Theatre Bizarre began as a backyard Halloween event in Detroit. After years of growth and a shutdown by the city, the organization needed to rebuild from the ground up and make the leap to a major venue. I was brought in as a full partner and general manager to help architect that transition and build the operational structure that would make it sustainable.
What followed was a decade of building one of Detroit's most recognized immersive productions. Working alongside a dedicated team of collaborators, I developed the departmental structure that allowed the event to scale, identifying the people who had organically taken ownership of different areas, formalizing their roles, giving them real authority over their departments, and creating the management framework that held it all together. At peak we were running 50-plus departments across 21 performance spaces and 8 stages inside the Detroit Masonic Temple, with nearly 1,000 performers, crew, and volunteers operating on 5,000-guest nights.
My responsibilities covered production operations, vendor contracts, performer payroll, full build, show, and strike execution. I managed a 75-person security team alongside onsite EMTs and first aid personnel, coordinating closely with the fire marshal, Detroit Police, and city officials on all safety and compliance matters. I worked with a technical director, a safety director, and department managers across every area of the production. Permit management, catering, valet, parking, vendor relationships, and venue coordination all ran through my office.
The job was making sure all of it ran. And that when something went wrong at 2 AM, there was a system in place to fix it.
Over ten years at the Masonic Temple, Theatre Bizarre grew from a shuttered backyard event into a financially sustainable, internationally recognized immersive production that sold out every year.
