The third installment in playwright Dominique Morisseau’s play cycle entitled “The Detroit Projects” opened recently at Baltimore Center Stage. “Skeleton Crew,” which tackles the threat of unemployment in a car manufacturing plant during the 2008 auto industry collapse, explores different aspects of loss on a manufacturing line cut down to the minimum number of people needed to keep production going.

The play tracks the last days of Faye (Stephanie Berry), Shanita (Brittany Bellizeare) and Dez (Gabriel Lawrence) as they work through rumors stating their plant will be shut down. Their manager, Reggie (Sekou Laidlow), rounds out the cast and provides a unique perspective on the industry collapse as he tries to take care of his workers even as they begin to turn on him.

Faye, who has worked on the plant for 29 years, is just trying to hold on to October, when her retirement benefits increase as she hits 30 years. As the voice of reason for all within the play, Faye is not without her own secrets. She counsels Reggie as the rumors grow, resulting in some very heartfelt — and often explosive — conversations.

Faye was very close to Reggie’s mother, and after his mother died, helped him find a job at the plant. He goes to her whenever he needs guidance, and her ultimate sacrifice at the end of the play reflects the love she has for him just as much as it does his mother. Berry and Laidlow have a natural harmony and give their characters a great amount of depth as they juggle their more public lives and their private thoughts. The breakout performance of the night, however, belongs to Lawrence, whose portrayal of Dez is just subtle enough to be painstakingly realistic.

Dez is trying to save up to open his own repair shop, and the hours he keeps and his frequent insubordination set him up as the main suspect when parts begin to go missing from the assembly line. He carries a gun in his backpack on the way to work, a detail which, combined with his behavior, frames him as at least guilty of something.

Dez, however, is only trying to protect himself and the people he loves, and Lawrence gives him eccentric mannerisms and heart that have one rooting for him all the way through. There is an undercurrent of romance between Shanita, who is pregnant with a child whose father is out of the picture, and Dez. While their impending kiss feels cheap, their chemistry is anything but.

“Skeleton Crew” is a part of the Women’s Voices Theater Festival, a two-and-a-half-month-long festival celebrating the work and voices of women playwrights. Most of its artistic team is made up of women, many of whom are making their Center Stage debut. Nicole A. Watson’s direction is refreshingly honest, and Mariana Sanchez’s scenic design reflects the bustle and soul of the break room where it all happens. Honest to the end, “Skeleton Crew” is full of performances and designs one will never forget.

“Skeleton Crew” will be performed at Center Stage until March 4. It has a run time of two hours and thirty minutes with one intermission, and tickets are sold online between $20 and $74.

“There’s nothing like watching the slow unraveling of another human being,” my friend said as we stepped out of Everyman Theatre after the opening night of Eugene O’Neill’s widely-acclaimed play, “Long Day’s Journey into Night.” The Tony-award winning piece, which was published after O’Neill’s death, has been regarded as his magnum opus, a masterpiece told in three acts chronicling a day in the life of a family dealing with a mother’s morphine addiction and a son’s tuberculosis diagnosis.

A three-and-a-half-hour play — Everyman moved its usual 8 p.m. start time up to 7:30 to offset the length — “Long Day’s Journey” feels just as long as its title suggests, its characters constantly digging up the family’s litany of demons, which often turn out to be closer than the audience is originally led to believe.

Set in a lovely summer home, the cheery, wallpapered exterior turns out to be a cheap alternative to the more expensive homes throughout the country. Daniel Ettinger’s design is simply gorgeous; however, it is its own façade, reflecting the life the Tyrones like to make believe they have.

The family’s matriarch and “dope fiend,” Mary Tyrone (Deborah Hazlett), spends most of the day trying to forget her past, fussing over her sons (Tim Getman and Danny Gavigan) and husband (Kurt Rhoads) and at some points, even her servant (Katharine Ariyan). She commits to putting on a brave face that quickly deteriorates as the day wears on, a façade that grows increasingly difficult to keep – and for the audience to watch.

Hazlett, who celebrates her twentieth year with Everyman this season, plays Mary with devastating realism, sometimes to the point of discomfort. It is hard to watch her unravel because of the toll it takes on her and how much she believes she needs to forget. And at the end of the day, when she falls into a morphine-addled trance in front of her sons and husband, the family seems condemned to an endless cycle of hurt and forgiveness.

