WELCOME

Thank you for gathering with us here tonight. Red Eye’s space is located on unceded Dakota land in Mni Sota Makoce, where 11 sovereign nations and many other Native peoples continue to live, despite genocidal efforts and forced removal by the State of Minnesota and the United States Government. As leaders of Red Eye, we all have unique and multifaceted relationships to this place and how we came to be here, but we are connected in our deep gratitude to those who have come before us and have cared for and sustained this land. As we deepen our individual and collective relationships to the ongoing processes of land acknowledgment, land-belonging, and land back initiatives, we are continually learning from artists, culture bearers, activists, and other community leaders at the forefront of this work here in the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis and across the Twin Cities. We invite you to join us in reflection and action, in particular by getting to know and supporting the work of our Indigenous and Native neighbors as well as colleagues throughout the metro area, including Rosy Simas Dance, New Native Theatre, Little Earth and Native Youth Arts Collective, Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI) and All My Relations Gallery, Indigenous Roots, MIGIZI, and Native Governance Center.

Red Eye is a now a living, breathing, evolving organization of artists who work to integrate justice, care, transformation, reciprocity, and love as we walk with our community. In this stream of systemic evolution, one of the ways we practice this is through the work of this festival, where we emphasize the voices of these fellow artists and sing with them on their journey. The work that you are experiencing tonight grows out of Isolated Acts, a program that has been nurturing the Twin Cities performance-making community since the early 90s. Isolated Acts annually invites early and mid-career artists to come together for six months of deep artistic inquiry and critical dialogue as they develop and premiere a full new performance work. Artists are curated by Red Eye’s Artistic Directors; each year, we look for artists who are pursuing projects that reflect our core tenets of collaboration, experimentation, and critical discourse (expansively defined) and, collectively, embody a balance of varied artistic disciplines and practices, personal identities, and lived experiences. Throughout the winter and spring, artists are encouraged to take risks in a supportive environment; they have 24-hour access to this theater, reaping the benefits of developing their work in the same space where it is ultimately shared with audiences; and they have access to Red Eye’s equipment, as well as technical support, marketing support, and modest stipend. We are thrilled to share the fruits of this labor with you tonight, and invite you to share your thoughts with the artists after the performance.

Thank you for bringing your presence, attention, and reflection to this place, and to the work of the incredible artists in this year’s festival. We hope you’ll join us for a festival closing party on Saturday, June 17, following Ricardo’s final performance!  

Theo, Valerie, Rachel, and Emily
Red Eye Co-Artistic Directors

Ricardo Beaird

HOW FUN

Devising team: Ricardo Beaird, Megan Burns, Daisuke Kawachi, and Connor Lane

Additional Direction by Victor Kirksey-Brown

Cast:

Ricardo Beaird as Gabriel

Briana Patnode as Therapist

Pedro Juan Fonseca as Lex/David

Alex Xiong/Oblivia Nukem Jun as Michael/Hyundai Elantra

Special thanks to: Pangea World Theatre, Springboard for the Arts

Ricardo Beaird (any pronoun) is a Twin Cities-based theater maker originally from Nashville, Tennessee. In addition to performing with Pangea World Theater, Park Square Theatre, Red Eye Theater, and Ten Thousand Things Theater, Beaird was an advisory council member with the queer-led theater collective Lightning Rod and an artist council member for the 2021 Northern Spark arts festival. As a playwright and director, their work includes DOOMSCROLL with MK and Tia!, a play that follows two podcasts hosts as they fall down a rabbit hole of conspiracies involving 5G paranoia, presented at the Guthrie Theatre’s Blackness Is Festival; SPOOK, a devised ritual exploring the gifts and curses of Black ancestry created in partnership with Suzanne Cross and Umbrella Collective; and COUNTDOWN!, a dance party at the end of the world that explores weaponized nostalgia, created with Megan Burns through Red Eye Theater’s 2019 New Works 4 Weeks Festival. Currently, Ricardo is the Community Development Director at Springboard for the Arts, whose mission is to support artists with the tools to make a living and a life and to steward just, equitable communities.