Actor and comedian Marc Evan Jackson is teaming with the Children’s Foundation of Michigan to put a new annual comedy festival and variety show fundraiser on the map for Detroit and its youth arts groups.
Modeled after a similar event in Kansas City and “a hang” hosted by a nonprofit in San Francisco, the new event —called The Coney — will bring back famous native metro Detroiters and their friends to help raise funds for local nonprofits and seed a permanent endowment to support youth arts in the city.
The confirmed list of performers for the show, set for Sept. 26 at the Detroit Opera House, includes Jackson, Kristen Bell, Dax Shepard, Tim Meadows, Sam Richardson, J.K. Simmons and Diona Reasonover. Leaders are in talks with 20 or more others, and the Detroit Lions home game that weekend could be an additional enticement to lure more stars, Jackson said.
The event will come on the heels of this year’s Detroit Homecoming event Sept. 23-25. Jackson and Children’s Foundation President and CEO Andrew Stein first met at the annual event for Detroit expats produced by Crain’s Detroit Business.
“The Coney is deeply personal for me, because I’ve seen firsthand what happens when young people are given the space and support to be creative,” Jackson said.
Through the Detroit Creativity Project, a nonprofit he and his wife, metro Detroit native Beth Hagenlocker, co-founded in 2013 to teach students improvisation, Jackson said he’s seen students grow in confidence, find their voice, build community and see new possibilities for themselves and their futures.
“Those experiences reinforced something I’ve believed for a long time: Arts education doesn’t just shape artists—it helps shape resilient, creative and connected human beings. The Coney is about making sure more Detroit kids have access to those opportunities for generations to come,” Jackson said.
“The arts are not extracurricular to a child’s development—they are fundamental to it,” the Children’s Foundation’s Stein said. “Through The Coney and the Endowed Fund for Youth Arts at the Children’s Foundation of Michigan, we have an opportunity to create sustainable, long-term support for Detroit’s young people by expanding access to creativity, expression, mentorship and opportunity. This initiative is about building a future where every child can experience the transformative power of the arts.”
Jackson, a Buffalo native, attended what is now Calvin University in Grand Rapids, lived in Traverse City for a summer after college and then moved back to Grand Rapids. He first came to Detroit — a city he said adopted him — in 1997 as main stage musical director at The Second City comedy club. About halfway through his four years there, he became a main stage cast member.
Today, he’s best known for his roles in television sitcoms including “The Good Place,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Parks and Recreation” and on the screen in movies including “Kong: Skull Island.”
The Detroit Creativity Project is bringing improv to 1,600-1,800 students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District to help them gain life skills.
“Improvisation, in addition to being fun and funny, is a wonderful life skill that everyone should experience,” Jackson said. “It’s a confidence-building, fear-erasing, friend-making, anxiety-tamping, life skill set … that everybody should be able to experience.”
With his involvement in the nonprofit, Jackson has attended Detroit Homecoming for several years and been looking for other ways to give back to the city. He came up with the comedy event idea during the 2024 Detroit Homecoming, but it wasn’t until he met Stein during a dinner at the gathering of metro Detroit natives last fall that things took off.
Stein couldn’t quite place Jackson until his teenaged daughter excitedly filled him in on the actor after he texted her a picture. His request for an autograph for his daughter led to a conversation that included Jackson’s idea for the Detroit fundraising comedy event to support youth arts. And that evolved into the role the Children’s Foundation could play in helping to secure funding and oversee and grow a new, permanent endowment to benefit youth arts groups working in Detroit schools.
Conversations and lots of planning in the months since have yielded a long lineup of Detroit-tied talent that will bring a high-energy, anything-goes celebration of the Motor City — music, comedy, unexpected moments and plenty of surprises — to the Detroit Opera House on Sept. 26, leaders said. One minute it could be Celebrity Motown Karaoke, the next it’s a Coney Dog eating showdown.
Jackson expects the event to be along the lines of an old Dean Martin roast. There will be scripted bits, games, a band on stage and couches for celebrities to hang out and be a part of the show.
It was Stein’s idea to call it “The Coney,” Jackson said.
“If you’re from Detroit, you know what that is. If you’re not, that’s fine, bit of an inside joke, and it’s fun,” Stein said.
Leaders will announce the full cast, which will include about 20 other actors, musicians and other celebrities, closer to the event in September, Stein said.
The weekend includes a private welcome party on Sept. 25 for celebrity guests, community leaders, sponsors and supporters. The host committee of Jackson, Bell and the other five confirmed celebrities will be out and about in Detroit on Saturday and throw out the first pitch of the Detroit Tigers game that day as they warm up for “The Coney.”
A limited number of public tickets for the comedy festival and variety show will go on sale at noon June 24 through the Detroit Opera House box office at prices ranging from $149-$299 each.
Celebrities are performing at the Detroit event for free, with their travel and lodging paid for, Stein said.
The event will also include silent and live auctions.
Proceeds will fund grants made to Detroit youth arts nonprofits through a grant request process and seed the new, Endowed Fund for Youth Arts at the Children’s Foundation.
“The intention is to support Detroit-based organizations, large and small, that provide a range of arts education and creative youth development programs,” Stein said.
Those will include fine arts, performing arts, music and literary arts groups working in schools and providing out-of-school programs, he said.
“What’s exciting to us, is this is hopefully growing the pie for arts funding,” Stein said.
For example, the group got a generous sponsorship from the Four Friends Foundation, a Seattle-based foundation launched by Bob Shaye, founder of New Line Cinema, who grew up in Detroit, Stein said.
With $1 million or more in sponsorships and grants already in hand, Jackson and Stein have set a goal to raise $3 million from the inaugural event. The “Big Slick KC” in Kansas City raised $4.2 million at its 17th annual event in late May, Stein noted.
Rocket Companies Inc. is the presenting sponsor of the event. The long list of sponsors and contributors also includes the William Davidson Foundation, The Skillman Foundation, Four Friends Foundation, Bedrock, Ally, Somerset Collection & The Detroit Shoppe, Amazon, Ashley Capital, Catalyst Solutions Group, Crain Communications, C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Gretchen and Ethan Davidson, Marjorie Fisher and Roy Furman, Jackson and Hagenlocker, Jones Day, Ellen and Bill Taubman on behalf of the A. Alfred Taubman Foundation, and Walker-Miller Energy.
Story by: Sherri Welch | Crain’s Detroit Business