FREE: Reading of a New Play + Learn About DREAM Act and DACA

Start the New Year off right by learning about DACA, the DREAM Act, and how to truly help your neighbors. 

Photo by Mark Van Cleave

If I haven't sung the praises of Karen Zacarias enough yet, let me correct that right now: she is one of my favorite new playwrights and I am dying to see what she comes up with next. I was first introduced to Karen Zacarias through the excellent production of Native Gardens at the Guthrie last year (which easily made my top 5 performances of the year), and I've been keeping a sharp eye out for her next work ever since.

She's popped up again in a reading taking place at the Mixed Blood next week (in partnership with the Guthrie) of her play Just Like Us, which discusses the topic of DACA recipients and the very serious, very sad, imminently looming issues facing them today. The mixed event will do a short reading of part of the play and end with a panel discussion and community conversation about these issues centered on ways to build empathy and awareness in our wider community. I think the event is a fabulous idea and I hope it's packed to the gills. I've copied the bulk of the press release below; please read through and take a visit to Mixed Blood for this wonderful event! If you go, make sure to reserve spaces; it's free but you will not get in without an RSVP.

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The Guthrie Theater (Joseph Haj, Artistic Director) and Mixed Blood Theatre (Jack Reuler, Artistic Director) today announced their partnership to present Enacting the Dream: Select Readings from Karen Zacarías’ Just Like Us and a Community Conversation about the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act) on Tuesday, January 9 at 7 p.m. at Mixed Blood Theatre, 1501 South 4th Street, Minneapolis. Enacting the Dream is an opportunity to reflect upon the lived realities of the roughly 800,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients living in the United States. The event is free, but reservations are required through the Guthrie Box Office at 612.377.2224, toll-free 877.44.STAGE, or online at guthrietheater.org. There will be an RSVP check-in at Mixed Blood Theatre on the evening of the event. Due to limited capacity, there is a two-person limit per reservation.

Enacting the Dream features select readings from Native Gardens author Karen Zacarías’ play Just Like Us followed by a panel discussion including public officials, immigration experts and DREAMers. As a March 5 deadline looms before the bulk of the DACA permits begin to expire, well over 6,000 DREAMers living in Minnesota remain unsure of their future status in the United States. Enacting the Dream provides the opportunity to build empathy and awareness about the challenges faced by those whose path to citizenship remains unclear.

Mixed Blood Artistic Director Jack Reuler said, “The Guthrie and Mixed Blood offer complementary platforms from which to observe and decry societal wrongdoings and offer affirming alternatives. Enacting the Dream makes the political personal. Issues of immigration and concerns of immigrants and refugees occur daily on Mixed Blood’s block (on which 4,500 people from 65 countries reside). Since 1989, Mixed Blood has produced theater by, about, for, and with Latinos in Spanish and English with bilingual casts, which led me to see the heart-wrenching world premiere of Just Like Us in Denver in 2013. I was moved by its coming-of-age storytelling of four Latina friends in the shadow of disparate immigration consequences. As one cast member said, ‘It’s about finding the courage to build your own destiny.’ Societal progress occurs because of an aggregation of incremental changes. Enacting the Dream is an important ingredient in that process.”

“Our theaters make really lousy forts, but they make very good bridges,” echoed Guthrie Theater Artistic Director Joseph Haj. “Hosting these free community Happenings where listening and dialogue provide a safe backdrop for exploration and learning is an important part of our mission at the Guthrie Theater. For Enacting the Dream, the Guthrie is pleased to partner with Mixed Blood, which champions equity and animates social change through its artistry, community relationships and universal access.”

Based on Helen Thorpe’s bestselling book, Just Like Us is a documentary-style play that follows four overachieving Latina teenagers in Denver, two of whom are documented and two who are not. Their close-knit friendships begin to unravel when immigration status dictates the girls’ opportunities, or lack thereof. When a political firestorm arises, each girl’s future becomes increasingly complicated. Just Like Us questions what makes us American.