For 32nd year, Illusion Theater serves up new plays with Fresh Ink series

Opens Thursday: Don't look now, but Illusion Theater's Fresh Ink workshop series is 32 years old. The 2019 installment features three new plays concerning family. The festival opens Thursday with Jeffrey Hatcher's "Netherlands," concerning fraught relations between two sisters. Actor Sandra Struthers plays both sisters in this solo work directed by Ellen Fenster. Week 2 brings "A Play by Barb and Carl," a piece playwright Carlyle Brown co-wrote with his wife and longtime dramaturge, Barbara Joyce Rose-Brown, who suffered a stroke in March 2017 that left her unable to speak. Writer/performer Beth Gilleland closes the festival by sharing her experience parenting a little boy who lost his biological mother. "Before You Were Alive" will be directed by Illusion honcho Michael Robins, featuring music by D.B. Carlson. (7:30 Thu.-Sat., 7 p.m. Sun. $10. Ends June 30. Illusion Theater, 528 Hennepin Av. S., Mpls. 612-339-4944, illusiontheater.org.)