The play begins with the title track for the show, James Fauntleroy’s "Is it Morning Yet.” The lights come to a slow rise at the end of the song. The commotion of the market begins. QUINTERIUS enters with the first wave of people dressed in his uniform for the day–a lazily put together Santa Clause costume–beard and all...

a play by will street

February 6, 2023

Like I was saying this was one of those nights that was so cold all you saw moving was the steam from the sewer. Every other animal besides us knows to get inside and stay there when it’s that cold. I had spent most of my shift in the valet booth reading, punctuated with the occasional trip out back to smoke a cigarette with the cooks from the hotel bar. Wasn’t really making any money but I still had the clock goin. Interestingly enough, slow nights like this was when me and the guys got along best, so we hadn’t got into it or anything that night. I got a cheeseburger from the hotel bar for my “lunch” and about halfway through it one of the guys came in, we’ll call him Mo...

Walter Lucken IV

February 7, 2022

I interpret Trudell’s concept of “being human” as defined by a union of “being” - a physical and psychological body event - with conscientious acts of humanity that disrupt colonial power structures. This alignment of the embodied self and the thinking mind allows us to unsettle normative conditioning and connect to a decolonized version of ourselves. I outline how “being human” simultaneously eschews colonial identities and helps one internalize a decolonized paradigm....

Andrew Kaplowitz and Paris La Don

November 29, 2021

Shortly after Samuel Davidson’s absence, five more workers disappeared and fearing it a trend, the boss became concerned about losing the contract. When none of the workers returned his calls and he received angry protests as to why trash had not been picked up in certain locations, he panicked and began the arduous process of covering for the missing workers himself. Unable to manage the workload, the company lost contracts, and soon enough, what remaining workers stayed began to drift away and the company disintegrated...

This short story explores the possibility of upending a system without the need for violence or destruction. What happens when people collectively reject a system built on their own exploitation?..

Rey Hinojosa

October 18, 2021

The machines came to gnash their teeth, and bite at me, in the winter of 2017. My sister with light blue blush, and the poison ivy, wound round her face in mourning, was eaten the day before. And our brother, smoke-blackened wedding chapel, dangling snaggle-toothed staircase, collided with ground, hardened mud and frosty dew, just the day before that...

A poem written from the perspective of an old house and an accompanying personal essay...

Christiana Laine

November 23, 2020

Reader, don't hesitate on wondering whether or not this narrative is flirting with the existing conditions of Detroit, or for that matter any other city. It is. And on purpose. That's the point. The narrative however, like any science fiction story, is open to interpretation. I'm not necessarily creating a pessimistic nor an optimistic narrative. I'm creating an alternative environment by simply suggesting possibilities based on existing conditions.

José Arturo Joglar-Cadilla

October 26, 2020