Dominique

Morisseau

Playwright Biography

From MacArthur Foundation website:

Dominique Morisseau is a playwright whose works portray the lives of individuals and communities grappling with economic and social changes, both current and historical. 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.

Her plays juxtapose beauty with destruction, hope with despair, and bring to light the complicated realities of urban African American communities. The Detroit Project, a trilogy of works inspired by August Wilson’s Century Cycle, paints an authentic picture of the city at three moments in time. Set during the riots of the summer of 1967, Detroit ’67 (2013) delves into the bond between a brother and sister and the difficult, life-altering decisions they must make against a backdrop of chaos and economic instability. Paradise Blue (2015) dramatizes the lives and music of the jazz community in a Detroit neighborhood in 1949, where legendary artists performed and flourished before urban renewal policies forever altered the landscape. The final play in the trilogy, Skeleton Crew (2016), is set in 2008 in an automotive stamping plant during the worst of the recession and centers on characters wrestling with conscience, identity, and the instinct for economic survival. Music features prominently throughout The Detroit Project, with Motown, jazz, and hip-hop tracks serving to accentuate a mood and underscore dialogue, while Morisseau captures the city’s distinctive rhythms of speech to further convey the specificity of place.

Other works include Sunset Baby (2012), a raw, potent look at a daughter’s relationships with her estranged revolutionary father and her drug-dealing boyfriend, and Pipeline (2017), which explores a mother’s desperation and fatalism as she witnesses her black son’s seeming inability to avoid the “school to prison pipeline.” Still early in her career, Morisseau is a powerful storyteller whose examination of character and circumstance is a call for audiences to consider the actions and responsibilities of society more broadly.

Dominique Morisseau received a B.F.A. (2000) from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She is currently a Residency Five Playwright at the Signature Theatre. She has had work commissioned by the Steppenwolf Theatre, the Hip Hop Theater Festival, the South Coast Repertory, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; and her work has been staged at the Public Theater, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and the Atlantic Theater Company.

Highlighted Play: Detroit '67

Detroit ‘67 tells the story of a Black family living in Detroit in the 1960s. Siblings Chelle and Lank Poindexter run an after-hours bar in their home—to Chelle, they’re just hoping to pay off the mortgage and fund her son’s college education, but Lank dreams of owning an official establishment, of having “a stake” in his city. One night, Lank and his best friend Sly stumble across Caroline, a white woman whose romantic involvement with a cop puts her (and then this family that takes her in) in danger. As Lank and Caroline begin to fall for each other (against Chelle’s admonition), Detroit’s Great Rebellion erupts in response to decades of police violence and discrimination against the Black community in Detroit. Detroit ‘67 could be used in an educational setting to discuss the uprisings of the 1960s, as a representation of the institutional racism and violence that one Black family faced preceding the uprising, and their experience of the rebellion itself. This play also has clear ties to current events, and could be used as a window into study of more recent instances of police violence against people of color and how communities have fought back. It might also be useful to begin a discussion of race and privilege more broadly through critical analysis of how Caroline’s beliefs and experiences diverge from the Poindexters’.

Photo credit: Michigan Radio, Detroit during 1967 Rebellion

A street full of people and debris in Detroit during the 1967 rebellion. Two police officers are in the foreground with their backs to the camera, facing a crowd of people and police officers in the distance.

Set and characters in Detroit '67. A basement in the 1960s, including a couch covered in bright floral fabric and a Black Power fist on the wall. A Black man and woman are engaged in serious, possibly contentious, conversation while another Black man looks on.

Photo credit: Washington Post, Detroit '67 at Center Stage

Discussion Questions

A question that Morisseau writes toward: “[For these characters,] how are they or are they not getting justice in their lives for the things that they want? How are they or are they not being measured fairly by each other and by the world?”
What are each of the characters’ visions for their lives? What are they looking for? How do they conceive of community and home?
What does ownership mean to these characters?
How did you think about what was happening outside of the Poindexters’ basement? What role did the uprising play in the show? How was it important (or was it) that this story took place in the moment that Morisseau set it in?
How is Caroline’s experience with the police different than Lank and Sly’s? Why? What does this teach us about race and privilege, and how is it applicable today?
What role does music play in Detroit ‘67?
Should the events of 1967 be considered a riot or a rebellion? Something else? How does what we call it matter?

