The Detroit Project

Three provocative dramas, Paradise Blue, Detroit ’67 and Skeleton Crew, making up a play cycle examining the sociopolitical history of Detroit.

Each play sits at a cross-section—of race and policing, of labour and recession, of property ownership and gentrification—and comes alive in the characters and relationships that look toward complex, hopeful futures.

With empathetic storytelling and an ear for the voices of her home community, Dominique Morisseau's The Detroit Project brings to life the soul of Detroit, past and present.

Paradise Blue premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in July 2015.

Blue, a gifted trumpeter, contemplates selling his once-vibrant jazz club in Detroit’s Blackbottom neighbourhood to shake free the demons of his past and better his life. But where does that leave his devoted Pumpkin, who has dreams of her own? And what does it mean for the club’s resident bebop band? When a mysterious woman with a walk that drives men mad comes to town with her own plans, everyone’s world is turned upside down.

Detroit '67 was first presented Off-Broadway at the Public Theater in association with Classical Theatre of Harlem and the National Black Theatre in New York City in March 2013.

It's 1967, and in Detroit, Motown music is getting the party started, and Chelle and her brother Lank are making ends meet by turning their basement into an after-hours joint. But when a mysterious woman finds her way into their lives, the siblings clash over much more than the family business. As their pent-up feelings erupt, so does their city, and they find themselves caught in the middle of the '67 riots.

Skeleton Crew premiered at the Atlantic Theatre Company in New York City in January 2016.

At the start of the Great Recession, one of the last auto stamping plants in Detroit is on shaky ground. Each of the workers have to make choices on how to move forward if their plant goes under. Shanita has to decide how she'll support herself and her unborn child, Faye has to decide how and where she'll live, and Dez has to figure out how to make his ambitious dreams a reality. Power dynamics shift as their manager Reggie is torn between doing right by his work family, and by the red tape in his office.