Performance
New Works 4 Weeks 2023
Ricardo Beaird
Dates
Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 12:00 am
Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 12:00 am
Sun, Jun 18, 2023, 12:00 am
Sliding scale $15-50 (before Eventbrite fees). If cost is a barrier, please email staff@redeyetheater.org for additional options.
Ricardo Beaird
HOW FUN
Devising team: Ricardo Beaird, Megan Burns, Daisuke Kawachi, and Connor Lane
Additional direction by Victor Kirksey-Brown
Performed by Ricardo Beaird, Briana Patnode, Pedro Juan Fonseca, and Alex Xiong/Oblivia Nukem Jun
When’s the last time you had fun? Gabriel can’t remember. Set adrift after loss, Gabriel seeks out an online therapist to help him remember what it feels like to have fun. Using unusual methods ranging from telepathy to balancing LaCroix cans, the two hunt for the elusive nature of fun like their worlds depend on it. Neurosurgery by way of TikTok, How Fun asks what it costs to have a good time.
ABOUT NEW WORKS 4 WEEKS
A cornerstone of the Twin Cities performance landscape, the long-running New Works 4 Weeks Festival lights up Red Eye’s new performance space in the Seward neighborhood each summer. This process-driven, cohort-based incubator of new works culminates in a showcase of the freshest experiments from Minnesota’s most risk-taking performing artists.
Accessibility
ACCESSIBILITY
Red Eye's performance space is fully wheelchair-accessible. To request ASL interpretation, audio description, large-print programs, or other accessibility-related accommodations for any event, please contact us with as much advance notice as possible. staff@redeyetheater.org | 612.870.7531
This performance features flashing lights.
Run time: approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes, with no intermission.
COVID POLICY
High-quality masks are required to be worn by audience at all times.
About the Artists
Ricardo Beaird
Ricardo Beaird (any pronoun) is a Twin Cities-based theater maker originally from Nashville, Tennessee. Their work is informed by the pursuit of healing through storytelling, the unfinished business of ghosts, dis/connection through the internet, and Beyoncé. 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 and 2022 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, created with Megan Burns through the Red Eye Theater’s 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.