In 1925, Dr. Ossian Sweet and his wife Gladys moved out of Detroit’s Black-only neighborhood, Black Bottom, into an all-white Detroit neighborhood. They wanted a better life for themselves and their infant daughter.

Ossian Sweet was afraid that they had made a dangerous decision.

They moved on September 8, 1925. The first night there were racist catcalls but nothing serious. The next evening a mob surrounded the new home as Sweet, his brothers, and others gathered again in the house. Ossian was prepared with guns as the mob attacked the house, but the police ignored pleas from the Sweets. A white man was killed. The police raided the Sweet home and arrested 12 people including Ossian Sweet, Gladys Atkinson Sweet, Ossian’s brothers, and friends.

This led to a historic trial that brought the renowned civil rights lawyer Clarence Darrow to Detroit.

Playwright D.L. Patrick takes a different view of these historic events and shifts the attention from Ossian Sweet to his wife, Gladys. Patrick’s title for the play is a good summary of yet another example of a woman not given her due, Eclipsed: The Sun, The Moon, and Gladys Atkinson Sweet.

Theatre Nova is presenting the world premiere of Patrick’s play. It’s an emotional, intimate look at a family that struggles to lead a better life and is trapped by the vile racism that is still a major mark of shame in America’s history.

Families are fragile. Children become adults and go their separate ways. Everybody has their own quirks, complaints, successes, and failures.

Paul Stroili’s play My Mother and the Michigan/Ohio War, at the Purple Rose Theatre through May 25, finds just the right blend of family reconciliation and a rediscovered sense of humor, built around two obsessive wars.

Every year it’s a war.

You know the war: the mighty Wolverines versus that school in Columbus, Ohio.

Every other football game takes a back seat to The Game. This past season, the Buckeyes lost to the Wolverines and the coach had to win the national championship to keep his job. 

Fred Campbell was a big fan of The Game. The home he shared with his wife Izzy was a shrine to the University of Michigan Wolverines. It was his passion.

His other passion was the Toledo War of 1835-1836 to determine who got to claim the Toledo Strip. Ohio was already a state and Michigan would only become a state if a compromise could be reached. Michigan finally capitulated after agreeing to accept the Upper Peninsula and Ohio would keep the Toledo strip. Time would show that Michigan got the better deal.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features a Kraftwerk-like electronic tune by French Ship, orchestral indie by Racing Mount Pleasant, jazzy fusion by The Missing Cats, rap by J-Classic, and soulful emo-tronica by Sacha.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features art songs by Black composers courtesy of Louise Toppin and Darryl Taylor, a meditative Gifts of Art compilation, experimental organ/keyboard/electronics by Latimer Rogland, Americana by Matt McCleskey, and singer-songwriter tunes by Lauren Blackford.

Two University of Michigan professors are putting a different spin on  L. Frank Baum’s beloved The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Jose Casas, head of the playwriting minor in the Theatre & Drama department, has written Our Oz as “a reimagination of the The Wizard of Oz through a BIPOC and queer lens” Jake Hooker, head of drama at the Residential College, is the director.

Our Oz is being presented April 4-13 at the Arthur Miller Theatre on U-M’s North Campus.

The collaboration between Casas, Hooker, and theater students is a story in progress and described in the show's notes as “Intersectional and interdisciplinary, this project will evolve over the course of the next year, exploring and experimenting with the tropes and images of multiple renditions from the Land of Oz as originally conceived by L. Frank Baum.”

Our Oz is very different from Baum’s or MGM’s version of Oz. The set is a street in a tough neighborhood. The opening music is the loud grind of industrial machinery. An older Dorothy is in distress and somehow magically ends up with her dog, Toto, in a place that is very much like the place she just left.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features big band prog-jazz fusion by Elliot McConnell, jazz-rock by Punto de Fuga, country-folk jazz by Maddy Ringo, moody indie by Dick Texas, and two new drum 'n' bass releases on the AGN7 label.

Ghosts are haunting the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre this weekend with a gothic opera based on Henry James’ spooky and unsettling novella The Turn of the Screw.

British composer Benjamin Britten’s score is chilling, a perfect screech of modern music to tell the tale of an inexperienced and disturbed governess and two neglected children.

The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance Department of Voice & Opera and the Contemporary Directions Ensemble are presenting The Turn of the Screw composed by Britten with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, March 27-30 at the Mendelssohn. Two casts will perform. The cast from Thursday, March 27, will perform on Saturday, March 29. Another cast will perform on Friday, March 28, and Sunday, March 30.

The opera begins with three people exchanging ghost stories on a chilly Christmas Eve in a manor house. The most complex story is about the timid, anxious governess at Bly House who was hired by the uncle of two unruly children who may or may not be seeing ghosts. The governess is helped and advised by the housekeeper who tells her the story of the previous governess Miss Jessel and Peter Quint, the uncle’s manservant. Both are now dead. The children, a boy and a girl, are having a hard time—and maybe they’re in touch with ghosts.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features Persian fusion by Babak Soleimani, electronica by Broomway, hip-hop by Blaine Nash, singer-songwriter soul by Jeff Karoub, and synth-pop by Same Eyes.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features sample-heavy electronica by Obsolete Aesthetics, fuzz-fi by Lantern Lens, Irish-steeped instrumentals by Kitty Donohoe, multigenre pop by Andrés Soto, and an experimental jam by Laserbeams of Boredom.

The Neighborhood Theatre Group’s small, minimalist theater is an intimate space for what it calls an anthology play in four parts.

The seating is limited. The stage area is small. The audience is practically part of the scene.

All these limitations are a plus for a theater that emphasizes a tight story, engaged actors, and a very different theater experience, especially for a production like The Hotel Del Gado.

The anthology drama will conclude its two-weekend schedule March 14-16 at The Back Office Studio in Ypsilanti. 

Its four plays are set in a cheap, rundown hotel room. The time is the 1970s. The Neighborhood Theatre Group (NTG) co-founder and literary manager A.M. Dean created a conceit that many of the NTG plays will be set in a place called the Huron Valley Universe, drawing on the college towns of Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, and East Lansing.