Kicking Off Fall ’18 with “Detroit ’67”

(From left to right: Jha’Neal “Blue” Stoute, Jayna Raines, Kahri Blackman, Dazinsky Muscadin, and Najah James)

I had the pleasure of meeting with the cast of Nicole Mattis’s beautifully directed, Detroit ’67, Frostburg’s first play of the Department of Theatre and Dance’s production season. The actors, all dressed down in either sweatshirts or leggings, or clad in jackets to brave the cold lobby, looked very happy as they spoke with their friends and loved ones about what I would call an amazing opening night.

Dominique Morriseau’s Detroit ‘67 is a play about an African-American family who is running a small nightclub out of their basement when the “riots” break out and a young white woman is moved in, causing turmoil and anxiety amongst the characters at times. Other times, being in that basement helps them discover themselves in ways never thought of.

I directed my first question toward Najah James, both a friend and a classmate of mine, who played the role of Bunny, a woman who’s in the know all the time and has a way with her words and her hips.

This is your very first college production! What’s going through your mind right now, now that you’ve completed a successful opening run?

James: “I’m kind of freaking out because it went so well, but I’m just really happy to be with everybody else, to be honest. I couldn’t have been here without them.” She gestured to her colleagues as she continued, “the more the show went on, the more comfortable I got because they’re like my family. It was like we were in our own basement; like we were having our own party.”

Watching the show last night, I can certainly see how hard James has worked leading up to the big day. I thought back to how nervous she was during the week of auditions and callbacks because she wasn’t sure if she was the person Mattis had in mind for the role. Scared but undeterred, James stuck around and landed the part. Last night, she delivered one of the best performances I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing.

My next question was for the entire cast:

The theme of this play is a hard pill to swallow. What was it like rehearsing the scenes?

It was if they knew that this is what my next question was going to be — their answers were so quick. To this, their collective agreement got directly to the point: “it was a hard pill to swallow.”

The play addresses themes such as racism and discrimination, while bringing light to police’s excessive use of force on unsuspecting and harmless Black people, leading to their hospitalization or deaths. This is an even bigger issue today, which is why the activism group Black Lives Matter was formed and rose to prominence. Not only did it create one of the biggest social movements of the 21^st century as it centers around Black people’s fight for racial equality and justice, but it is also the reason behind hashtags like “Say Her Name” or “Say His Name,” which bring attention to innocent victims who were killed at the hands of police officers.

I turned my attention to Jha’Neal Stoute and Jayna Raines; Stoute plays the lead role of Chelle, a hardworking woman who only wants to keep her parent’s memories alive, while keeping her son in school and her little brother out of trouble. Raines plays the role of Caroline, the mysterious, battered woman, who moves into the basement and shakes things up in the Poindexter household.

The scene in which Chelle and Caroline argue about being on different sides of the race war, as the play called it . . . What are your thoughts? Did anything in particular strike either of you?

Raines: “I’m on Blue’s side. Like, I believe in their [Caroline and Lank’s] romance. Interracial? I’m like, nice – big nice. I understand the controversy, and whatever happened back then, that wasn’t possible. Still, today, you get a lot of backlash if you’re an interracial couple.”

Stoute: “You can tell that Chelle didn’t want to hate Caroline. She didn’t hate who Caroline was as a person and who society puts her as, as a person. It was the thought of her and Lank being together that scared Chelle because Chelle’s lost so much, that if she lost her brother, she might actually lose her mind.”

I turned my attention to James, who also had something to say on the matter.

James: “I would say, if somebody asked me what the theme is, I would say, ‘I don’t think it’s love is love, but more so remember love.’ Instead, remember to love. Period.”

The biggest question on my mind was, how did they all prepare a two-hour play in such a short time? Auditions for Detroit ‘67 were on Aug. 27, callbacks were on Aug. 29, and the cast list didn’t go up until Sept. 3, which, in the world of theatre, means that it’s crunch-time until it’s showtime.

You all had only a little over a month to prepare for this play, so what was the process like? Especially considering that Frostburg shows allow about a month and a half for rehearsals and preparations.

Stoute: “It was hard getting them lines down, but,” she paused, and a smile cracked at her lips as she said, “it’s still hard getting them lines down.”

Everyone laughed before Dazinsky Muscadin, who amazingly played the role of Sly, added in: “I don’t remember the semester without this show.”

I directed my attention to Blackman, who had been quiet during most of the quick interview. Blackman gave a dazzling performance as Lank, a man who believes in the future of his family and Detroit more than anyone else in the play, and is willing to fight for it (hence the character’s last name Poindexter, derived from an Old French word ‘poingdestre’ meaning ‘right fist’).

What was it like preparing for the role of Lank? How did you prepare yourself to deliver the lines in the final scene about Sly?

Blackman: “Well, I kind of got history with certain situations like that, so it wasn’t hard to get into the character. I just used my past experiences to fuel the fire.”

My next question was for Muscadin. Outside of any play he’s in, I know of him to be this humorous and fun guy, so it makes sense for him to be playing the role of Sly. There are minor differences between himself and the character, however, so I asked:

In person, you’re this hilarious, charismatic, and open-book kind of person. Sly, however, is smooth and calculated, and he has a way of getting and doing what he wants and desires. What was it like preparing for this role?

 Muscadin: “I kind of threw out a lot of my nervous jokes and tried to make Sly more . . . All of his jokes are punctured, and they mean something. Every time he’s saying something, there’s an underlying goal for it, so I make sure that, no matter what the line was, I always knew what my goal was.

The interview concluded with two questions for the entire cast:

If you all could do one thing differently, what would it be and why?

Muscadin was the first to chime in with his answer, a spoiler, to which everyone looked at him and jokingly told him to shut up.

Stoute: “I don’t know how the audience took Chelle, but I would give her more wonder and more laughter within herself. She’s written to be broken, and there needs to be more hope that comes through for her.”

Muscadin: “I would change some of my goals in some scenes. All the scenes are written in a way that helps develop the story, but you lose some Sly-type things, so I would change some of my goals. I would make my character, not necessarily pop, but support better.”

James: “I would give Bunny more intensity because she’s either, kind of really, really up here,” James demonstrated by raising her hand above her head, “and in the end, she’s so low. So, I think, maybe something that adds more depth so that she’s more intense.”

What do you hope to accomplish during the rest of this show’s run?

Stoute: “Smoothness.”

Raines: “Yeah, really solidify it.”

Muscadin: “I hope, by the end of the show, to make at least seven people cry. I heard I made two, so we’re good.”

Detroit ‘67 has three more shows on Oct. 18, 19, and the 20 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for show can be purchased online at www.frostburg.edu/TheatreDance, at the Box Office before showings begin, and in the Performing Arts Center, Room 302.

I would like to thank the cast of Detroit ‘67 for allowing me a chance to interview them, and I would like to extend my thanks to Nicole Mattis for this interview as well. It’s a wonderfully directed play starring an insanely talented cast, and it was put together by an amazing team. Congratulations not only to the cast and director for a great show, but to the stage hands, the costume, lighting and shop teams, and to the assistant stage director and lighting director for great cues. If you haven’t yet seen Detroit ’67, be sure to get your ticket as soon as possible. You’re bound to leave the theatre either laughing or crying because the show is that good.