Hartford Stage announces cast and creative team for Dominique Morisseau’s Detroit ’67 

HARTFORD, CT — January 22, 2019 — Hartford Stage announced today the cast and creative team for Dominique Morisseau’s Detroit ’67. The powerful drama, produced in association with the McCarter Theatre Center, will perform at Hartford Stage Thursday, February 14, through Sunday, March 10.

Jade King Carroll, who previously helmed Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years and August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson at Hartford Stage, will direct. The cast from the McCarter Detroit ’67 production will reprise their roles at Hartford Stage.

Detroit ’67 unfolds during an explosive moment in United States history — the civil and racial unrest that tore the city of Detroit apart. The play centers around Chelle and her brother, Lank, who make ends meet by turning their basement into an after-hours party. When a mysterious woman makes her way into the siblings’ lives, they clash over much more than the family business.

“Acclaimed director Jade King Carroll is returning to Hartford Stage for the third time to stage this great play by a contemporary master, Dominique Morisseau,” said Darko Tresnjak, Hartford Stage Artistic Director. “It is also wonderful to collaborate again with the McCarter Theatre Center, a company led for the past three decades by the incomparable Emily Mann.”

Dominique Morisseau is among 25 individuals nationwide to be named as a MacArthur Foundation 2018 MacArthur Fellow (also known as the “Genius Grant”).  This prestigious fellowship is awarded to creative individuals – including writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, and entrepreneurs – who exhibit extraordinary originality and dedication in their careers. Morisseau was selected as a MacArthur Fellow for her reputation as “a powerful storyteller whose examination of character and circumstance is a call for audiences to consider the actions and responsibilities of society more broadly. With a background as an actor and spoken-word poet, she uses lyrical dialogue to construct emotionally complex characters who exhibit humor, vulnerability, and fortitude as they cope with sometimes desperate circumstances.”

Detroit '67 is part of Morisseau's “Detroit Project" trilogy, which includes Paradise Blue and Skeleton Crew – plays focusing upon the complicated yet hopeful history of her hometown. The Huffington Post called Morisseau “a direct heir to Hansberry, Williams, and Wilson. You feel the pulse and vibrations of her characters." Philadelphia Magazine raved of the McCarter Theatre Center production, “Detroit ’67 has heart and soul. The subject matter places it in the grand tradition of realistic American drama.” US 1 called the production “extraordinary – an impressive and involving production.”

Morisseau's body of work includes Pipeline, Sunset Baby, Detroit ‘67, Paradise Blue, and Skeleton Crew. She will make her Broadway debut this spring as book writer for Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations. Morisseau has had work commissioned by the Steppenwolf Theatre, the Hip Hop Theater Festival, the South Coast Repertory, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Her plays have been staged at The Public Theater, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and the Atlantic Theater Company, among others.

In addition to directing Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years and August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson at Hartford Stage, Jade King Carroll’s directorial credits include Trouble in Mind at Two River Theater and PlayMakers Repertory Company; The Whipping Man and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at Portland Stage; Hello, From the Children of Planet Earth at The Playwrights Realm; Dominique Morisseau’s Sunset Baby at City Theatre Company; Seven Guitars, The Persians and Splittin’ the Raft at People’s Light and Theatre; and Mr. Chickee’s Funny Money at Atlantic Theatre Company.

The cast of Detroit ’67 includes Nyahale Allie (Seven Guitars, People’s Light and Theatre; Unspeakable, Apollo Theater) as Bunny; Will Cobbs (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Broadway; Autumn’s Harvest, The Public Theater) as Sly; Ginna Le Vine (Picnic, Transport Group Theatre Company; The New World , Bucks County Playhouse) as Caroline; Johnny Ramey (The Whipping Man, Baltimore Center Stage; The Liquid Plain, Signature Theatre) as Lank; and Myxolydia Tyler (The Mountaintop, Baltimore Center Stage and Vermont Rep; A Raisin in the Sun, Arkansas Repertory Theatre) as Chelle. 

The creative team for Detroit ’67 includes Set Designer Riccardo Hernandez (Indecent, Broadway; Seascape, Hartford Stage) Costume Designer Dede M. Ayite (American Son and Fireflies, Broadway); Lighting Designer Nicole Pearce (Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years, Hartford Stage and Long Wharf Theatre; Hello, From The Children of Planet Earth, The Playwrights Realm); Sound Designer Karin Graybash (Having Our Say: The Delany Sister’s First 100 Years, Hartford Stage and Long Wharf Theatre; Intimate Apparel, McCarter Theatre Center); and Hair and Makeup Designer Leah J. Loukas (Sweat and Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, Broadway).

Heather Klein (She Has a Name, Off-Broadway; Well Intentioned White People, Barrington Stage Company) will serve as Production Stage Manager, with Nicole Wiegert (Henry V and A Lesson from Aloes, Hartford Stage) as Assistant Stage Manager.