Forget the tights and bows: Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit is giving “Robin Hood” a bold, futuristic twist in “Hoods Uncloaked,” opening this weekend at the Detroit Film Theatre at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Set in a high-tech, class-divided 2036 Detroit, the youth-powered production swaps Sherwood Forest for surveillance culture, exploring who holds power — and who dares to take it back. Performances run May 2–3, promising action, attitude and plenty of heart from one of the city’s most dynamic young ensembles.
“We did things as simple as dreaming up what we felt Detroit would look like 10 years from now,” said director Shavonne Coleman. “We talked about some of the things that they were worried about, and that’s when things like AI came up, and surveillance. Then, we dreamed about what Detroit could or should look like 100 years from that, so we did a very similar process talking about 2136. I continue to be very inspired by Afrofuturism. We’re seeing it in visual art, but then we’re also seeing it in movies a lot lately and then thinking, ‘How do we utilize that in theater?’
“When you talk about futurism, I feel that you start thinking also about the past. The play has some techno in it, and some jit in it, and there’s some Detroit ballroom in it. I think everyone knows Motown, but lots of people don’t know that techno started in Detroit. And so that exploration happened in rehearsal and was fun, and that’s what got us to where we are now. We even did visual art one day, thinking about what we wanted Detroit to look like in 2136.”
After a discussion, the young participants drew up a story outline, which Coleman turned into a script.
Mosaic executive and artistic director DeLashea Strawder cast the program as prescient in the shadow of recent events with youth unrest in downtown Detroit.
“There’s actually a scene in the play,” Strawder said, “where one actor says, ‘When my grandma was younger, they wanted young people to be seen and not heard. But now, it feels like they want young people not to be seen or heard.’ When they did the run-through the other day, it sparked some conversation about some similarities they are feeling or seeing in terms of discussions, as it relates to the teen takeovers.
“When the law protects the powerful, how do the seemingly powerless seek justice? These are fifth through 12th graders. That’s the question they wanted answered. I want people to be reminded of the brilliance and the empathy of young people — that they are really tapped in, and they want the world to be better, more beautiful and more fun for everybody. They want to center belonging. We all need each other.”
‘Hoods Uncloaked’
7 p.m. May 2, 2 p.m. May 3
Detroit Film Theatre at the Detroit Institute of Arts
5200 Woodward., Detroit
$15 & up
mosaicdetroit.org
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mosaic Youth Theatre reimagines ‘Robin Hood’ in a futuristic Detroit
Reporting by Duante Beddingfield, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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