Plowshares Theatre Company, presents Hastings Street. The world premiere musical is set on the cusp of change in Detroit. Sporting a book and score written by local artists John Sloan III and Kris Johnson, Hastings Street, explores the lives of Detroiters at a moment when the city was rewriting the lives and landscape of thousands of African Americans in the name of progress.

It’s the summer of 1949 and Detroit is electric with anticipation. President Truman has just signed into law the Housing Act, ushering in a nationwide urban renewal initiative. Detroit’s city planners have earmarked Black Bottom, the nickname for the segregated Black neighborhood, as the target for most of its urban redevelopment projects.

Hastings Street explores the lives of the Carsons, a family in flux at the same moment as the city. This is not the future Robert Sr. and his wife Beatrice envisioned when they first moved up North. Despondent since her death a few months earlier, Robert Sr. has passed the responsibility of the family business onto his children, daughter Renita and World War II vet Robert, Jr. - “Bobby” to everyone. Bobby has just returned home seeking some normalcy only to be greeted with uncertainty. Renita and her husband Marlon try to balance their dreams of the future against their responsibilities to the family. Hastings Street follows the Carson Family as they navigate being uprooted on a personal and communal basis.