On May 6, Mixed Blood Theatre will host the world premiere of playwright Beck Lee's Subprime, a new dark comedy with Minneapolis roots that was workshopped in New York. Lee's play, about two couples from Minneapolis's Linden Hills neighborhood who travel to New York on a bargain vacation none of them can afford, begins Friday, May 4 at 7:30 p.m., with an opening on Sunday, May 6 at 3 p.m. Produced by Media Blitz Entertainment, the show's four-week engagement closes Sunday, May 27 at 3 p.m. Tickets are now on sale at www.subprimetheplay.com .
A New York publicist, Lee conceived the play with Andrea Iten when he was living part-time in Minneapolis. "I have wanted this play to launch in Minneapolis," says Lee. "The city means a lot to me and premiering it with a homegrown cast and creative team drawn from the city's extraordinary talent pool, is exactly what this play calls for." The Carbonelle Award-nominated director and actor
Peter Moore who directed the play's first developmental readings in Minneapolis - at The Jungle and the Hennepin Theatre Trust - directs and is the production's fight and intimacy choreographer.
Featured in the cast of five are Bonni Allen,
Jen Burleigh-Bentz,
Charles Fraser and
Dan Hopman. (Allen's notable Mixed Blood credits include Avenue Q and Barbecue. Burleigh-Bentz was featured on Broadway in Mamma Mia! and was in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at Old Log Theatre and The Music Man at The Guthrie. Fraser's many local credits include Driving Miss Daisy at The Jungle for which he shared an Ivey Award for ensemble acting. He was recently in Yellow Tree Theatre's knockout hit The Royale. Hopman's credits include
Tom Stoppard's Rock and Roll at Park Square and Theatre Latte Da's Into the Woods.) The production design team includes several of Minneapolis's top, award-winning designers: Joe Stanley (scenic design), Anita Kelling (sound design), Mike Wangen (lighting design), and Sara Wilcox (costumes). Toni Solie is the production stage manager.
Set in the summer of 2008 when sharp hints of an impending financial meltdown were being studiously ignored by many Americans - Subprime introduces us to the Kellys and the Swensons, two couples from the well-to-do Linden Hills neighborhood in Minneapolis. The scope of their denial about the state of their finances, their marriages and even their identities comes into focus in the course of an evening of progressively debauched relaxation in their Midtown Manhattan hotel.
Lee's contemporary farce, which he co-conceived with Iten had several developmental readings in New York and was first seen publicly in a workshop in June of last year at the
Jersey City Theater Center.
Thomas Burns Scully, writing in
onstageblog.com described the play as "the next 'God of Carnage,'" calling it "staggering... a show that's going to be talked about."
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