The contaminated water that affected thousands of residents of Flint, Michigan gets a fresh retelling in a new play, Flint, being presented at MiraCosta College starting April 28.
Beginning in 2014, residents of Flint began noticing that their water was smelly and foul-tasting, and caused skin rashes and hair loss. City officials, hoping to save money, had switched the city’s water supply from the Detroit city system to the Flint River.
Thousands of residents were drinking lead-poisoned water, with estimates that between 6,000 to 12,000 children faced the risk of lead poisoning that could stunt their intellectual development.
The play Flint examines the state of the water crisis through narratives based and inspired by the lives of the people affected by the tragedy.
The play, which premiered in April 2019, was written by José Casas, a playwright based at the University of Michigan. The production at MiraCosta College is directed by Eric Bishop of the Department of Theatre and Film.
Bishop said he chose the play as part of the theatre program’s goal of creating more equity and representation through performances at the college.
“This play shared real stories, verbatim, about how the water crisis disproportionately impacted multiple underrepresented communities and revealed another storyline behind the headlines,” Bishop said. “It raises awareness about environmental racism, institutional racism and bias, social inequities and imbalance created by privilege.”