The last act, and the closest to night, is particularly full of this cycle, as Gavigan and Rhoads share most of the stage after Gavigan’s character, Edmund, is officially diagnosed with tuberculosis (or as they refer to it in the play, consumption). As they quote plays and poetry back and forth, snapping at each other and making ill-timed jokes, it is almost as if they are to remain in that state forever, dealing cards for their truest thoughts about each other and living in what they would rather forget about the past.

But the Tyrones come around to forgiveness, or something very close to that by the end. Perhaps understanding, perhaps love — but by that point, it no longer matters. They are together again and finally understand each other far more than they had at the beginning of the day. While that might not make any difference, it is still a comforting thought.

“Long Day’s Journey into Night” is running through March 4 at the Everyman Theatre. Everyman features a $10 student rush for B location seating 30 minutes before every scheduled performance and is offered to those with a valid student ID. Additionally, all Sunday evening performances are $10 for students in B location seating with a valid ID. Full price tickets can be purchased for $43-65.

“The press release says something about the ‘absurdities of motherhood,’” Dawn Ursula says of the play she is directing later this month as she drives through the roads of Washington, D.C., referencing a recent press release from Everyman Theatre detailing this year’s Salon Series. The play, called “Cry it Out” by Molly Smith Metzler, is one of five plays within the series, celebrating stories by women and about women.

The Salon Series, produced by Johanna Gruenhut, is not your typical theatre experience. Evolving out of the Women’s Voices Theater Festival taking place throughout the D.C. and Baltimore region, this year’s series theme is dedicated to some of the personal experiences and challenges of everyday life – motherhood, aging, employment and family.

The plays — featuring women playwrights from Lynn Nottage to Jen Silverman — are curated by the women of the Everyman Theatre’s Resident Acting Company, of which Ursula has been a part for almost ten years.

The series features staged readings of the play in Everyman’s rehearsal hall, and Ursula describes the rehearsal process as “very intense.” Actors cast in the plays meet at noon on the day of the reading and normally have about five hours to complete a full-cast read-through and minimal staging. “It’s wonderful because it’s raw,” she says. “You can see how much beauty and power is in the play.”

The play Ursula herself is directing, “Cry it Out” by Molly Smith Metzler, tells the story of three new mothers juggling their responsibilities as parents while trying to find a work-life balance. The piece takes its name from a controversial technique in baby sleep training called the “cry it out” method where a parent leaves their child to try to calm themselves down before bedtime, usually resulting in the child “crying it out” as they are left without the immediate comfort of an adult.

“I got sucked into this play immediately from line one,” Ursula says, “I remember this. I could so connect with each woman, even though they’re coming from different aspects of life.” And that is the ultimate goal of this series – to show connection across all human beings.

The four other plays in the series — “Sweat” (Lynn Nottage, author of “Intimate Apparel” which was recently performed at Everyman), “Dead and Breathing” (Chisa Hutchinson), “The Cake” (Bekah Brunstetter), and “The Moors” (Jen Silverman) — each showcase a unique voice and a perspective either not often considered, or not often heard and aim to broaden the canon so often reached for when discussing theatrical seasons.

Theatre, therefore, becomes a place where these voices can be normalized and can find a platform. “When you have women or people of color in those positions [as artistic directors or managing directors of theaters],” Ursula states, “it’s not something special. [Plays like this are] already in their wheelhouse.”

The Salon Series will be held in Everyman’s second-floor rehearsal hall on February 5, February 19, March 5, March 19, and April 2, starting at 6 p.m. More information about the individual shows can be found online. Tickets are sold for $20, but are $5 with a student ID.

Orientation 2018: O-Team Application Information

Local alumni welcomed UMBC professor, author and alumnus, Dr. George Derek Musgrove ’97 to discuss his new book Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital at a Bar Talk event on February 1 at Denizens Brewing Company in Silver Spring. During the talk, alums enjoyed one-on-one time with the author, whose book tells the tumultuous, four-century story of race and democracy in our nation’s capital.

>> Read a Q&A with the author George Derek Musgrove ’97

>> Learn more about upcoming UMBC Alumni events

 Photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC Magazine