2024/25 Season

Upstream

April 9-26, 2025

Co-Created by Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay, Ryan Hill, Blossom Johnson, and Johanna Keller Flores, in collaboration with Open World Learning Community.

Directed by Alejandro Tey, with Alyssa Vera Ramos and Rebekah Rentzel

This world-premiere, immersive play about climate resilience guides audiences on a search for the river’s missing daughter, taking action towards climate justice while making a beautiful climate future. Created in collaboration with the Open World Learning School and over a dozen community partner organizations, this participatory event will be staged throughout a school campus. 

Upstream is performed at Open World Learning Community School in Saint Paul.

RESERVE A SEAT
SHOW PROGRAM
SHOW RESOURCES

If you are a person with disabilities and require assistance with transportation, please email the box office with this or any other access requests.

Show Details

Upstream runs approximately 60 minutes. This is an immersive show. The audience will be led throughout the school campus as the show is performed. Cast members will interact with the audience. If you are uncomfortable climbing up or down stairs please let the Box Office know.

  • Open World Learning Community School
    640 Humboldt Ave, Saint Paul, MN 55107

  • Street parking only, school entrance is on Humboldt Avenue

  • Sensory Friendly Show  –  Friday April 25

  • Masks Required – ALL 12:30PM Saturday performances – 4/12/25, 4/19/25, 4/26/25

  • Access Info Audio Description, ASL interpretation, Touch Tours, etc., will be accommodated as requested. We must receive requests a week in advance. Please mention requirements when making your reservation.

Special Thanks: Fresh Energy, Our Streets MN, West Side Farmers Market, West Side Community Org, St. Paul Climate Justice Advisory Board, St. Paul Climate Action Coordinator, Land Stewardship Project, Change Coalition, The MN Dept of Commerce, Theatre Latte Da, the Graf Family, The Costume Collective.

Upstream Climate Justice Community Resources

 

Playwrights

Saymoukda is a Lao American writer. W. Kamau Bell, the host of CNN’s “United Shades of America,” called her work “revolutionary.” She’s a recipient of a Sally Award for Initiative from the Ordway Center for Performing Arts which recognizes bold and strategic leadership that has created artistic projects and programs never before seen in Minnesota that have significantly impacted and strengthened the state. She’s best known for her play KUNG FU ZOMBIES VS CANNIBALS and children’s book WHEN EVERYTHING WAS EVERYTHING. Her plays include KUNG FU ZOMBIES VS SHAMAN WARRIOR, DEAD COPS IN LITTLE MEKONG, BURIED BY THE GARDEN IN LITTLE MEKONG, TITLE IX, and HMONG LAO FRIENDSHIP PLAY. Her work has been presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (NY), Theater Mu (MN), Lower Depth Theater (LA), Asian Improv Arts (IL), and elsewhere. Saymoukda is currently a Playwrights Center Core Writer, Bush Fdn Leadership Fellow in playwriting, a Mellon Fdn Playwright in Residence at Theater Mu, a Jerome@Camargo Artist in Residence in Cassis, France, and Forecast Public Art grantee. Other awards include grants and fellowships from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Bush Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation, MAP Fund, Playwrights' Center, Forecast Public Art, and dozens more. She's been an artist in residence at Everwood Fdn and by direct invitation at The Fields at Rootsprings (MN), Hedgebrook (WA), and Djerassi (CA). She's an advisory board member of the nonprofits More Than A Single Story and Asian Pacific Islander American Film Collective. Other community contributions include having served on the City of Saint Paul Cultural STAR Board and Governor Tim Walz's State Poet Laureate Program Design Committee and Interview & Selection Committee. Her upcoming plays include commissions from Mixed Blood Theatre (MN), Theater Mu (MN), and InterAct Theatre Co. (PA).

Hill

Ryan is a performer, producer, writer and advocate for ensemble-created art for over 25 years. Work has been seen on stages in the Twin Cities, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, and Beijing. Former Fulbright Scholar, Founding Artistic Director of Sandbox Theatre in Minneapolis and marzipanik in Oakland, CA. Current chicken & cat dad.

