HOME / 2024-25 SEASON / FIFTY BOXES OF EARTH

photo by Rich Ryan ft. (L, clockwise) Alyssa Taiber, Eliana Durnbaugh, Taylor West, & Che’Li.

WHERE DO YOU PLANT YOUR ROOTS?

In this world premiere, Q just moved to the neighborhood, but instead of a bed, they brought fifty boxes of earth for the community garden. When Q starts cultivating fantastical, improbable plants, one man's distrust grows even as his young daughter reaches out in friendship. A creative response to Bram Stoker's Dracula, Fifty Boxes of Earth weaves in choreography and puppetry to consider the heavy costs of leaving a home and putting down new roots.

Recommended for ages 10+. Content includes depictions of xenophobia, transphobia, blood, and intentional self injury.

Check out our previews in American Theatre Magazine, Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, and Minnesota Monthly!

GENERAL INFORMATION

DATES

Mar 1 - Mar 16, 2025 (previews Feb 27 & 28)

Special/accessible performances:

• playwright talkback on Mar 2; artist talkbacks on Mar 6 & 13

• open captions during the evening performances on Mar 8 & 15

• Audio description on Mar 9

• ASL interpretation on Mar 9

• mask requirements on Mar 2, 9, & 16

• FM-enhanced listening systems are available for hearing assistance at any performance. Assistive listening devices are available in the lobby; just ask box office personnel.

• sensory kits will be available at every performance; just ask box office personnel.

PRICE

We strive to voice the stories of the Asian American community, and in order to bring performances to those communities whose stories they tell, we are committed to making them as accessible as possible. PAY AS YOU ARE pricing asks those who routinely pay market value for theater tickets to choose to pay that amount; it is the actual fair market value of the ticket. If an audience member needs to pay less, they can choose to pay less—as little as $10 per ticket.

Seating is general admission.

VENUE INFO

Fifty Boxes of Earth will take place at Park Square Theatre in the Historic Hamm Building in downtown Saint Paul. Its address is 408 Saint Peter Street, Saint Paul. Ramp and street parking are available nearby, and public transportation stops are nearby from both the Metro Green Line (Central Station, 2.5 blocks away) and Metro Transit buses (routes 21, 51, 63, 65, 69, 70, 94, 191, 265, 275, 294, 353, 361, 364, and 54D). More information can be found on Park Square’s Getting Here page.

Meet the Cast

Understudies: Mars Niemi (Mina Harker), Zakary Thomas Morton (Jon Harker), Taj Ruler (Q)

MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT

ANKITA RATURI (she/her) is a currently Queens-based writer and teaching artist who grew up in capital cities, pediatric gastroenterology offices, and the bisexual closet. She writes hyper-theatrical works in Hindi/Urdu, English, and sometimes Bahasa Indonesia about living between cultural identities and contending with the ongoing legacies of colonization. New play development: Theater Mu, New York Theatre Workshop, Roundabout, Ma-Yi Theater Company, South Coast Repertory, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Playwrights Realm, Berkshire Theatre Group, Cygnet Theatre, Artists at Play, the COOP, Atlantic Pacific Theatre, Theater Masters, Fresh Ground Pepper, Hypokrit Theatre Company, New York Shakespeare Exchange, Pete’s Candy Store, Natyabharati, Wesleyan University. 2022 Ollie Award Winner. BFA in drama: NYU/Tisch. MFA in playwriting: UC San Diego. Second-year Kathak student.

MEET THE DIRECTOR

KT SHORB (they/them) is a director, actor, and scholar. They are an assistant professor in the theater and dance department at Macalester College. Directorial credits include: Ottone in Villa, Lucretia, L’incoronazione di Poppea, She Kills Monsters, black girl love: an adaptation project, The Women of __, Carmen, 893 | Ya-ku-za, Scheherazade, and The Mikado: Reclaimed. They have writing published in the Journal of American Drama and Theatre, American Theatre, and (upcoming) Howlround. kt is currently the vice president for the Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists, and through 2024, they are Theater Mu’s Arts Research with Communities of Color fellow, which is managed by the Social Science Research Council and funded by the Wallace Foundation.

MEET THE CHOREOGRAPHER

ANANYA CHATTERJEA (she/her) brings together contemporary dance, social justice choreography, and a commitment to healing justice. She is the creator of Yorchhā, Ananya Dance Theatre’s signature movement vocabulary, and she is the primary architect of Shawngrām, the company’s justice- and community-oriented choreographic methodology. Her dance works have toured nationally and internationally, and she has received awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation (2011), McKnight Foundation (2012, 2021), the UBW Choreographic Center (2018), and Dance/USA (2019). She is also a recipient of the Joyce Foundation (2016) and the A.P. Andersen (2021) awards. Ananya is a professor of dance at the University of Minnesota.

Meet the Puppet Designers

OANH VU (she/her) is a puppeteer, educator, and community organizer. As a second generation Vietnamese American she uses humor and the playfulness of puppetry to tell stories of healing and social change for her communities. She is a recipient of 2023 and 2024 Jim Henson Foundation grants. She got her start in puppetry through Monkeybear’s Harmolodic Workshop and is now the Puppet Lab co-artistic director at Open Eye Theatre. Her artwork has been shared at theatres, museums, and community spaces all across Twin Cities including the In the Heart of the Beast Theatre, the Mia, the MN Opera, Open Eye Theatre, Theater Mu, Twin Cities Public Television, and the Walker Art Center.

ANDREW YOUNG (he/they) is a Taiwanese-Indonesian American visual/performance artist and educator. Andrew’s work navigates the pull between different cultural worlds to ask questions of place, identity, and finding the way those things intersect.  He has trained and performed with Monkeybear’s Harmolodic Workshop, was a cohort member of Puppet Lab, served as staff for the May Day Parade produced by Heart of the Beast Theater, was a resident artist at the Landmark Center, and has worked as assistant artist and stage manager with the Full Moon Puppet Show.

LEAD CREATIVE & PRODUCTION

MARI BOGUCKI

Sound Design Fellow

*appearing through an agreement between Theater Mu and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States

OUR Sponsors

This production was made possible with the generous support of the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation, the Minnesota Humanities Center, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Fifty Boxes of Earth was developed with the support of the Playwrights’ Center.

Theater Mu season sponsors:

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