Detroit '67 Study Guide from Actors Theatre

Sample Activity: Using Detroit '67 in the Classroom

Dominique Morisseau's work challenges dominant narratives about race, history, and her community. Detroit '67 can be used in this spirit in a middle or high school social studies classroom. In Act Two, Scene Three, Sly and Chelle lament that the violence is described in a newspaper as a "race riot." This scene can be used as a jumping-off point to explore various narratives of the events in Detroit in 1967. Students can examine contemporary newspaper articles from a variety of sources, including mainstream Detroit papers such as the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, local Black newspapers such as the Michigan Chronicle and Illustrated News, and national news outlets. From what perspective was each article written, and why might their authors interpret and portray events in a particular way? How was the story Detroit '67 told about the rebellion similar to or different than the narrative in the newspaper articles? How do different kinds of sources help us understand multiple perspectives about a historical event? This can open a broader discussion with students about varying interpretations of history and identifying bias in sources.

Annotated Plays

Skeleton Crew

The action of Skeleton Crew all takes place in the break room of an auto plant, where employees Faye, Dez, and Shanita try to sort out their increasingly precarious employment as the plant threatens to be shut down. Tension is already high, as someone is stealing materials from the plant and management is demanding to know who. Reggie, a former factory worker who has been promoted, is caught between his allegiance to his former peers, his responsibilities as a manager, and his concerns about his own family’s security and stability. Unlike most of Morisseau’s work, Skeleton Crew includes “touches of the magical/ethereal” to the realism in which it operates, according to Morisseau’s author’s notes. This slight divergence from realism could be useful to explore in an artistic setting. In an educational setting, Skeleton Crew could be useful in considering the politics and economics of urban areas, with Detroit as a case study. Skeleton Crew deals most explicitly with jobs and loss of work, but also touches on issues such as homelessness and gun violence with humanity. Students might consider how both local and national policies shape these conditions, and their impact on everyday lives.

Photo credit: TheatreMania, Skeleton Crew at Atlantic Theatre Company

Set and characters in Skeleton Crew. In a factory plant break room, with lockers, a small table and chairs, a rudimentary kitchen. A Black man in business casual dress (Reggie) stands in the foreground, seemingly pondering a decision. The other three characters watch him from the background in anticipation.

Study Guides

Skeleton Crew, Atlantic Theatre Company

Sunset Baby, REP Stage

Photo credit: NEXT Pittsburgh, Sunset Baby at City Theatre Company

Sunset Baby

Sunset Baby interrogates the relationship and generational divide between what Dominique Morisseau calls the Black Liberation movement and the hip-hop generation. The story centers around Nina, a tough, guarded drug dealer, her partner Damon, and her father Kenyatta, who was absent for most of her life in part because of his involvement in the Black Liberation movement. When we encounter these characters, Kenyatta is attempting to rekindle his relationship with his daughter, but Nina holds deep resentment of his absence and has no interest in reuniting. Their conflict is represented by letters, mostly addressed to Kenyatta, left to Nina by her late mother—for both Kenyatta and Nina, these letters hold sentimental value as their final connection to Nina’s mother; they are also worth a significant amount of money to scholars as part of a history of activism. Ultimately, Nina gives Kenyatta the letters and leaves her home and Damon to start anew, a step toward freedom and letting go. Sunset Baby could be used in an educational context as part of a discussion on the impact of the Black Liberation Movement on future generations. It touches most explicitly on the personal repercussions for those most closely involved, but could be a jumping-off point to discuss the political ramifications of that movement as well. Sunset Baby could also be useful in an applied context in current social movement spaces, as a way to reflect on what activists sacrifice for movements and to consider whatever balance they might be seeking.