Blossom Johnson is a Diné playwright and screenwriter. She is from the Yé’ii Dine’é Táchii’nii (Giant People) clan, and her maternal grandfather is from the Deeshchíí’nii (Start of the Red Streak People) clan. Her plays include Red Running Into Water, monster SLAYer, Diné Nishłį (i am a sacred being) Or, A Boarding School Play, Our Legendary Mother, K’é and Dark Earth. Her work has been developed and presented by Bag&Baggage and Native Theater Project, Alternative Theater Ensemble, La Lengua, Mixed Blood Theater, Durango PlayFest, and Pillsbury House Theatre (CAP). Additionally, she has been supported by Willowtail Springs in Mancos, CO, Alternative Theater Ensemble's AlterLab, First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellowship, La Lengua/ Alternative Theater Ensemble’s Decolonization Stories Commission, The Playwrights’ Center’s Jerome Fellowship, Netflix Animation Foundations Program, UC Berkeley’s Arts Research Center, and the Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Support for Individuals. Her play, Diné Nishłį (i am a sacred being) Or, A Boarding School Play, made the Kilroys Web, and had a World Premiere with Bag&Baggage and Native Theater Project in the Portland Area. As a dramaturg, Blossom has worked with the Guthrie Theater, Native Voices at the Autry, UCSB Launch Pad, PlayPenn, Urbanite Theatre, and YIPAP (Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program). She is thrilled to announce she is a 2025-2028 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow. She is currently the Community Engagement Associate at the Guthrie Theater. Blossom was in the Librettist cohort for the 2024 Nautilus Music-Theater’s Composer-Librettist Studio. She holds an MFA in Dramaturgy from Columbia University and a BA in Theatre from Arizona State University. A proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA).

Johanna Keller Flores (she/her) is a Peruvian-American multidisciplinary theater artist and writer. She is a 2025 MSAB Creative Individuals Grantee, a current member of Exposed Brick Theater’s Playwriting cohort, a Lightning Rod Core Ensemble member, was a 2023 LAMBDA Literary Emerging LGBT Voices Playwriting Fellow, the 2022-2023 Many Voices Mentee at the Playwright's Center, a Teatro del Pueblo Visiones Fellow in 2023, and an OurSpace Fellow with Twin Cities Media Alliance in 2021.

Directors

Alejandro Tey (he/him) is a Cuban-American, South Texas-raised theatre maker and teaching artist whose artistic practice focuses on collaborative creation, immersion, and participation: working with an ensemble to invite and guide audience into the role of protagonist. Tey is an ensemble member of Sojourn Theatre, through which he has performed, led workshops, and facilitated conversations across the country. And he is also the creator of The Isle of Sugar, a hybrid roleplaying game/theatrical event based on his grandparent’s experience of the Cuban Revolution. In the Twin Cities, Alejandro most recently directed the world premiere of Fallenstar: The Watchoverers (New Native Theatre), a touring play about young native superheroes. Come up and say hi, he’d love to chat with you about comics and roleplaying games, and will probably show you pictures of his baby. Love and thanks to Sara and Xio.

Alyssa Vera Ramos (she/ella) is a multi-hyphenate theatre artist and facilitator dedicated to pleasure and practice towards a liberated world. Focused on devised and new plays, credits as Director and Co-creator include: We Could Be (About Face Theatre), Expectation (For Youth Inquiry, where she also served as Artistic Director), You Can’t Cover the Sky with Your Hand (Pivot Arts), Meeting Our Desires (Chicago Night Out in the Parks), and Epic Tales from the Land of Melanin (Free Street Theater; Latinx Theatre Commons' International TYA Festival). Alyssa is also an Intimacy Director, Teaching Artist, and proud Curator of Swarm Artist Residency. She co-wrote The Sex Ed Playbook: Participatory Theatre for Health Education and a chapter in Into Abolitionist Theatre: A Guidebook for Liberatory Theatre-making. In the day to day, Alyssa can be found studying Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba drumming and dance, reading picture books to babies, and laughing very loudly. Trust Youth!

Rebekah Rentzel (she/her) is teacher of Theatre and Critical Ethnic Studies at Open World Learning Community for over 10 years. She has directed and performed around the Twin Cities, including the Night Library for Northern Spark, Barebones Puppet Theatre, Teatro del Pueblo, and helped run Raw Sugar Theatre. She loves working with students to help them realize their creative potential. Youth are visionaries and it is an honor to help support their visions of the future!

Cast

Latanya Boone (she/they) is excited to make her Mixed Blood debut! They are a multidisciplinary artist whose work is rooted in social justice and advocacy. She is a current 2024-2025 Maestra Mentee and a 2022 GreenRoom Fellow with Ordway Theater. Her theater credits include Christmas Carol (Guthrie), Snowy Day (Park Square), Wedding Singer (Lyric Arts), and various projects with Wonderlust Productions. When she is not performing or creating new works, she loves to engage with youth as a teaching artist training storytellers who are becoming.

