Experience the arts in our newly renovated theater at The Wright. This intimate venue, seating up to 284 guests, offers an exceptional view from every angle. For our inaugural season, we've carefully curated a collection of multi-disciplinary performances and lectures by celebrated local and national talent, showcasing the depth and diversity of artistic expression.
The Wright Performances is a multidisciplinary series of performance works created by critically acclaimed American artists. As a companion to The Wright’s Exhibitions and Public Programs, the series completes the holistic exploration of the profound impact of African American artists and historians on cultures throughout the world.
Learn more about this year's line-up below, and get your tickets today.
- Evidence, A Dance Company | Friday and Saturday, October 24-25 at 7:30pm
Founded by Ronald K. Brown in 1985 and based in Brooklyn, New York, EVIDENCE, A Dance Company focuses on the seamless integration of traditional African dance with contemporary choreography and spoken word.
See Evidence, A Dance Company on Friday, October 24 at 7:30pm or on Saturday, October 25 at 7:30pm
Get Tickets for Evidence, A Dance Company
Through their work, EVIDENCE provides a unique view of human struggles, tragedies, and triumphs. Brown uses movement to reinforce the importance of community in African American culture and to acquaint audiences with the beauty of traditional African forms and rhythms. He is an advocate for the growth of the African American dance community and is instrumental in encouraging young dancers to choreograph and to develop careers in dance.
Brown’s choreography is in high demand. He has set works on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Cleo Parker Robinson Ensemble, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Jennifer Muller/The Works, Jeune Ballet d’Afrique Noire, Ko-Thi Dance Company, Philadanco and others. He choreographed Regina Taylor’s award-winning play Crowns and won an AUDELCO Award for his work on that production. EVIDENCE now tours to some 25 communities in the United States and abroad. The company has traveled to Cuba, Brazil, England, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa, and Canada to perform, teach master classes, and conduct lecture/demonstrations for individuals of all ages, nationalities, and cultural backgrounds. Annually, the company reaches an audience of 25,000 around the globe.
There are certain givens in a dance by Ronald K. Brown: Deep spiritual seriousness, sophisticated mastery of stage space. Music makes you want more. Vocabulary drawn from many parts of the African diaspora. Mr. Brown developed a personal language—flexible, richly expressive, irresistibly kinetic.
— Brian Seibert, The New York Times
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- Sweet Honey In The Rock® | Saturday December 13 at 2:30pm and 7:30pm
Sweet Honey In The Rock® remains among the most vibrant, versatile, and ever-relevant musical collectives in music today.
See Sweet Honey In The Rock on Saturday, December 13 at 2:30pm or 7:30pm
Get Tickets for Sweet Honey In The Rock
Founded on the triumvirate missions of empowerment, education and entertainment the ensemble currently consists of members Carol Maillard, Louise Robinson, Nitanju Bolade Casel, Aisha Kahlil, and featured musician Romeir Mendez on upright acoustic bass and electric bass.
Sweet Honey In The Rock is a powerful and unique concert entity that fuses the elastic 360 degree possibilities of the human voice with a theatrical flair that keeps avid audiences returning for more year after year. Kinetic, cultured and connected, this internationally renowned Grammy Award® nominated female acappella vocal quartet has a history of over four decades of distinguished service and critically acclaimed performances. They have created positive, loving, and socially conscious message music that matters as it pertains to spiritual fortification, and consistently taken an activist stance toward making this planet a better place for all in which to live
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- The Just and the Blind | Friday and Saturday, February 27-28, 2026 at 7:30pm
Marc Bamuthi Joseph (spoken-word artist) and Daniel Bernard Roumain (composer/violinist) have long collaborated and now present The Just and the Blind, directed by Michael John Garcés and commissioned by Carnegie Hall.
See The Just and the Blind on Friday February 27, 2026 at 7:30pm and Saturday February 28, 2026 at 7:30pm
Get Tickets for The Just and the Blind
Framed by visually striking photography and animation projections, the multimedia work explores racial profiling and the prison-industrial complex in a series of short vignettes that include music, dance, and spoken word, woven together by media designer David Szlasa with the provocative images of photographer Brittsense, the visual talent of Xia Gordon, filmmakers Yoram Savion and Benjamin Tarquin, and interviews with Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY).
“But it was the raw cry from the soul—new work, ‘The Just and the Blind’—that has stayed with me from my marathon... The work is driven by Mr. Joseph’s stinging, brilliant words and is structured as a series of vignettes. Mr. Joseph voices the thoughts of a Black father who admits to being afraid when, at night, he walks past young Black men who look the same age as his son. Every day, he tells his son, the boy’s main mission in life is ‘to come home to me.’”
Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times
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- Dee Dee Bridgewater | Friday and Saturday March 27-28, 2026 at 7:30pm
Over the course of a multifaceted career spanning five decades, Grammy and Tony Award-winning Jazz giant Dee Dee Bridgewater has ascended to the upper echelon of vocalists.
See Dee Dee Bridgewater on Friday, March 27, 2026 at 7:30pm and onSaturday March 28, 2026 at 7:30pm
Get Tickets for Dee Dee Bridgewater
A polymath and fearless voyager, explorer, pioneer and keeper of tradition, the three-time Grammy-winner recently won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album for Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie With Love From Dee Dee.
Her first professional experience as a member of the legendary Thad Jones/Mel Louis Big Band, and throughout the 70s she performed with such jazz notables as Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon and Dizzy Gillespie.
Bridgrwater began self-producing with her 1993 album Keeping Tradition (Polydor/Verve) and created DDB Records in 2006. Releasing a series of critically acclaimed CDs, including her wildly successful double Grammy Award-winning tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, Dear Ella.
Bridgewater also pursued a parallel career in musical theater, winning a Tony Award for her role as “Glinda” in The Wiz in 1975. Having recently completed a run as the lead role of Billie Holiday in the off-Broadway production of Lady Day, her other theatrical credits include Sophisticated Ladies, Black Ballad, Carmen, Cabaret and the Off-Broadway and West End Productions of Lady Day, for which Bridgewater received the British Laurence Olivier Nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. She also hosted the long-running syndicated NPR radio program JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater.
In 2018, Bridgwater received the prestigious Doris Duke Artist Award. 2019 brought her introduction in the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in recognition of her contributions to music and in celebration of her latest CD, Memphis, Yes…I’m Ready.
In recognition of her unparalleled contributions to the jazz field, Wayne State University has created The Dee Dee Bridgewater Club in her honor.
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