Harlem9, Instagram
The crew from the 2019 performance of 48Hours in...Detroit.
Creating a play from scratch within 48 hours is no small feat. But participants of this weekend’s "48Hours in…Detroit" play festival are up for the challenge.
Six playwrights, six directors, and 18 actors will gather on Friday to write a play, rehearse it, and perform it by Sunday evening. The group will create six 10-minute Afrofuturistic plays inspired by the works of Octavia E. Butler, Sun Ra, Nnedi Okorafor, Keisha Thompson, and Racheal Young. So, we expect lots of cosmic, extraterrestrial tales.
It will culminate with a performance at Marygrove Theatre at 7 p.m. on Sunday, March 27.
This is the first time the festival, put on by Harlem9 and the Detroit Public Theatre, has made its way to the city since 2019. Harlem9 is a Harlem-based production company that has put the festival on in several different cities since 2011.
It started with "48Hours in…Harlem," and they have since done "48Hours in…El Bronx," "48Hours in…Holy Ground" (North Carolina), and "48Hours in…Dallas."
The 2019 48Hours in…Detroit was funded by a Knight Arts Foundation Award, and the second installment planned for 2020 was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic (unsurprisingly).
After this weekend’s performance, the 12 plays from this year and 2019’s festival will be published in an anthology.
Marygrove Theatre is located at 8425 W. McNichols, Detroit. Tickets are $15 in advance and a limited number of tickets will be available for $20 at the door. If you're even remotely interested in going, we recommend getting tickets in advance since they sold out last time.
For more information, see detroitpublictheatre.org.
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