Dot’s Home, a relatable mobile game about housing insecurity and redlining developed in Detroit, is getting the stage treatment.
The game has been turned into an interactive play through a partnership with theater company A Host of People and community organization Detroit Action.
In the game, we meet Dot as a developer approaches her grandmother with an offer to buy her family home, which has fallen into disrepair. Dot then goes back in time to explore Detroit’s history of housing practices and policies that pushed Black residents out of the city, leaving Black families with little generational equity.
One of those moments shows Dot's parents deciding whether to move to the suburbs since the projects that they’re living in are going to be demolished.
During the play, the audience gets to vote on which choice they think Dot’s family should make, which will lead to one of three potential endings.
“All of these historical housing equity conversations, they’re still happening now with gentrification, with developers coming in, and with people holding on to property until property values go up while other people don't have access to housing,” Sherrine Azab, co-director at A Host of People, says. “The population of Detroiters that are leaving Detroit city proper the most are middle-class African American families who want better schools for their kids.”
Dot’s Home Live! will have two productions at the Andy Arts Center on June 30 and July 1. Each show will be followed by a conversation with members of Detroit Action, who will share their stories of housing struggles in Detroit. Members of Detroit City Council will also be invited to the performances to hear residents’ concerns.
“Somebody described it as a live Rocky Horror [Picture Show] for social change,” Azab says. “We’re really excited to be able to do this in support of Detroit Action and all the work they’re doing around housing in the city. It shows how arts and culture can support community organizing and movement in regards to issues that we’re all facing."
The Dot’s Home mobile game won the Cultural Impact award in Apple’s 2022 App Store Awards and Game of the Year at the Games for Change Festival. It was developed by the Rise-Home Stories Project and was influenced by the stories of several collaborators including Detroit producer and filmmaker Paige Wood who served as the game's Supervising Producer.
Both performances of Dot’s Home Live! are free to attend, though organizers request that attendees sign up in advance.
For more information, or to reserve a seat to either performance, see mobilize.us/detroitaction.
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