LUCHADORA! • Mustard Seed Theatre & Theatre Nuevo

If you’ve ever run across an odd item in a relative’s home that you’ve never seen before and wouldn’t in a million years expect to see, it can send your mind racing with the possible stories behind it. In Alvaro Saar Rios’ 2015 memory play, Vanessa finds a wrestling mask in her Nana Lupita’s briefcase, and after a little prodding, the story of that mask, lucha libre or Mexican wrestling, family secrets and the ardent perseverance of girls play out in flashbacks at Fontbonne University, courtesy of Theatre Nuevo and Mustard Seed Theatre.

In late 1960’s Texas where Nana Lupita grew up, she spent her summers selling flowers at her widowed father’s stand so he could give his aching back a rest. When she could get away, she’d ride bikes and eat watermelon with her friends, German immigrants Leo and Liesl. Lupita finds that same mask in her father’s briefcase, and is shocked to learn from a mysterious mask maker that her father is none other than Mascara Rosa, a renowned luchador. With a recent challenge from Mascara Rosa’s nemesis, El Hijo, having been issued, and her father’s health precluding him from answering the call, Lupita decides to enter the world of lucha libre and begin training with the mask maker.

REMNANT • Mustard Seed Theatre

Mustard Seed open its 11th season with a revival of the theatre’s debut production, Ron Reed’s Remnant. It’s a post-apocalyptic Christmas story that takes place 75 years after a catastrophic plague has forced civilization to hit the restart button. Even the language is in tatters. The vestiges of families that remain fortify as clans, and arm themselves with weapons and guard dogs. Bikers are good to trade with, but not much else, and loners are to be avoided at all costs. Mustard Seed’s production explores the core Holiday sentiment through the eyes of the Wilkin clan, who have decided to celebrate “Christ Mass” for the first time in memory.

AN INVITATION OUT • Mustard Seed Theatre

Mustard Seed's season comes to a close with a world premiere by playwright Shualee Cook — an old fashioned drawing room comedy with a twist. It’s set in a futuristic virtual reality, where many prefer to interact through the magnified personas of their avatars in online chat rooms, instead of enduring the rigors and demands of living life ”offline." Even the opening words by Mustard Seed’s artistic director, Deanna Jent, are presented as an animated likeness of her, projected on a scrim running across the stage. The stage is framed by a skewed, computer screen-like border, and the pre-show projections of DNA strands and “Sims”-like avatars fittingly set the mood.

ALL IS CALM: THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE OF 1914 • Mustard Seed Theatre

"All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914", was originally presented as a radio show on Minnesota Public Radio by the vocal ensemble, Cantus and Theatre Latte Da, until Mustard Seed Theatre gave this a cappella musical a fully staged production last year. The musical's text is comprised of letters and historic documents associated with a brief truce that occurred during World War I on Christmas Eve, with songs ranging from folk tunes and traditional carols to patriotic hymns and ballads. It remains, like last season's production, an aural feast.

Everyone from last season's award winning ensemble cast (and practically all of the crew) is back for this season's revival, and along with an additional number ("Good-By-Ee"), there are also several subtle changes in the staging that enhance the presentation.

HUMAN TERRAIN • Mustard Seed Theatre

Mustard Seed kicks off its season with a world-premiere by Jennifer Blackmer that focuses on an anthropologist embedded with a military unit in Iraq. The story is fictional, but the program is real. Established in 2006, a United States Army program called The Human Terrain System employs social sciences personnel to provide the military with some understanding of the local culture.

Mabry (Melissa Gerth) is the anthropologist -- a new PhD and skilled linguist, who spent her time in the army under the command of hard-nosed Captain Alford (B. Weller) -- sometimes at odds with her purpose, but well-intentioned. Along with ordering her to wear a sidearm for her own protection, he assigns a young soldier named Detty (Taylor Campbell) to accompany her as an armed escort. Both of these mandates make her job of winning the hearts and minds of the locals more challenging, but Mabry manages to do some good, and meets and forms a tentative friendship with Adiliah (Wendy Greenwood), an Iraqi woman. All of this is played out in flashback. When the play opens, Mabry finds herself in a small room, worn out and confused, and back in the States being questioned by a DA named Kate (Dawn Campbell) about a bombing in Fallujah, and her allegiance is questioned.

ALL IS CALM: THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE OF 1914 • Mustard Seed Theatre

This a capella musical documents a true and all too brief period of time during the First World War on Christmas Eve.  At dawn, only months into the war, after hearing and trading carols across the trenches, a German soldier crossed the lines of the Western front into no-man's-land wishing a "Merry Christmas" in native tongues.  Seeing that he was unarmed, British and French soldiers eventually did the same.  They ended up meeting in the middle where they exchanged gifts of puddings and cigarettes, sang songs, played a little soccer, and together buried their dead.

MRS. SORKEN & THE DUCK VARIATIONS • Mustard Seed Theatre

Christopher Durang's brief play, Mrs. Sorken, was plucked from a collection of one-act parodies featured in his self-titled,  Durang/Durang, and it kicks off the show, serving as a nice introduction to the second play, David Mamet's, The Duck Variations.

