The first thing anybody does in Dominique Morisseau’s drama Detroit ’67 is put the Temptation’s “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” on a record player. It's 1967 in Detroit, Motown’s music capital, but the turbulent Civil Rights Movement is what’s playing in the background. Directed by Aaron Brown, Detroit ’67 will be presented by Sam Houston State University’s Department of Theatre and Musical Theatre March 3-5, 2022 in the Erica Starr Theatre with 7:30 p.m. showings each evening as well as a 2 p.m. Saturday matinee option. 

Detroit ‘67 tells the story of conflicting siblings against a backdrop of the race riots that shook Detroit, Michigan, in the summer of 1967. Chelle and her brother Lank are making ends meet by turning their basement into an after-hours club. 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.

The play offers a thought-provoking perspective on the Detroit riots of 1967, an exploration that earned the play the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History. As the riots develop from the background to the foreground in the play, the characters scoff at the depiction of the violence as a race riot; they see it as a manifestation of police brutality and corruption. 

After Lank and his buddy Sly find a badly beaten white woman on their way home one night, their situation becomes further complicated. Chelle reluctantly agrees to let Caroline (the mystery lady) stay if she pulls her weight by working in the basement--a decision she comes to quickly regret when she notices the chemistry between Caroline and her brother.

When asked how he hopes the audience will respond to the play, director Aaron Brown said, “This play reminds us that our history is not simply left in the past. The eerie similarities between the summers of 1967 and 2020 reminds us all that we haven’t progressed as far as we think, but there still lies power in the hope for a better future.”

Dramaturgy

Danielle Schoellkopf's Case Book for Detroit '67