Comprehensive List of Plays

Full-Length Plays

Pipeline (2017)

Blood at the Root (2016)

Skeleton Crew (2016)

Paradise Blue (2014)

Detroit ’67 (2013)

Sunset Baby (2012)

Follow Me to Nellie’s (2011)

Theatre for Young Audiences

Autumn’s Harvest (2014)

Musicals

Ain’t Too Proud - The Life and Times of the Temptations (2017)

One Act Plays

Night Vision, in Facing our truth : short plays on Trayvon, race, and privilege (2015)

Additional Resources: In Dominique Morisseau's Own Words

Playwright's Permissions for Engagement. Consider this an invitation to be yourselves in this audience. You are allowed to laugh audibly. You are allowed to have audible moments of reaction and response. My work welcomes a few “um hmmms” and “uhn uhnnns” should you need to use them. Just maybe in moderation. Only when you really need to vocalize. This can be church for some of us, and testifying is allowed. This is also live theatre and the actors need you to engage with them in a way that doesn't distract or thwart their performance. Please be an audience member that joins with the village, either silently or vocally, in support of the journey we will take collectively. Exhale together. Laugh together. Say “amen” should you need to. This is community. Let’s go. Signed, Dominique Morisseau.

Playwright's Permissions for Engagement. Insert included in program for Paradise Blue at Signature Theatre, 2018.

Playwright Dominique Morisseau | 2018 MacArthur Fellow

Theater Talks: Paradise Blue by Dominique Morisseau - from Theater Talk: Paradise Blue by Dominique Morisseau

Bibliography

Baird, H., Easter, T., & Tarr, F. (2015, April). Skeleton Crew, Study Guide: Students and Educators. Atlantic Theater Company. Retrieved October 16, 2018, https://atlantictheater.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/SC-Study-Guide_v3.pdf

Evans, S. (2017, January 05). Dominique Morisseau Is Telling the Story of Her People. American Theatre. Retrieved October 6, 2018, from https://www.americantheatre.org/2016/01/04/dominique-morisseau-is-telling-the-story-of-her-people/

Isherwood, C. (2013, March 12). Down in the Basement, Family Tensions Stir. The New York Times. Retrieved October 12, 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/theater/reviews/detroit-67-at-the-public-theater.html

Leuszler, L. (2016, April). Detroit ‘67 Play Guide. Actors Theatre. Retrieved October 2, 2018, from https://actorstheatre.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Detroit-67-Play-Guide.pdf

Long, K. Y., & Damavandi, Z. (2015, April). Sunset Baby Study Guide. REP Stage. Retrieved October 2, 2018, from https://www.repstage.org/documents/SunsetBabystudyguide.pdf

Morisseau, D., Free, K. R., & Missick, S. (2018, April). Theatre Talks: Paradise Blue by Dominique Morisseau. Panel discussion at the Schomburg Center, New York, NY. Retrieved from https://livestream.com/schomburgcenter/events/8145446/videos/174199597

Morris, B. (2018, June 15). Snapshots of Detroit: The Millions Interviews Dominique Morisseau. Retrieved October 6, 2018, from https://themillions.com/2018/06/snapshots-of-detroit-the-millions-interviews-dominique-morisseau.html

Myers, V. (2017, July 25). An Interview with Dominique Morisseau. Retrieved October 6, 2018, from http://www.theintervalny.com/interviews/2017/07/an-interview-with-dominique-morisseau/

Safani, M. (2018, May 8). A Closer Look: Interview with Playwright Dominique Morisseau. Breaking Character Magazine. Retrieved October 6, 2018, from https://www.breakingcharactermagazine.com/a-closer-look-interview-with-playwright-dominique-morisseau/

Soloski, A. (2015, December 30). Playwright Dominique Morisseau Can't Forget the Motor City. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/theater/playwright-dominique-morisseau-cant-forget-the-motor-city.html

Wardi, A. J. (2013). From 1727 Bedford Street to 1839 Wylie Avenue: Home in August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle. University of Toronto Quarterly: A Canadian Journal of the Humanities, 1(1), 44–61. Retrieved from http://proxy.library.nyu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsmzh&AN=2013305808&site=eds-live