Mixed Blood Theatre to Present NEXT TO NORMAL, IN THE TIME OF BUTTERFLIES and More in Upcoming Season

Mixed Blood Theatre announced today that its 2012-13 season will open October 5 with the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical NEXT TO NORMAL, which will also be part of the second Center of the Margins festival. The triple-feature mini-fest will be followed in February 2013 with the Culture Clash comedy-of-bad-manners ELEMENO PEA and a bilingual world premiere based on Julia Alvarez' bestselling novel IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES to be staged in April 2013.

This year's Center of the Margins mini-festival, exploring the complexity of disability, will also feature THEORY OF MIND, a play about autism by Ken LaZebnik (the award-winning author of last year's On The Spectrum) and four staged readings introducing a national library of plays on disability (being centralized by Mixed Blood).

"Last year truly marked Mixed Blood's transition from being the child of its past to the parent of its future. As witness to the introduction of Radical Hospitality and its remarkable transformation of our audience, we revel in this reinvention of art, audience and purpose. Our upcoming season is Mixed Blood's 37th and what hasn't changed is our high quality, provocative, predictably unpredictable theater," said Artistic Director Jack Reuler.

Reuler will direct Next to Normal, the powerhouse show called "a brave, breathtaking musical" by the New York Times. Revealing one family's struggle with mental illness, Next to Normal is a feel-everything musical that packs a seismic emotional punch.

Mark Valdez (Learn To Be Latina) returns to direct the regional premiere of Elemeno Pea, a rapid-fire caustic social satire written by Molly Smith Metzler, winner of the Kennedy Center for the Arts' National Student Playwriting Award, The Mark Twain Comedy Award and The David Mark Cohen Award.

In the Time of the Butterflies, based on Julia Alvarez' popular novel of the same name, will be directed by José Zayas. This tale of courage and sisterhood is inspired by the true story of the Dominican Republic's Mirabal siblings, whose underground resistance proved that despots are not invincible. Performed in Spanish and English (with projected supertitles in both languages), this bilingual world premiere is written by Caridad Svich, author of Mixed Blood's 2010 play based on Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits.

The new season also ushers in the second year for the groundbreaking Radical Hospitality, which was a major success in its inaugural season. Close to half of Mixed Blood's 2011-12 audiences used the free admission, resulting in huge strides in transforming audience composition and attracting new patrons to mainstage productions.

Through Radical Hospitality, there are two ways to attend a performance: 1) First come, first served no-cost admission: Mixed Blood holds at least half of its seats for no-cost admission on a first come, first served basis for each performance. To access these seats, audience members register in the lobby in exchange for admission (Box Office opens two hours prior to the show). 2) Guaranteed admission: Audience members can guarantee entry for an individual performance by paying a $20 fee online at www.mixedblood.com or by calling the box office at (612) 338-6131. Seating begins 30 minutes before show time and there are no assigned seats for either first come, first served or guaranteed admissions.