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Process Series: The Angels of Detroit by John Pietrowski
March 9 @ 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
The Angels of Detroit by John Pietrowski
John Pietrowski’s new play takes us to 1972, when Philip, a newly-minted professor and celebrated poet of the “voice of the working man” returns to his hometown of Detroit on a book tour, where he will present a reading at his alma mater, Wayne State. Prior to the reading, he meets in a bar with colleagues who worked with him on the assembly line in Detroit when he was a young man, one of whom thinks his poetry is terrible and untrue. Based on the poem “Angels of Detroit” from the book They Feed They Lion, and other Philip Levine poems.
John Pietrowski served as artistic director of Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey for more than thirty years and developed and directed more than thirty world premiere productions there, including plays by Russell Davis, Richard Dresser, D.W. Gregory, and Tammy Ryan. His other plays include: A Better Bill of Rights, Polaroids Before the Fall, Dura Mater, and Unknown Knowns. Regional directing credits include NJ Rep, Shadowland Stages, Oldcastle Theatre, and Dreamcatcher Rep. For Fellowship for the Performing Arts, he directed productions of Acts of the Apostles, Mark’s Gospel, and Genesis, the latter moving to productions at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland and the Lamb’s Theatre in New York City. He directed two radio plays for the WNYC Radio Stage Consortium, both of which later aired on National Public Radio. He has received two Playwriting Fellowships from the NJ State Council on the Arts and had a poem nominated for a Pushcart Award. As an actor, he has performed at Shadowlands Stages, Dreamcatcher Rep, Writers Theatre, NJ Rep, and InterAct. He teaches theatre history at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He holds a BS in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, an MPA in Nonprofit Management from Seton Hall, a Masters Certificate in Creative Placemaking from the Bloustein School at Rutgers, and is working on his MFA in Playwriting from Goddard College. Pietrowski was the Program Coordinator of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Theatre Program for Teachers and Playwrights from 1988-94 and serves as the NJ Regional Representative for the Dramatists Guild.