Detroit ’67,” which was developed through the Public Theatre’s Emerging Writers Group, a co-production with the Classical Theatre of Harlem and the National Black Theatre, will play the Public through March 17, prior to transferring to the CTH March 23 – April 14.
Set in 1967 in Detroit, where Motown music is getting the party started, the play follows Chelle and her brother Lank, who are making ends meet by turning their basement into an after-hours joint. Always at odds, they fight over the future of the family trade. But when a mysterious white woman finds her way into their care and string of raids increases police brutality around the city, the siblings become divided over much more than business. Suddenly, they find themselves caught in the middle of the ’67 riots.
DETROIT '67...it blew me away!
by Erich McMillan-McCall
The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot, was a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan, that began in the early morning hours of Sunday, July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police ...raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, on the corner of 12th (today Rosa Parks Boulevard) and Clairmount streets on the city's Near West Side. Police confrontations with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in United States history, lasting five days and surpassing the violence and property destruction of Detroit's 1943 race riot. Sounds like an unlikely scenario to use as backdrop for a play about family but in Dominique Morriseau's DETROIT '67 family is most certainly the tie that binds.
DETROIT '67 is a spellbindingly perfect theatrical event arising from a powerful combined effect of a unique set of circumstances: superb acting, extraordinary direction and a mesmerizingly powerful play! Humor, ferocity and keen feeling are abound in all three. There is not a weak link. Rarely do we see such strong vivid portrayals of African Americans with an undeniably deeply-rooted familial bond, on stage, screen or television, especially today.
Tolstoy tells us, "All happy families are alike, and each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." So is the case with the Poindexter family and their friends in Detroit in 1967--they are truly unhappy and happy in their own way. This family is fiercely funny and bitingly sad. DETROIT '67 is a turbocharged family drama about survival in the extreme circumstances of racial discord and riots in Detroit in 1967. What a combination! It will blow you away! It is sensationally entertaining! This is theater that will keep you hooked with shocks, surprises, delights, with a heart moving core. It is a must see American theater game changer.
I am so thrilled and proud that this American story is coming to the National Black Theater in Harlem! Dominique Morisseau is letting her 1VOICE be heard and the pen is her sword. How will your 1VOICE be heard? I hope it will be heard buying a ticket(s) to this must see Harlem theatrical event!
DETROIT '67 is a spellbindingly perfect theatrical event arising from a powerful combined effect of a unique set of circumstances: superb acting, extraordinary direction and a mesmerizingly powerful play! Humor, ferocity and keen feeling are abound in all three. There is not a weak link. Rarely do we see such strong vivid portrayals of African Americans with an undeniably deeply-rooted familial bond, on stage, screen or television, especially today.
Tolstoy tells us, "All happy families are alike, and each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." So is the case with the Poindexter family and their friends in Detroit in 1967--they are truly unhappy and happy in their own way. This family is fiercely funny and bitingly sad. DETROIT '67 is a turbocharged family drama about survival in the extreme circumstances of racial discord and riots in Detroit in 1967. What a combination! It will blow you away! It is sensationally entertaining! This is theater that will keep you hooked with shocks, surprises, delights, with a heart moving core. It is a must see American theater game changer.
I am so thrilled and proud that this American story is coming to the National Black Theater in Harlem! Dominique Morisseau is letting her 1VOICE be heard and the pen is her sword. How will your 1VOICE be heard? I hope it will be heard buying a ticket(s) to this must see Harlem theatrical event!
Erich McMillan-McCall
Founder/Executive Director of Project1VOICE, Inc
www.project1voice.org
erich@project1voice.org
March 23 through April 14
LOOK UPON OUR LOWLINESS
Be sure to check out Harrison David Rivers' LOOK UPON OUR LOWLINESS beginning April 4th at the Harlem School of the Arts produced by the Movement Theatre Company in association with Radical Evolution beginning April 4 for more information and tickets go to http://www.themovementtheatrecompany.org/07/home.html#!lowliness/c9hq
The 3rd Annual 1VOICE! 1PLAY! 1DAY! presents a benefit stage reading of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama A SOLDIER's PLAY by Charles Fuller at partcipating Project1VOICE network theaters simultaneously on June 17, 2013. This year we are international!
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the events of the 1963 American Civil Rights Movement, Project1VOICE in association with over 50 international venues will present simultaneous staged readings of FOUR LITTLE GIRLS: Birmingham 1963 by Christina Ham. This unprecedented international event will take place on Sunday September 15, 2013, the 50th anniversary of the fatal bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama that killed four unoffending Sunday School pupils: Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carol Robertson and Cynthia Wesley. www.project1voice.org
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