THE POISONER National Tour Closes in Detroit This Month

The Poisoner comes to Detroit for the final stop of its seven-city national tour. Performances will be followed by a talkbacks connecting the play to the water, press, and water justice work happening in Flint, Detroit, and across Michigan.

The Poisoner follows a determined journalist who returns to his hometown to uncover a devastating cover-up of water contamination...and the powerful forces determined to keep the truth buried. A neo-noir thriller about deception, institutional failure, and the fight for accountability, the play asks the question at the heart of every community's struggle for justice: are we ever safe?

Written by first-time playwright and Michigan native M.M. Haney and directed by two-time Obie Award-winning director Lee Sunday Evans, The Poisoner asks who is accountable when the systems meant to protect us fail, and what it takes for communities to take back control of the resources they depend on.

"There are parallels across the Midwest with communities wrestling with their own questions about data centers, water, accountability, and who has the power to be part of democratic decision-making processes. This is proof the questions in The Poisoner aren't Flint's questions alone, but ours collectively,' said director Lee Sunday Evans.

In Michigan, the questions it raises about lead, control of water resources, and public trust are still being lived and fought over across the state today.

EVENT DETAILS

October 29, 7:30 PM
October 30, 7:00 PM

October 31, 3:00 PM
Marygrove Theatre | 8425 West McNichols Road, Detroit, MI
Tickets: https://the-poisoner-detroit.eventbrite.com/

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Thursday and Friday performances will include talkbacks with Melissa Mays and Nayyirah Shariff from Flint Rising and Sylvia Orduño with the People's Water Board Coalition, two groups at the center of Michigan's fight for clean, affordable, publicly controlled water. We will also be joined by journalists from Michigan Radio: News Director Vince Duffy and Lindsay Smith, creator of the award winning "Not Safe to Drink" to talk about the journalist's angle of the play and the real-life crisis.

2 buses will be provided for residents of Flint to attend the Friday, October 30th performance for free. Interested individuals can visit https://thepoisonerplaybus.rsvpify.com for more details.

"We know this isn't real. These are actors. That's not whatever that office is. You all know that. And five minutes into The Poisoner, you are the reporter and you are the father of the child. And you are in the nursing home. The friend of somebody who actually did fight."

- Michael Moore, Filmmaker & Activist

ABOUT THE POISONER

The Poisoner is a universal tale - an unraveling of the deception, abuse of power, and utter negligence of early 2000s Midwestern water politics. In a neo-noir thriller driven by a determined journalist who returns to his hometown and uncovers more than he bargained for, The Poisoner invites audiences to question: are we ever safe?

Presented by Citizen56 and Uncommon Productions, the production is a fictional work inspired by the Flint water crisis of 2014, aiming to engage audiences and amplify awareness about the persistent challenges faced in Flint, Jackson, Newark, Pittsburgh, and other communities grappling with aging infrastructure, water contamination, and the fight for corporate and government accountability.