All My Sons” and “The 
Crucible” exploding onstage — and 

a tabloid star, with his rocky mar-
riage to actress Marilyn Monroe. 
Later in life, Miller retained his 
alma mater ties, establishing the 
Arthur Miller scholarship award 
for talented young writers at the 
University.

While Miller’s plays flashed on 

Broadway, Frank O’Hara honed 
his poetry skills as a graduate stu-
dent at the University, winning 
the Hopwood Poetry Award for “A 
Byzantine Place: 50 Poems and a 
Noh Play” in 1951. After receiving 
his MFA in English, O’Hara moved 
to New York City, where he became 
a curator at the Modern Museum 
of Art and established himself as a 
poet and critic. An unconventional 
writer, O’Hara believed that poet-
ry should be written solely in the 
moment — scribbled on the subway, 
or in a room full of people — and 
his method spurred the poetry col-
lections “Oranges: 12 Pastorals,” 
“Meditations in an Emergency” and 
“Lunch Poems.”

O’Hara’s strong impact on the 

NYC art scene reverberates today. 
Season two of AMC’s “Mad Men,” 
about high-pressure advertising 
agencies in the 1960s, heavily refer-
enced O’Hara’s poetry. The show’s 
final episode, appropriately named 
“Meditations in an Emergency,” 
shows protagonist Don Draper find-
ing a copy of O’Hara’s book.

While many students meditated 

on poetry and novels, others found 
their niche in journalism. Neal 
Gabler, who graduated summa cum 
laude in 1971, has worn nearly every 
hat in the writing world: His col-
umns have been in The New York 
Times, Vogue and Esquire; he has 
published four books, winning the 
USA Today Biography of the Year 

for “Walt Disney: The Triumph of 
the American Imagination”; he has 
been broadcasted on the “Today” 
show and “Good Morning Ameri-
ca.” Today, he’s a Senior Fellow at 
University of Southern California’s 
Norman Lear Center and teaches 
graduate courses at State University 
of New York Stony Brook, covering 
a range of topics from biography to 
film criticism.

Gabler has also taught at the 

University in the past, receiving the 
Outstanding Teaching Award from 
the University in 1978. He had close 
ties to the Screen Arts and Cultures 
department as a student and teacher 
— especially with Hugh Cohen, cur-
rent SAC professor and his former 
mentor, who invited Gabler to give 
a guest lecture on film criticism this 
past April. In his speech, Gabler 
reminisced about his years as a 
film critic for The Michigan Daily, 
where he famously wrote more 
column inches than anyone in the 
paper’s history.

Outstanding 
mentors 
and 

professors are crucial in cultivating 
creativity. Prof. Rowe inspired 
Smith, 
Miller 
and 
O’Hara, 

among 
others; 
Prof. 
Cohen 

piqued Gabler’s interest in film. 
Naturally, University professors, 
many who return to teach after 
receiving University degrees, are 
accomplished writers themselves. 
Laura Kasischke, a 1987 graduate 
of the Zell Writers’ Program and a 
current professor at the University, 
has published eight collections of 
poetry and nine novels.

“Ann Arbor has really become 

an active writing community — 
the Zell reading series, and now 
Literati, and the many writers who 
live here have put us on the map,” 

Kasischke said, about what draws 
writers to the University. “But, even 
when I started school here in the 
’80s, there was an astonishing writ-
ing community.

“Ann Arbor isn’t a large place, but 

the University obviously attracts 
people from far and wide who 
write,” she continued. 

Among many awards, Kasischke 

won the National Book Critics 
Circle Award in 2012 for “Space, 
In Chains,” a poetry collection 
with an underlying theme of grief, 
presented through her raw and 
resonant imagery. Kasischke’s fic-
tion explores dark topics like global 
pandemics and school shootings, 
spun in the same startling realness 
as her poetry. “The Life Before Her 
Eyes,” about a survivor from a Col-
umbine-like school shooting, was 
adapted into a film starring Uma 
Thurman in 2007. 

When discussing dark and 

twisted themes in novels, Megan 
Abbott’s name also undoubtedly 
arises. Abbott grew up outside of 
Detroit and graduated from the 
University with an English degree 
in 1993, then went on to pursue a 
Ph.D. in English and American lit-
erature at New York University.

Inspired by the noir writings 

of Joan Didion and female crime 
fiction, Abbott edited “A Hell of a 
Woman,” an anthology of female 
crime fiction. She also wrote “The 
Street Was Mine: White Masculin-
ity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film 
Noir” and seven fiction novels. 
Her 2012 novel “Dare Me,” about 
a sinister crime covered up by a 
high school cheerleading squad, 
as well as her latest novel “The 
Fever,” about a sudden sickness 
that sweeps through a high school 

clique, are both being adapted 
into TV shows for HBO and MTV, 
respectively.

