"The Song of Summer" at Mixed Blood Theatre

After a pretty intense 2018-2019 season of plays that included Is God Is, the trilogy Prescient Harbingers, Roe, and Autonomy, Mixed Blood Theatre is beginning their 2019-2020 season with something a little lighter. Playwrights' Center Affiliated Writer Lauren Yee (whose work has been seen in #TCTheater most recently in the Guthrie's production of The Great Leap) brings us a sweet and fun play that's almost a rom-com. The Song of Summer is not without substance, dealing with relationships, pop culture, and celebrity, but the story at its heart is one we've seen many times before. But it's told in a unique framework with an appealing cast, so it's a story I'm happy to watch. It's OK for theater to be light and sweet and fun, even at Mixed Blood, especially when this well written, directed, and acted.

A Reading of "queens" at Playwrights' Center

"Now in its 12th year, the Ruth Easton New Play Series gives selected Core Writers 20 hours with collaborators to workshop their script—to write, rewrite, experiment, and shape their work. For playwrights, this means great leaps forward for their plays. For audiences, this means a thrilling and intimate night of theater."

I attended my second "thrilling and intimate night of theater" as part of the 2016-2017 series last night (see also December's Wink by Jen Silverman). It was a clear, cold, snowy, moonlit night, perfect for gathering with fellow theater-lovers and theater-makers to experience a new work of theater. And what an exciting new work Martyna Majok's queens is. Although unfinished (the 3rd act has yet to be written and was described in a few sentences), it drew me right into the world of the play and made me care about these characters. I look forward to seeing the full work onstage sometime in the coming years, but in the meantime, it was a thrill to be a part of the play development process at Playwrights' Center, something they do so well.

"Orange" at Mixed Blood Theatre

Being 17 is hard enough, but for a young woman on the Autism spectrum raised in India and returning to the strange land of her birth - Orange County, California - it's even more challenging. Mixed Blood Theatre's Playwright in Residence Aditi Brennan Kapil premieres her 7th new work there, the funny, poignant, imaginative story of the unusual but perfect Leela in Orange. In just 90 minutes with no intermission (a morning person's dream), the excellent three-person cast takes us on Leela's one-night adventure and, aided by a really cool set, makes us feel like we're right there with her as she begins to grow up and gain her independence.