Alfie Fuller and Dame-Jasmine Hughes in Soho Rep's production of "Is God Is." /Julieta Cervantes
It's months away but Mixed Blood Theatre's 2018-19 season already has an award winner.
She's Dame-Jasmine Hughes, who will return to the stage where she performed in "Pussy Valley" and "An Octoroon," in "Is God Is." Aleshea Harris' outrageous satire about two sisters and the cycle of violence opens the season September 21. Hughes appeared in the play at Soho Rep earlier this year and, last month, she and co-star Alfie Fuller won Obie Awards for their performances. Nataki Garrett, who helmed both "Pussy Valley" and "An Octoroon" for Mixed Blood, will direct.
"An Octoroon" playwright/provocateur Branden Jacobs-Jenkins also returns to Mixed Blood in November with "Gloria," a satiric comedy/drama about workplace violence that was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for drama.
Mixed Blood will stage "Gloria" in repertory with two other plays, designed as a response to the mid-term elections, under the umbrella title "Prescient Harbingers." The plays, all by African-American men and all engaging in some way with the second amendment, also include Idris Goodwin's "Hype Man, a break beat play," and Tearrance Arvell Chisholm's "Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies."
After a yet-to-be-announced play next spring, Mixed Blood's season concludes with "Autonomy," a piece of "drive-through theater" that will find theatergoers watching the action from their own cars, which they drive from one scene to the next. A little like vintage car "cruising" and a little like a drive-in movie, "Autonomy" was written by Ken LaZebnik, with music by Eric Mayson (who composed music for this year's "Mermaid Hour: ReMixed").
In addition to the six-play season, Mixed Blood will host conversations with actor Ernie Hudson, Public Theatre artistic director Oskar Eustis and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar.