“It wasn’t until I started taking 

classes in the (University’s) English 
Department that I really learned 
how to write at all,” Abbott replied 
when asked in an e-mail interview.

She continued, “And workshops, 

especially the one I took with the 
brilliant and kind Keith Taylor (a 
current English professor), offered 
me my first true experience of cre-
ative writing, of burrowing into the 
dark corners of one’s own head.” 

Abbott also attributes her writ-

ing success to her time spent at 
The Michigan Daily. “Working on 
the (Daily) Arts staff filled my last 
12 months at Michigan,” she said. 
“I learned how to write book and 
movie reviews; how to be a rigor-
ous editor of my own work and 
that of others. It was the first time 
in my life that I was surrounded 
by people for whom words mat-
tered so much, story mattered so 
much.”

Every University alum brings a 

different story to campus. It’s here 
that those stories are shared and 
fleshed out, where interests take 
root and relationships flourish. 
Even when they leave Michigan, 
writers’ words remain, spoken in 
bookshops on winter nights and 
bound in volumes in the Avery 
Hopwood room of Angell Hall. 
They’re read in undergraduate 
English classes, by young students 
who may someday cast their own 
stories into the world. 

“Every year, I find so much talent 

in both the undergrad and gradu-
ate classrooms that it seems like it 
should run out someday,” Kasischke 
said. “But it doesn’t.”

By ALEX BERNARD

Daily Community Culture Editor

Editor’s Note: As The Michigan 

Daily celebrates its 125th anniversary, 
take a look at another chapter of 
history — that of The Michigan 
Theater.

“To go where so many had gone 

before.” I can’t tell if that’s a roman-
tic sentiment or just how I feel about 
going into a public bathroom. After 
all, everyone’s been everywhere, or 
at least walked everywhere.

So why did I care so much when 

I stepped into the Michigan The-
ater for the thousandth time to 
see another new indie movie with 
another awesome Kristen Wiig per-
formance and buy another Coke, 
another ticket, another Screen-
ing Room seat? The theater is Ann 
Arbor’s cultural center, sure, but 
those are just words. Why care?

Here’s why. In another world, the 

Michigan Theater might’ve been a 
food court. Really. It’s a true story. 
And Henry Aldridge — author of 
“The Michigan Theater” and head 
organist at the theater — had time to 
tell us the whole thing.

“It was built as a movie palace 

and opened in January 1928 with 
a live show and a feature film,” 
Aldridge said. “It had a resident 
13-piece orchestra and, of course, 
the beautiful Barton pipe organ. 
The Michigan ran silent films until 
June 1929 when it switched to talk-
ing films.”

Talking films led to a rapid 

decline in live performances at the 
Michigan and across the country. 
Meanwhile, cinemas became the 
sole proprietor of the cultural and 
commercial 
phenomena: 
talk-

ies. According to Russ Collins, 

executive director and CEO of 
the Michigan Theater and State 
Theatre, annual attendance at cin-
emas around the country reached 
upwards of 4 billion.

In an interview with The Mich-

igan Daily, Collins likened the 
growth of film to the growth of 
the Internet: At first no one had it, 
then a few people did, then every-
one did and no one could imagine 
life without films. And then they 
added talking.

“People don’t think of movie his-

tory like that,” Collins said. “They 

think of it like, ‘Well there was the 
silent era which was like pre-history 
and who gives a shit? It was all dino-
saurs and that kind of crap, and it 
doesn’t have anything to do with 
what we do now.” 

The Michigan found similar 

success to other cinemas. Until the 
1950s, when television surpassed 
film as the principal means of 
entertainment and every theater 
hurt. To combat declining audience 
numbers, the theater’s ownership 
authorized drastic renovations to 
the theater space.

Over the next two decades 

though, the Michigan’s new “mod-
ernized” appearance wouldn’t be 
enough to solidify its place in Ann 
Arbor, and, faced with stiff com-
petition, Butterfield made plans to 
close the theater in 1979 and turn 
the space into a food court. But, 
of course, this was not to be, not if 
Henry Aldridge had anything to say 
about it. With 14 months advanced 
notice about the closing, Aldridge 
sought out colleagues and support-
ers of the Michigan.

“Beginning in June 1978, when 

we first heard of plans to repurpose 
the theater, I started calling and vis-
iting anyone and everyone I could 
think of to see if we could come up 
with a strategy to save the theater. I 
was politely rebuffed by most people 
who saw no need for a slightly worn 
out old movie theater.” 

Naturally, not everyone was 

enthusiastic. According to Collins, 
some Ann Arbor locals wondered 
why their town needed another 
“big theater,” in part because 
the Power Center, which opened 
in 1971, was still relatively new. 
Despite some support, it seemed 
that the Michigan might not be 
saved after all, that Aldridge’s 
efforts would ultimately be impas-
sioned but ineffective.

