Victory Gardens Adds World Premiere of AN ISSUE OF BLOOD to 2014-15 Season

Artistic Director Chay Yew and Managing Director Chris Mannelli announce a change to the 2014-2015 season: The World Premiere of An Issue of Blood by Marcus Gardley, directed by Chay Yew, will replace the previously announced World Premiere of A Wonder In My Soul. An Issue of Blood was penned by Gardley in response to recent events and social injustices. An Issue of Blood runs April 3 - May 3, 2015 with the press performance on Friday, April 10, 2015, at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue.

Victory Gardens' Ensemble Playwright Marcus Gardley (The Gospel of Lovingkindness) takes us to an America before Ferguson, before Barack Obama was elected president, before the Civil Rights Movement-even before slavery. Based on a historical figure, Negro Mary, is one of the wealthiest landowners living in the Shenandoah Valley in 1640. She yearns to quell the rising racial unease in colonial Virginia and plans to marry her son to the daughter of a powerful white planter as a symbol of peace. As the ceremony draws near, secrets and grudges of two families come to light, and history changes its course forever. An Issue of Blood features moving music drawn from a rich legacy of African-American spirituals, field hollers, and musical tradition. Part history, part myth, Gardley looks to our collective past to understand how we arrived in our tumultuous present.

"Last December, Victory Gardens hosted WE MUST BREATHE, a one-night only event in response to the tragic deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and countless others. Artists, poets and community members addressed issues of social injustice in the best way they knew how-through their art. This powerful evening played to a packed house and reached over six countries through livestreaming," comments Victory Gardens' Artistic Director Chay Yew. "While working on a new draft of A Wonder in My Soul in December, Marcus felt the need to respond to the same events and was urged by many to express the complex feelings of his community. When he reached out to me with this conundrum, I told him to follow his instincts and write a new play addressing his concerns, instead."

"I became obsessed with the tragic loss of Tamir Rice, Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin. And no matter how I tried to shake it off, it was getting into my writing," comments Playwright Marcus Gardley. "I could NOT not write about what was/is happening in our country. We are living in a time where the hard but vital questions about identity, class and race are finally being discussed. I was spurned to wrestle with them. To this end, I have written a new play called An Issue of Blood. My new play raises powerful questions of who we are and how we see ourselves."

"As a theatre that creates and produces socially relevant plays, it is important that we respond to the times with our art and support our artists. And I'm glad Marcus is leading us in this vital national conversation," notes Yew.

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