Ana Paulina (they/she) is a Costa Rican actor, dancer, and poet. In their debut at Mixed Blood Theatre as Isla in the original play “Upstream”, they are thrilled to contribute to raising awareness about the climate crisis through the performing arts. Her article “The Other Greta Effect (OGE): Recognizing Youth Climate Activists Beyond Thunberg,” published in the Danish journal KVINDER, KØN & FORSKNING (KKF), explores climate activism from a decolonial perspective, emphasizing the importance of climate justice. Additionally, she has worked as a choreographer for Shrek Jr. at Andersen United Middle School with Project Success. In 2023, she was a fellow in the unique GreenRoom musical theater apprenticeship at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. They are grateful to the playwright for crafting a story that captures the different experiences related to climate resilience. Ana Paulina (they/she) is a Costa Rican actor, dancer, and poet who is passionate of utilizing the performing arts as a means of cultivating joy, connection, revolution, and empowerment.

Laila Sahir (she/her) is an actor and theater artist who is most interested in working on stories that ask questions about who holds power and why. She is so excited to be working on this play about climate resilience and to get to explore the world of the play with the audience. Locally, Laila has performed with New Arab American Theater Works, the Playwrights' Center, Walking Shadow Theatre Company, Full Circle Theatre Company, and others. She has a BA in Theatre and Psychology from Luther College. lailasahir.com

Melanie Wehrmacher (she/her) is thrilled to be making her Mixed Blood debut, and to be working with the incredible team from OWL! Credits include The Courtroom (Jungle Theatre), Pipeline (Penumbra Theatre); Beautiful (Theatre L'Homme Dieu); Superman Becomes Lois Lane, Dirty Business (History Theatre); Animal Farm: The Puppet Musical, Secret Comedy of Women (National Tours); Henry and Alice, The Language Archive (Park Square); Dancing at Lughnasa, On Golden Pond (Yellow Tree); Lend Me a Tenor, Blithe Spirit (Old Log) and many others. Melanie is a company member of Breaking Ice (Pillsbury House's DEI-training performance company), the Dramatists Guild of America, and Science Live Theatre at the Science Museum of Minnesota, where she happily spends days creating hydrogen explosions, freezing things with liquid nitrogen, writing about climate justice, and generally Changing the World with Science.

* Appearing through an Agreement between Mixed Blood Theatre & Actor’s Equity Association

 

Design Team

Scenic/Props Design & Sustainability Captain | Sadie Ward
Costume  Design | Zamora Simmons-Stiles
Lighting Design | Mags Scanlon
Sound Design | Kevin Springer
Composer | Katy Vernon
Music Director | Becky Dale
Production Stage Manager | Becca Wilts*
Assistant Stage Manager | Miles Latham*

*Appearing through an agreement with the Actors’ Equity Association Association

Production Team

Production Manager | Lucas Martin
Run Crew | Alan Donahue
Box Office & Front of House Manager | Emma Swain
Production Support / Scenic Overhire | Alice Endo, Briana Boden, Corinna Troth, Jim Lichtscheidl, JP Haller, Becca Malmstrom, Rebecca Kartstad
Wardrobe Overhire | Hannah Fielder, Meghan Dougherty, Suresh Graf, Lily Turner, Adrien Wright
Audio Overhire | June Nafziger

SHOW PROGRAM

OWL Student Team

Assistant Director / Nick Christopherson 
Stage Managers / Margaret Moe, Maggie Jansen, Charley Cheatham
Assistant Stage Manager / Bahati Stalheim
Production Assistant / Rhoda Wonders
Costumes & Makeup Co-Heads / Kate Houle, Cal Schmid
Lead Artists / Beatrice Cosgrove, and Theo Pennington 
Costume Techies / Isabel Best, Cecilia Solis-Monter 
Makeup Techie / Jaydin Marshal
Props Head  / Iyanna Kelley 
Props Techies  / Coral Cosgrove, Alan Castro-Losano, and Rosie VanGendren
Scenic Artist Head / Michael Ryan
Lead Scenic Artists / Luci Hulson, Jay Schluender 
Scenic Techie / Melita Allen 
Scenic Builders / Garrett Weyandt, Charles Homich 
Scenic Painter / Noah Linstad 
AV Coordinator / Moray Moore
Sound Head / Joseph Schwartz
Lights & Projections Head / Moss Windingstad
Lights Techie / Soren Johnson 
Sustainability Deputy & Marketing / Margaret Moe

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