Upcoming Shows

Up Next: Blue Door

starts april 19

By Tanya Barfield
Directed by Darryl V. Jones

Intimate. Intrepid. Inspired.

Tanya Barfield’s two-man play, Blue Door, puts Lewis, a high-achieving Black mathematics professor, in conversation with three generations of his ancestors over the course of a fevered dream or night of sleepless delusion as he wrestles with his own sense of self and cultural identity. Estranged from his white wife, who accuses him of being out of touch with his heritage for refusing to attend the Million Man March, Lewis must journey through the past in order to determine his future. The ancestral visitations he receives call upon joy and pain, suffering and resiliency, music and song to situate Lewis in a long lineage of Black men in America from enslavement and Jim Crow to Black Power.

“Intelligent…unfailingly thought-provoking…Barfield poses sharp questions and counter-questions on contemporary black identity. Her vision is fearless and humane.”

- Los Angeles Times


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Meet the cast of BLUE DOOR!

JAMES WDL MERCER II* (Simon/Rex/Jesse) is a Black American multi-hyphenate artist originally from Philly-adjacent making their Aurora debut. Bay Area and regional theatre credits include American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Rep, African-American Shakespeare Company, Irish Rep, and Arden Theatre Company. Mercer has also worked as a national touring physical theatre artist with Theater Unspeakable based in Chicago, and has workshopped plays with A.C.T., Penumbra, National Black Theatre, Playwrights Foundation, and Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor. School at Steppenwolf Group 21; MFA American Conservatory Theater.
*Member, AEA

Learn More: auroratheatre.org/BlueDoor
Buy Tickets: tickets.auroratheatre.org

#AuroraTheatreCompany #BlueDoor #theatre #tickets #GetInAurora

Meet the cast of BLUE DOOR!

MICHAEL J. ASBERRY* (Lewis) returns home to the Aurora (Paradise Blue, The Bluest Eye, Exit Strategy, and Satellites) on the heels of his most recent performance in The Merry Wives of Windsor with the Elm Shakespeare Company (New Haven, CT). Regional Theatre credits include Sacramento Theatre Company; Orlando Shakes (Orlando, FL); San Francisco Shakespeare Festival; San Francisco Mime Troupe; American Conservatory Theatre; Center REPertory Company; Capital Stage; Artists Repertory Theatre (Portland, OR); Lorraine Hansberry Theatre; TheatreWorks; and the 6th Street Playhouse. Film appearances include San Andreas, FreeByrd, and Mr. Incredible and Pals. Television credits: Chance, Trauma, and Nash Bridges. Asberry has voiceover spots with Pixar Animation, Pine Sol and Clorox, and appears as characters in the video games Watchdogs 2 and Battlefield Vietnam.
*Member, AEA

Learn More: auroratheatre.org/BlueDoor
Buy Tickets: tickets.auroratheatre.org

#AuroraTheatreCompany #BlueDoor #theatre #tickets #GetInAurora

Up Next at Aurora: BLUE DOOR

Tanya Barfield’s two-man play, Blue Door, puts Lewis, a high-achieving Black mathematics professor, in conversation with three generations of his ancestors over the course of a fevered dream or night of sleepless delusion as he wrestles with his own sense of self and cultural identity. Estranged from his white wife, who accuses him of being out of touch with his heritage for refusing to attend the Million Man March, Lewis must journey through the past in order to determine his future. The ancestral visitations he receives call upon joy and pain, suffering and resiliency, music and song to situate Lewis in a long lineage of Black men in America from enslavement and Jim Crow to Black Power.

Learn More: auroratheatre.org/BlueDoor

#AuroraTheatreCompany #BlueDoor #theatre #tickets #GetInAurora