Patrons once fed live macaws in the lobby while banana trees grew beside a goldfish pond - the Fisher Theatre opened in November 1928 as one of the most extravagant rooms in America. It sits inside the Fisher Building at 3011 West Grand Boulevard, Albert Kahn's 30-storey Art Deco "Cathedral to Commerce" in Detroit's New Center, financed by the Fisher brothers with the proceeds of selling Fisher Body to General Motors. The theatre itself, by Chicago architects Graven and Mayger, was a 3,500-seat Mayan Revival fantasy - Aztec temple motifs, Mexican-Indian art and a Wurlitzer organ - that ran vaudeville and movies through the Depression and settled into life as a film house. By the late 1950s it was a second-run cinema, and its last film screened in 1960. Its second act made Detroit theatre history. The Nederlander family - the Detroit-born dynasty that would come to run Broadway houses across America - acquired the theatre and spent 3.5 million dollars converting it, stripping the Mayan excess for a sleek mid-century interior of marble, Indian rosewood, walnut and bronze, cutting capacity to a comfortable 2,089. It reopened on 2 October 1961 with a pre-Broadway tryout, and for decades it ranked among the country's biggest and most important touring houses, hosting out-of-town tryouts of future Broadway landmarks - Fiddler on the Roof among them. As the anchor of Broadway in Detroit, the Fisher has carried the city's touring-musical trade for over sixty years - Hamilton, Wicked and every major tour cycle play here - and in 2021 the Nederlander Organization passed the venue to the Ambassador Theatre Group, which continues the Broadway series. The building around it, a National Historic Landmark since 1989, remains one of the finest Art Deco interiors in the country. Visiting folds the two together: arrive early to walk the Fisher Building's barrel-vaulted arcade of mosaics and brass, park in the attached garages or ride the QLine up Woodward, and make an evening of the New Center's restaurant row. Few American theatres come wrapped in architecture this good.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 3011 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit, MI, United States, 48202

Website: https://www.broadwayindetroit.com

Capacity: 2089

Opening Date: 11/11/1928

Serves Food

Accessible