The Mixed Blood Theatre Company is a professional

multiracial The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more races (human categorization), races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicity, ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used ...

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a Stage (theatre), stage. The performe ...

company in

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

, Minnesota. It was founded in 1976 by artistic director Jack Reuler, to explore race via the use of theater.

History

Jack Reuler founded Mixed Blood in 1976 to explore issues around race within the theater framework. Mixed Blood operates out of an old Cedar-Riverside firehouse. In the 1990s Jack Reuler worked with Syl Jones, playwright who had formerly worked in the corporate setting, to create customized plays and workshops for corporate and governmental clients ranging from Medtronic and Honeywell to the William Mitchell College of Law and the Ramsey County Attorney's Office. Syl Jones would write the play or workshop, merging his corporate experience with his playwriting skills. Jones formerly won accolades for his new works at Mixed Blood (''Cincinnati Man'') and Penumbra (''Shine''), both in 1992. Mixed Blood Theatre was the first company to use the Joe Dowling Studio in the

Guthrie Theater The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions among Sir Tyrone Gut ...

with its play

Yellowman Winston Foster , (1956 or 15 January 1959) better known by the stage name Yellowman and also known as King Yellowman, is a Jamaican reggae and dancehall deejay. He first became popular in Jamaica in the 1980s, rising to prominence with a serie ...

in 2006. In 2021 Jack Reuler's retirement was announced and in 2022 Mark Valdez was announced as the new Artistic Director.

Works

Mixed Blood's plays range from

chamber theatre Chamber theater is a method of adapting literary works to the stage using a maximal amount of the work's original text and often minimal and suggestive settings. In chamber theater, narration is included in the performed text and the narrator migh ...

political satire Political satire is a type of satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics. Political satire can also act as a tool for advancing political arguments in conditions where political speech and dissent are banned. Political satir ...

s. The theatre presents over 500 performances annually in the Alan Page Auditorium of its historic firehouse theatre, as well as in schools, churches, community centers, juvenile detention centers, and workplaces. Mixed Blood seeks to "addresses injustices, inequities, and cultural collisions, providing a voice for the unheard—on stage, in the workplace, in the company’s own Cedar Riverside neighborhood and beyond." Mixed Blood is a member of

Theatre Communications Group Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is a non-profit service organization headquartered in New York City that promotes professional non-profit theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, us ...

(TCG) and the

National New Play Network The National New Play Network (NNPN) is the United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, stat ...

(NNPN).

References

External links

* {{coord, 44, 58, 15.35, N, 93, 14, 57.75, W, region:US, display=title Theatre companies in Minneapolis Arts organizations established in 1976 1976 establishments in Minnesota