Intro:
As the 1980s and 1990s saw the disappearance of the US-dominated auto industry from Detroit and as the mass media headlines focused on the continued industrial decline and violence in our city, a new world of hope was being born: community-based efforts such as Detroit Summer, Artists and Activists for Social Change, Back
Alley Bikes, The Greening of Detroit Movement, the Mosaic Youth Theatre and the Matrix Theatre Company.

Article body:

In
May 2006, thousands of Detroit-area residents witnessed and celebrated
successful artistic events produced by two of these groups: the Mosaic
Youth Theater production of Hastings Street at the Detroit Institute
of Arts, and the Matrix Theatre Company fifteenth anniversary celebration
which featured a parade through Southwest Detroit and a performance
of the interactive play Fear and Faith.

Hastings
Street is about race, music, pride and youth telling their generation's
story. Hastings Street grew from the experience of young people interviewing
hundreds of seniors who were teenagers living in Detroit in the 1940s.
The play encompasses their experiences as they witnessed the race riot
of 1943, the relationships between European immigrants and African-Americans,
and the contributions of the jazz clubs of Paradise Valley. It is staged
in a young people's community center, the Y-Gees Canteen, in 1945, and
shares an intergenerational dialogue between the youth and Langston
Hughes. While the play is about history, it is also about the commitments
and dreams of young people to tell their story and to make a difference.
Hastings Street is a story of voices being heard, a musical play being
created and a generation standing proud.

The
Mosaic Youth Theatre was founded on the richness of difference. To produce
Mosaic plays, young artists come from over 50 city and suburban schools,
as well as a variety of social, economic, racial, cultural and religious
backgrounds. It was founded in 1992 by Rick Sperling and its current
artistic director is Kenneth Anderson. The members of Mosaic Youth Theatre
have traveled the world, performing in London, Copenhagen and Dakar.
They have entertained crowds at Spelman College, Morehouse College,
Miami University, Tennessee State University, Tougaloo College and many
more. The Mosaic Singers have been the special guests of Al Green, Aretha
Franklin, Sweet Honey in the Rock and the Temptations, and they have
performed for both President Clinton and Michigan's Governor Granholm,
as well as at the Superbowl XL festivities in Detroit. In the spirit
of their success, the May performance of Hastings Street made history
come alive and dreams for the future were born.

Shaun
Nethercott and Wes Nethercott founded the Matrix Theatre Company in
1991. They had moved from Utah to Flint to create a play on the
Flint sitdown strike and later moved to Detroit where they founded Matrix.
At the fifteenth anniversary celebration of the Matrix, hundreds of
people paraded, picnicked and performed the giant puppet production
of Fear and Faith. We paraded through Southwest Detroit carrying banners
and displaying the many giant puppets that school children and community
friends created over the past 15 years. From puppets of Mother
Jones to A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King to Cesar Chavez and
Ralph Bunche to Mother Earth, we lined the streets and filled Clark
Park. It was a celebration of life. The play was originally performed
to combat the fear that was taking over Southwest Detroit due to violence
and crime. Now it is performed to celebrate the new day that comes from
the commitment and work to create a community as strong as Southwest
Detroit.

The
Matrix Theatre Company creates everything from scratch, from the puppets
to over seventy original plays. The Company is about the creation of
arts and the transformation of people and communities. It uses the power
of original theater to change lives, build community and foster social
justice. It creates opportunities for children, youth, adults and elders,
especially those in isolated or challenged communities, to become creators,
producers and audiences of original theater. The Matrix Theatre Company
is a community-based theater ‐ its plays are rooted in the vision,
concerns, and dreams of the neighborhood it serves. It uses the power
of theater to teach, transform and unite its community.

The
Mosaic Youth Theatre and the Matrix Theatre Company were once dreams
of individuals. Now they are community treasures, involving and
transforming young people into leaders and dreamers for today and tomorrow.
The legacy of pride upon which our city was built is the foundation
for their vision of our 21^st-century communities of theater,
puppets, murals and urban gardens. The Mosaic Youth Theater and the
Matrix Theatre Company embody the phrase: "Let us re-spirit, re-create
and re-build our city from the ground up."

The
Mosaic Youth Theatre and the Matrix Theatre Company will continue to
inspire Detroiters and all people who dream of a brighter future.

The
next production for the Mosaic Theater is: Purlie, showing August 18-27
in Detroit. For more information see www.mosaicdetroit.org and www.matrixtheatre.org.

Author bio:

Rich Feldman
is a Community and Labor Activist, Board Member of the James & Grace
Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership (www.boggscenter.org)
the Huntington Woods Peace, Citizenship and Education Project (www.hwpeace.org)
and committed to the inclusive education movement and the Disability
Rights and Pride Movement. (www.danceofpartnership.com). He co-edited
the book: End of the Line: Auto Workers and the American Dream. He can
be contacted at Ruaw@aol.com.