Mixed Blood Announces Staff Updates

Embracing windows of opportunity, Mixed Blood (now in its 40th season) adds, loses, and maintains its cadre of versatile artist administrators to continually reinvent itself as makers of art, social change agents, and anchors in its community, with a stable, disciplined financial model.

3 STAFFING ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Director and Community Organizer MARK VALDEZ joins the staff at Mixed Blood

With Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's funding to "Build Demand for the Arts," artist/activist/organizer Mark Valdez brings 20 years of art making and cultural organizing experience to transform outreach into engagement that is built on reciprocity and community agency by being in part-time residence through the end of fiscal 2018. He will facilitate dialogue between/within Mixed Blood and neighborhood partners, help build the cultural competency of Mixed Blood's staff, create art-based engagement opportunities with community partners, and help develop structures that place engagement in all aspects of the organization.

Mark has been and will continue to be a vital contributor to the programming of Mixed Blood, beginning with DJ LATINIDAD'S LATINO DANCE PARTY, a multi-disciplinary, multi-playwright, pan-Latino theatrical extravaganza that opens March 4 in Mixed Blood's Alan Page Auditorium.

Playwright in Residence ADITI BRENNAN KAPIL is renewed by Mellon Foundation
In 2013 The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation established the National Playwright Residency Program, in which 14 playwrights were embedded into the fabric of 14 theatres, receiving salaries and benefits for three years. Actor/director/playwright Aditi Brennan Kapil immersed herself into the daily life of Mixed Blood beginning September of 2013. During her tenure, Mixed Blood has produced four plays penned by Aditi, including the DISPLACED HINDU GODS trilogy of plays produced in rep in 2013, with two more being written for coming seasons. She has directed two productions, assisted in a national Disability Visibility initiative, and transformed the external communications for the organization. She also continues to work on outside commissions with Yale Rep, South Coast Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Bay Area Children's Theatre. The Mellon Foundation has renewed the NPRP and Aditi will continue with Mixed Blood through the summer of 2019. Artistic Director Jack Reuler hopes to produce three more scripts authored by Aditi Brennan Kapil in the upcoming three seasons.

Managing Director AMANDA WHITE THIETJE departs Mixed Blood after successful tenure

Amanda White Thietje, who came to Mixed Blood in 2011 as its Director of Radical Hospitality and was promoted in 2012 to Managing Director, will leave the theatre in July of 2016. During her tenure, Amanda reinvented Mixed Blood's administrative structure and financial model to reflect the reality of operating with the organization's signature Radical Hospitality audience engagement model, removing barriers to participation and revolutionizing access. She led the first phase of a $2.4 million major gifts campaign that renovated Mixed Blood's 1887 converted former Minneapolis firehouse. Employing strict financial practices, she has seen a balanced budget over the past three fiscal years and established a cash reserve. She has procured Mixed Blood's largest foundation, corporate, government, and individual gifts. Amanda has represented Mixed Blood at numerous national convenings to speak about the theater's engagement efforts. She teaches nonprofit management in the St. Mary's University graduate program in Arts & Cultural Management, sits on the board of Walking Shadow Theatre, and is on the Finance Committee of the National New Play Network. She has been a driving force in the success and maturation of Mixed Blood. Mark Valdez will head the search for Mixed Blood's next managing director.

Mark Valdez
Mark served as the Executive Director of the Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET), a national community of artists and arts organizations dedicated to collaborative creation, for the past eight years. Under his leadership, NET membership grew from 75 to 400, representing over 35 states and a variety of aesthetic practices, cultures, and geographies. In his tenure at NET, Mark designed the MicroFestUSA initiative; hyper-local events that explore the value and impact of the arts and artists to communities. Prior to working with NET, Mark served as the Associate Artistic Director for Cornerstone Theater Company, a community-based ensemble working in LA and around the country.

Aditi Brennan Kapil
Aditi Brennan Kapil is an internationally produced playwright, actress, and director. Her play "Love Person" received the 2009 Stavis Playwriting Award, and her play, "Agnes Under the Big Top, a tall tale", was selected as a Distinguished New Play Development project by the NEA as administered by Arena Stage. Her "Displaced Hindu Gods Trilogy", consisting of the plays "Brahman/i, a one-hijra stand-up comedy show", "The Chronicles of Kalki", and "Shiv" has been produced nationally and internationally.
Aditi currently has commissions with Yale Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Repertory Theatre, Bay Area Childrens Theatre, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She is the Playwright-in-Residence at Mixed Blood Theatre, an artistic associate at Park Square Theatre, a Core Writer at The Playwrights' Center, and a Resident Writer at New Dramatists.

Amanda White Thietje
With an MFA in acting from Minnesota State University, Mankato and an MA in arts administration from Columbia University, training at the School at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and management experience that ranges from a Theatre Communications Group Future Leaders Fellowship as the Associate Artistic Director at the William Inge Center to serving on the Strategy and Major Gifts teams at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Amanda has personified the artist-administrator model and champions such dual-skilled leadership. She also serves as an Artistic Director of DalekoArts, a producing and presenting entity in New Prague, MN, which she co-founded.

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