Mixed Blood Theatre Kicks Off 2016/2017 Season With Subversive Comedy BARBECUE

BARBECUE is a darkly funny new play that turns the traditional family comedy on its head, forcing hilarious and uneasy revelations about the assumptions we make about poverty, race and social class.

The whiskey-swilling, chain-smoking, foul-mouthed O'Malley family has gathered in the park to stage an intervention disguised as a barbecue for their sister Barbara, whose drug use has spiraled out of control. With an intervention plan learned from reality television, the siblings bicker and argue about the family's history and their own addictions as they wait for the guest of honor. Barbara's arrival reveals a shocking twist that leaves audiences alternating between shock and laughter.

What begins as a slapstick comedy of the drunk leading the drugged transforms into a larger story of race, class, and America's appetite for misery as entertainment.

Artistic Director Jack Reuler: "BARBECUE is hilarious and poignant, profane and poetic, and showcases the Twin Cities' finest talent to show the range of their awesomeness. As a white guy running a race-based theater, I'm thrilled that it takes a deeper, more nuanced look at cultural appropriation. Above all and in keeping with Mixed Blood's core value to be predictably unpredictable, it surprises."

Director Thomas W. Jones II: "BARBECUE is comically electric, incisive about racial politics, without the obvious pretense of social commentary. A sharp comedy that dares to take risks, with insightful language, character, and situation, BARBECUE manages to engage and entertain while maintaining its razor edge observations about racial dynamics in the age of celebrity."

Acclaimed Director/Actor/Playwright Thomas W. Jones II directs and performs in BARBECUE. Jones has spent the past year working on new musicals with songwriter Kandi Burruss of Real Housewives of Atlanta fame, and collaborating on an upcoming project with acclaimed filmmaker Ava DuVernay (Selma). He returns to Mixed Blood for the first time since his critically acclaimed production of Passing Strange(2015), and won an Ivey Award for his performance in Yellowman (2005). BARBECUE will also feature Academy Award nominated singer and actress Jevetta Steele of the musical family The Steeles who starred in and co-created Mixed Blood's Two Queens, One Castle (2002 & 2007) with Jones, Regina Marie Williams who received an Ivey Award for her performance in Mixed Blood's production of Ruined (2009) and was most recently been seen by Twin Cities audiences as Sister Act at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres and Nina Simone at Park Square Theatre, and comic dynamo Sue Scott of A Prairie Home Companion fame in her first theatrical production in a decade. Rounding out this powerhouse cast are Twin Cities favorites Bonni Allen, Aimee Bryant, Lolly Foy, Dana Lee Thompson, and Stephen Yoakam.