Skeleton Crew

Skeleton Crew is the third and final play in Dominique Morisseau's Detroit Project trilogy, which also includes Detroit '67 and Paradise Blue. Each play examines a different era of Black life and labor in Detroit. The trilogy as a whole maps the city's transformation from the 1960s through the 2008 financial crisis.

The play is set in the break room of a Detroit auto stamping plant during the 2008 financial crisis, when rumors of closure threaten the remaining workers. The four characters—two men and two women—navigate job insecurity, union tensions, and personal loyalties. The stamping plant reflects the real wave of auto industry closures that devastated Detroit in that period.

Yes, Skeleton Crew opened on Broadway in early 2022 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, produced by Manhattan Theatre Club. The production starred Phylicia Rashad and was directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson. It was Morisseau's first play to reach Broadway, arriving after the success of her book for the musical Ain't Too Proud.

The four central characters are Faye, a veteran line worker and union rep; Dez, a young machinist with ambitions to open his own shop; Shanita, a pregnant coworker; and Reggie, their supervisor caught between management and the workers. Each character represents a different response to the crisis facing American manufacturing labor. Their interactions in the break room drive the play's emotional and political tensions.