CMU School of Drama


Monday, February 12, 2018

'Detroit ‘67' frames enigmatic love story with a riot in the streets

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Sometimes the personal and political seem at odds, but their conjunction can suggest a larger truth, or at least a hope. Such is the case with Dominique Morisseau’s “Detroit ’67,” a 2013 play much produced around the country but only now given its Pittsburgh premiere by New Horizon Theater.

However, this premiere is short: opening last weekend, “Detroit ‘67” runs only through this Sunday, leaving just three performances to go.

2 comments:

Shahzad Khan said...

This show screams nothing but absolute excellency to me. I wish that I was declared by the time the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama performs this show in the fall of twenty eighteen but sadly I will not be declared and won't have the opportunity to work on this fabulous show. It's about time that our school starts realizing shows about African american issues given the density of actors that we have that are people of color. The entire concept of the show and how Detroit 67 displays the outside of the action, is thrilling and it's necessary that these stories are told by a school with such a big stake over both Pittsburgh and the theatre world itself. Civil rights haven't been focused enough here at CMU, and when shows like this come along, we have to jump at this opportunity. I hope that when production assignments come out, they do both the actors, managers, and designers justice by assigning and casting minority groups because this story is there's to tell, not the story of the average Purnell white man.

Unknown said...

I am absolutely in love with this playwright. I saw her work last year and Chicago with the beautiful play Blood At the Root which one of my friends was performing in. I was impressed with the near poetry to her work. I am incredibly excited to see what else she has to say about history and blackness.
I have high hopes for the acting and the directing of this show. I agree with Shahzad's point that everyone involved on this show should be a person of color. It would be lovely if they could be all black people and I think that as a school CMU needs to work on recruiting, training, and accepting black designers, technicians, and managers. A show like this needs to only be handled by black people. Even though at the core it's about human issues, being a black person in America is incredibly taxing. Everywhere you turn you are reminded of the fact that you are not like everybody else and you never will be. So when black people get together and feel moments of joy it is beautiful. Since being at this school, I have not experienced that joy because of the lack of black people in the university as a whole. I want the actors, the director, and the designers to be able to relish in what it is to be black and all the joy that we feel. Black art can not be handled by white craftspeople because it will not be embodied with the same energy and joy.
I hope CMU handles this well. I want to go to a play at this school and feel the black joy and care that I felt when I watched A Different World: the Next Generation at Playground.