Detroit Public Theatre and The OBIE Award-Winning Harlem9 Will Produce 48HOURS IN... DETROIT

Harlem9 and Detroit Public Theatre announce their first collaboration supported by the Knight Arts Challenge, an initiative of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Since 2011, Harlem9, a collaborative producing organization comprised of a group of Black theater professionals from various backgrounds, has commissioned playwrights of color to tell their stories in the annual 48Hours in...™Harlem play festival. The festival recently expanded to include 48Hours in...™EL BRONX. The success of this expansion opened the possibility of engaging even more communities. Detroit Public Theatre, a three-year-old regional theatre in residence at the DSO, in the heart of Detroit's thriving cultural corridor, produces bold plays and programs relevant to Detroit with local and nationally acclaimed artists. DPT has made collaboration with the city's arts, community, and education institutions a priority. Detroit native and Harlem9 Producer, Garlia Cornelia Jones has spent the last two summers in Detroit researching, writing and desiring to collaborate with Detroit artists.

She was a July 2018 Artist in Residence at Popps Packing in Hamtramck, MI, and approached Detroit Public Theatre in early 2018 to share the work of Harlem9. The two companies have many artists in common and have both worked closely with Detroit native, award winning playwright, and McArthur Genius Grant recipient, Dominique Morisseau, who is a Detroit Public Theatre board member and was part of the inaugural 48Hours in...™Harlem in 2011. Detroit Public Theatre and Harlem9 began to dream of working together on this project to tell stories of the city and create more bold, relevant work by, for, and of Detroit. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's Knight Arts Challenge was the catalyst for this initiative. Both Detroit Public Theatre and Harlem9 are honored and thrilled to have received an award of $38K from the Knight Arts Challenge Detroit, which funds the best ideas for engaging and enriching the city through the arts. They are seeking the required matching funds to produce the 48Hours in...™Detroit festival in June 2019 and June 2020. Donations for the project can be made here: http://bit.do/48Hours

Harlem9's 48Hours in...™ festivals are comprised of 6 playwrights, 6 directors, and 18 actors, randomly matched to form 6 ensemble companies. 48Hours in...™Detroit will maintain this format that will include both native and local Detroit artists. There is an expansive and passionate network of these Detroit artists with which Detroit Public Theatre has deep relationships. While Harlem ensembles are all Black and EL BRONX ensembles predominantly Latinx, 48Hours in...™Detroit will represent the demographics of the city of Detroit with an ensemble of Black, Latinx, Middle Eastern, and Eastern European Detroit artists to collaborate in the telling of stories that celebrate our Detroit communities.

Since 2016, Harlem9 has been publishing the commissioned 10-minutes plays each festival produces in volumes available at their events and on Amazon.com. An anthology of the plays commissioned and created for 48Hours in...™Detroit will be published and available for sale following the two festivals.

Detroit Public Theatre produces nationally recognized plays and programs with world-class writers, directors, actors, and designers in the heart of Detroit's cultural district. DPT creates bold relevant work for diverse audiences that illuminates the thrills, joys and challenges of our shared humanity. Detroit Public Theatre was founded by Co-Producing Artistic Directors Courtney Burkett, Sarah Clare Corporandy, and Sarah Winkler in 2015.

Harlem9's mission is to produce together, exploring the past, present and future of black culture, celebrating its rich and diverse history of storytelling. Bryan E. Glover, Garlia Cornelia Jones, Eric Lockley, Jonathan McCrory, and Liberation Theatre Company (Sandra A. Daley-Sharif and Spencer Scott Barros) are the producers that comprise Harlem9.

For more information, please visit www.harlem9.org or www.detroitpublictheatre.org

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