Twenty-one years after its premiere in Detroit, the labor jazz/blues opera Forgotten will return to Marygrove Theater, the same stage on which it was first performed. 

Composed by singer/songwriter Steve Jones, Forgotten tells the stories of workers in 1930s Michigan who helped organize and build the labor movement, and portrays events like the Ford Hunger March, the Battle of the Overpass, the Flint sit-down strike, and more. 

Forgotten is built around the story of Steve’s great uncle, the Rev. Lewis Bradford, who was an associate pastor at Central United Methodist Church in Detroit, a host of the radio show “The Forgotten Man’s Hour,” and a worker at the Ford Rouge plant.  He was found dead under mysterious circumstances on the shop floor one night in 1937. The  mystery  remained unsolved until Steve came to town 25 years later, obtained a copy of Bradford’s autopsy report, and took it to the Wayne County Medical Examiner who said Bradford’s death should have been reported as a homicide. 

Steve went on to write “Forgotten” and it premiered in Detroit in 2004.  It was performed at the International Union of Machinists convention in Indianapolis and revived in 2005 at the Millennium Theater in Southfield and in 2011 at the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts.  Now is our opportunity to present it to a new generation of workers. 

Elise Bryant will return to direct the show and Bill Meyer, the noted Detroit jazz musician, will return as music director.   The MLHS is recruiting “Friends of Forgotten” to help with fund-raising, outreach, and publicity.   Auditions will be held in June and rehearsals begin in September.  The show will be staged Friday-Sunday, October 10-12, 2025.