Mixed Blood presents the Regional Premiere of Qui Nguyen's Sexy and Hilarious VIETGONE!

Mixed Blood Theatre is proud to announce the final show in its 2016/2017 Season, Vietgone. In Vietgone, award winning pioneer of "geek theater" Qui Nguyen brilliantly chronicles the love story of his parents meeting in an Arkansas refugee center after fleeing Vietnam during the fall of Saigon in 1975. The playwright's journey to understand his parents' immigrant love story in the wake of war and loss is marked by wit, unrepeatable curses, and a comic book sensibility that ultimately packs an unexpected emotional punch. It's is a buddy story, a proto-feminist tale, an all-American romance, and a motorcycle road trip adventure that 40 years later revisits how we think about the heroes and victims of the Vietnam War.

Directed by Mark Valdez (DJ Latinidad's Latino Dance Party, Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World, Learn to be Latina), Vietgone skips through time and roams the globe with humor, hip-hop, and lots of sex. It is a play for our time; it reflects the sensibilities of our present-day culture, it's ironic, snarky, foul-mouthed, and bad-ass.

Artistic Director Jack Reuler: "Sarcasm with substance. Pop culture with commentary. Subversive politics with romance. Those are the seemingly contradictory ingredients that have defined Mixed Blood's aesthetic for decades. Vietgone embodies all of these and catapults them to new levels with daredevil language coupled with martial arts and love. Mixed Blood - through our programming, space, and location - has long aimed to be a voice and home for immigrants. Qui Nguyen has written a specific story about specific people at a specific time in history that is decidedly not a story of yesteryear, and entertainingly personalizes the tales of immigrants and refugees of today. To add to our list of oxymoronic couplets, Vietgone is a hilarious tearjerker, aiming for the funny bone and tear ducts in one epic road show and love story."

Director Mark Valdez: At a time when the immigration debate continues to heat up and the world struggles to find solutions to the global refugee crisis, playwright Qui Nguyen puts that aside and instead gives us a love story-his parents' love story-and in doing so, creates a play that takes on a far greater political resonance, for what's more urgent than love? And it's not just that it's a love story, it's that it's this specific love story about two Vietnamese, fleeing their homeland in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. They bear the wounds of war, of leaving home and family. And still, more often than not, their struggles yield tears of laughter rather than of sadness.

Vietgone stars a combination of Twin Cities favorites and national talent- Sun Mee Chomet, David Huynh, Meghan Kreidler, Flordelino Lagundino, and Sherwin Resurreccion. The design team includes Paul Whitaker (Set/Lights), C. Andrew Mayer (Sound), Mandi Johnson (Costumes), Abbee Warmboe (Props), Kathy Maxwell (Media Design), Eric Mayson (Composer/Musical Director), and Allen Malisci (Fight Choreographer).

Mixed Blood aspires to be the destination for people with disabilities. Patrons with disabilities are eligible for free advanced reservations and free transportation to and from the theatre. All performances are captioned in English with projected supertitles for patrons with hearing loss. Lobby, auditorium, and restrooms are fully accessible.

All Performances in Mixed Blood Theatre's Alan Page Auditorium. 1501 S. 4th St., Minneapolis, MN 55454. Box Office: 612-338-6131 or boxoffice@mixedblood.com

About Mixed Blood Theatre:

Mixed Blood Theatre has invited the global village into its audience and onto its stage for its unique brand of provocative, inclusive, and predictably unpredictable theater since 1976. Using theater to illustrate and animate, Mixed Blood models pluralism in pursuit of interconnections, shared humanity, and engaged citizenry.

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