Blair Underwood to appear at 'Detroit Projects' free event
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.
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.