After the pre-show announcements, Mrs. Sorken (Peggy Billo) is asked onstage to address the audience about theatre, its Greek roots and what attracts theatergoers to drama.  Once she realizes that she's lost her notes, she has to wing it, rambling in a free-association kind of way.  She begins with the etymology of the word drama, linking it to its Greek roots, and just about anything else that pops into her head.  She also talks about her own personal theatre preferences, announcing that she doesn't like the "f" word, plays that are over 4 hours, and Shakespeare -- if it's too hot and she has to pay.  Ha!  Little peeks into her own slightly unfulfilled life with Mr. Sorken work their way in as well.

IMAGINARY JESUS • Mustard Seed Theatre

The source material for this play, a novel written in 2010 by Matt Mikalatos, has been adapted for the stage by Mustard Seed's artistic director and director of this play, Deanna Jent, and it's currently receiving its premiere.  During the play, our protagonist, Matt (like the author, Matt), tries to hunt down his "imaginary" Jesus -- a Jesus of his own creation, and find the real one.

We start with our narrator Matt (Chad Morris), who oversees all of the action, letting us in on what is going on inside the head of "the character Matt" (Robert Thibaut).  Matt's having lunch with Jesus (Justin Ivan Brown) at their favorite vegan cafe in Portland, when Saint Peter, or Pete (J. Samuel Davis), shows up and challenges the imaginary Jesus's authenticity.  After a brief scrap with the Savior, Pete goes on to explain to Matt that there are a myriad of imaginary Jesuses out there, and the one that had been Matt's invisible companion for awhile was a fake.

GOING TO SEE THE ELEPHANT • Mustard Seed Theatre

The title of this 1982 play that ushers in the sixth season of Mustard Seed Theatre, was an American idiom that indicated overwhelming emotion, and according to Belle "Maw" Wheeler (Nancy Lewis), it means going over the hill to see what's on the other side -- checking out the "unknown".

When the lights come up on Daniel Lanier's beautifully rustic set, we're drawn into Osbourne County, Kansas on July 3rd, 1870.  Preparations are underway for an Independence Day celebration the next day, and while Sara (Emily Baker) does the laundry and unsuccessfully tries to get milk from their cow Jezebel, Maw Wheeler, Sara's mother-in-law, is poring over a book that depicts the maps of the world.  Maw is restless, and is thinking about heading out to Colorado, once her daughter-in-law's baby is born.  But there's not too much time to think or talk about all that -- there's work to be done.  It seems that these hard-wrought frontier women always have work to do.  One of their nearest neighbors, Etta (Jessica Haley), ventures alone to visit them and see how the party planning is going.  Between the wild animals and the sometimes hostile natives, a young woman walking so far alone is a dangerous proposition in these parts, but Etta's lonely and needs the company.

GODSPELL • Mustard Seed Theatre

A musical about the New Testament?  Sure, why not?!  Originating as a thesis project that ended up running off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre in 1971 (where it ran for 5 years and 2,000+ performances), GODSPELL transferred to Broadway in 1976 and ran for another 500 or so shows.  This musical is presented as a series of lessons based on the Gospel of Matthew.  The original production was set in a playground, but has since been set in various locations -- everywhere from a museum to a McDonald's.  Because there is no specific setting for the play in the script, directors are able to be creative and tailor the show's particulars to fit the times, the city, etc.  This production, beautifully directed and innovatively staged by Deanna Jent, takes place in the streets of St. Louis.  They even worked in the theme to "Angry Birds"!

FALLING • Mustard Seed Theatre

With an estimated 1 in 110 kids having an ASD, or Autism spectrum disorder, many of us are familiar with autism to some degree -- in a once or twice removed kind of way.  But seeing the challenges of a family with an autistic son up close and personal in Mustard Seed's first show of their season, written by artistic director, Deanna Jent, is a powerful and touching experience.

TILL WE HAVE FACES • Mustard Seed Theatre

TILL WE HAVE FACES is a novel by C.S. Lewis that retells the myth of Cupid and Psyche.  There are variations of this myth, but (very) basically, it goes something like this:  The goddess Venus becomes jealous of Psyche's astounding mortal beauty.  She orders her son Cupid to fly to her and with the aid of his golden arrows, cause her to fall in love with a beast (or not to fall in love at all), but upon seeing her, Cupid falls in love with Psyche, and has her carried away to his palace.  Cupid visits her each night for a little, you know, but asks that she never try to see his face, or discover his true form.  After the prodding of Psyche's jealous sisters, who convince her that she may well have been sleeping with a monster, she does succeed in seeing his face one night, and discovers his identity and falls even more deeply in love with him.  In the process though, Cupid wakes up and sees that Psyche has defied his order, and banishes her from his palace.  Psyche seeks atonement and Venus gives her four impossible tasks that Psyche completes, and she and Cupid live happily ever after.