MINNEAPOLIS: Mixed Blood Theatre has announced its 2018-19 season, featuring six productions.
“At Mixed Blood the stage is a soapbox and compassion is a verb,” said artistic director Jack Reuler in a statement. “How do we move from seeing each other to acting for each other? How can an arts organization be an antidote for dominant trauma? Transforming the Impossible to the Probable aspires to have a moral imagination that stimulates ripples of hope. I was once told that ‘The work of an artist is to make revolution irresistible.’ That is the aim for the half dozen shows that populate our offerings before Memorial Day 2019”
The season will open with Is God Is (Sept. 21-Oct.14) by Aleshea Harris, an epic revenge play that follows the journey of twin sisters as they travel from the South to California to seek justice from their father. Nataki Garrett will direct.
Next up will be “Prescient Harbingers” (Nov. 17-Dec. 2), a series of three plays presented in response to the midterm election. The series will open with Gloria by Branden Jacob-Jenkins, about a group of editorial assistants who will do anything to get ahead in the media industry. Lavina Jadhwani will direct.
Following will be Tearrance Arvell Chisholm’s HOODED or Being Black for Dummies, a subversive comedy about race relations and the experience of young Black men in the U.S. Thomas W. Jones II will direct.
The series will wrap up with Idris Goodwin’s HYPE MAN, a break beat play, about a hip-hop trio grappling with the aftermath of a police shooting of an unnamed black teenager. Shawn LaCount will direct.
Next will be a play that is yet to be announced (March 15-April 7, 2019).
The season will close with the world premiere of Autonomy (May) by Ken LaZebnik, featuring music by Eric Mayson. Audiences will watch the 10-scene play (dubbed “drive-through theatre”) from their own cars while driving through an indoor carscape, guided by a phone navigation system. Reuler will direct.
The programming will also include “Zealous Hellions: Conversations With Rebels, Renegades, and Rascals,” onstage conversations featuring Ernie Hudson, Oskar Eustis, and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
Founded in 1976, Mixed Blood Theatre presents multicultural, multiracial work that strives to promote cultural pluralism and individuality.
