Grammy, Tony, and Emmy award winning artist and Detroit-native Allee Willis will host The Detroit Party in her Los Angeles home April 1 to raise funds and celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit.
Co-hosting alongside Willis are Lily Tomlin, a Grammy, Emmy, Tony, and Academy Award-winning and nominated performer, and Lamont Dozier, a Grammy and Golden Globe-winning songwriter.
Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit is an internationally-acclaimed Creative Youth Development organization making comprehensive theatre and vocal music training accessible to Detroit teens from more than 50 different schools annually.
Mosaic’s young artists have become cultural ambassadors for Detroit, performing in Africa, Asia, Europe and 30 states and provinces throughout the U.S. and Canada, including performances at The White House, The Kennedy Center, The Apollo Theater, and Carnegie Hall.
Willis plans to treat guests to an evening of soul food, sing-alongs, live auctions of vintage Detroit memorabilia, performances by the Mosaic Singers, and a sneak peak of Willis’ upcoming Detroit record/micro-documentary, “The D,” which she envisions to become Detroit’s “theme song.”
General admission, VIP, and sponsorship packages are available, with proceeds returned to Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit.
Mosaic founder and artistic director Rick Sperling collaborated with Willis during the five-year process of creating “The D,” which features many Mosaic performers and a total of 5,000 Detroiters on the record on the song and video. Sperling adds that Willis became a mentor for his young people, detailing her experience beginning at Mumford High School in Detroit, and becoming a singer, songwriter, and composer for the Broadway musical The Color Purple. Willis arranged for Mosaic to see the play and have a talk-back with the entire cast after the show, which Sperling says “never happens.”
The host committee for The Detroit Party includes Motown alumni Mary Wilson of The Supremes, Claudette Robinson of The Miracles, songwriter Valerie Simpson, and other entertainment industry Detroiters such as music producer Don Was and actress-comedian Sandra Bernhard.
Sperling says the party indicates the number of Detroiters in Los Angeles who continue to support the arts, and the place they first experienced it as young people.
“To have people of the stature of Allee Willis, Lily Tomlin, and Lamont Dozier throw us this party to celebrate our twenty-fifth anniversary is pretty amazing,” Sperling says. “I think when you’re doing this work and you’re not living in New York or Los Angeles, it doesn’t receive the same level of recognition and exposure, and so for these Detroiters to raise this up, we think will help people around the country understand the work we’re doing at Mosaic.”
Tickets for the event are available here.
