JULIE HINDS

Blair Underwood to appear at 'Detroit Projects' free event

Julie Hinds
Detroit Free Press Pop Culture Critic
Blair Underwood

Hearing actors like Blair Underwood ("Marvel's Agents of SHIELD"), Andre Holland ("The Knick") and Ruben Santiago-Hudson ("Low Winter Sun") talk about their craft would be rewarding under any circumstances. But having them come together to discuss a theater trilogy called "The Detroit Projects"? That's something special.

Underwood, Holland and Santiago-Hudson (a Wayne State alum) will appear at 4 p.m. Sunday at a free event, "Capturing Detroit: Owning the Narrative of Our City," at the Charles H. Wright Museum's General Motors Theatre. They'll participate in a conversation with playwright Dominique Morisseau about her three Motor City-themed plays, one of which, "Detroit '67," will be performed May 13 through June 5 by the Detroit Public Theatre.

Andre Holland attends the "Head Of Passes" opening night celebration at The Public Theater on March 28, 2016, in New York City.

The actors are all veterans of Morisseau's work. Underwood and Holland starred in a Williamstown Theatre Festival production of "Paradise Blue" that was directed by Santiago-Hudson. It's about an African-American trumpeter in the 1949-era Paradise Valley business district who's trying to decide whether to sell his jazz club. Santiago-Hudson also was the director of an off-Broadway version of "Skeleton Crew," which focuses on workers at Detroit's last exporting automotive plant circa 2008,

Morisseau, a native Detroiter who studied acting at the University of Michigan, started her career as a performance artist/poet in Harmonie Park. "Detroit '67," which will be opening here next month, is set in the basement of a house inherited by a brother and sister. In a review of a 2013 staging, BET.com praised how the play "tackles the turbulence of the time while finding a way, through all of the dilapidation, to recognize a defining generation."

Sunday's event also will feature Marlowe Stoudamire, project director of the Detroit HIstorical Society's "Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward" community engagement project, and will be moderated by poet Jessica Care Moore. Seating is first-come, first-serve, so those attending are encouraged to arrive early.