But then Aldridge’s friend put him 

in contact with Mayor Lou Belcher, 
and the two came up with the idea 
of establishing a 501(c)(3) corpora-
tion to purchase the theater, or in 
Aldridge’s words: “Mayor Belcher 
knew how to get things done.”

With 
Belcher’s 
know-how, 

Aldridge’s determination and the 
financial support of community 
members — specifically and espe-
cially philanthropist Margaret Tow-
sley — the Michigan was purchased. 
On Sept. 28, 1979, after being closed 
for only six weeks, the Michigan 
Theater reopened with a showing of 
the feature film “Gigi.” The adver-
tisement read, “The Michigan The-
ater’s Screen Glows Again.”

“Within days, groups such as 

the Ann Arbor Film Festival, folk 
singers, rock bands and others 
approached us about booking the 
theater. We operated the theater 
until May l980 with a handful of vol-
unteers until our first manager was 
hired,” Aldridge said.

Since the reopening, the Michi-

gan Theater has undergone a series 
of costly but crucial renovations. 
From the foyer, auditorium and 
ceiling to the addition of a screen-
ing room and offices, the Michigan 
Theater has left its “modernized” 
renovations in the ’50s, where they 
belong. According to Aldridge, “The 
Michigan looks very much like it did 
in 1928.”

Now, beyond architectural and 

interior grandeur, the theater has 
returned to its roots. It keeps busy. 
Collins is the executive director of 
the Michigan, yes, but also oper-
ates the State Theatre, the Cineto-
pia Film Festival and the Art House 
Convergence, a national conference 
for independent cinemas that the 
Michigan runs in association with 
Sundance.

In addition to films, the Michi-

gan Theater hosts live music, 
concerts, symphonies, children’s 
programs, silent movies, stand-
up, lectures, classes, Broadway 
shows and plays. The Michigan 
is the home of the Penny Stamps 

Lecture Series, the Ann Arbor 
Symphony Orchestra, the Michi-
gan Pops Orchestra and countless 
other events, from English depart-
ment cocktail parties to Law 
School graduations. To list every 
brilliant, famous person who’s 
ever performed or spoken at the 
Michigan would give my editor 
an aneurysm, so I’ll just mention 
a few: David Sedaris, B.B. King, 
Pussy Riot, Joe Jackson, Iggy Pop, 
Mike Birbiglia (my favorite) and 
many, many more. 

As I sat in Collins’s office, on his 

visitor chair — which is, obviously, a 
small director’s chair — he told me 
many things, but one in particular 
that I didn’t understand at the time, 
not fully anyway:

“The Michigan Theater is an 

interesting laboratory for studying 
how things are completely different 
and exactly the same.”

The pipe organ. The renovations. 

The movies. Live performances — 
just like 1928. As he led me to his 
office, Collins and I stopped by the 
auditorium, where some tech guys 
were turning nobs on the sound-
board, and a band tested their 
microphones. 

All I could think about was the 

theater, how it almost wasn’t there 
and then it was, and how much 
it matters to so many. To Henry 
Aldridge. To Russ Collins. To me. 
To freshmen who aren’t sure why 
there are two old cinemas right next 
to each other, but who eventually 
learn. To every theater employee 
who’s ever caught the end of “Bird-
man” right before clean-up. To so 
many who have gone before.

More than 80 years of history, 

conflict, struggles, buyouts, sales, 
constructions, renovations, plans, 
performances, losses, gains, films, 
Cokes, 20-somethings. More than 
80 years of students like me, car-
ing about our theater, our theater 
that now sits between an Elevation 
Burger and the Tropical Smoothie 
Café, that rubs shoulders with 
Graffiti Alley.

The Michigan Theater is still 

here. It’s not a food court. It’s an 
institution, an inseparable part of 
Ann Arbor’s wiring. In fact, the 
more I think about it, the more I 
think what Collins said about film 
could (should) really be about the 
Michigan:

“It didn’t exist, and then it existed 

and a few people had it. And then it 
existed and a whole bunch of people 
had it, but not everybody. And then, 
everybody thought it was really 
cool.”

This week, the Michigan The-

ater is showing “Grandma.” I 
hear it’s pretty good. Maybe I’ll go 
alone. Maybe I’ll sit in someone’s 
old usual seat, and I won’t even 
know it. And that, well, that’ll be 
really cool.

FILE PHOTO/Daily

A timeless Michigan Theater keeps thriving

2004

Hussain Rahim’s review of 
Kanye West’s album The 

College Dropout says, “He’s 

not trying to scare you with his 
prison record or tell you he’s the 
best rapper ever. He knows he’s 

not."

2005 

Art’s “The Weekend” section 
turns into “The Statement,” 
the Daily’s weekly feature 

magazine.

2014 

Senior Arts Editor 

Erika Harwood 

creates the Style beat. 

