In this moment LOVE is what we need most to honor our interconnectedness and demonstrate profound care for one another. LOVE holds the complexity of need and pain with movement toward healing and transformation.
Welcome to another groundbreaking season at Pillsbury House + Theatre where we will LOVE up on our community. This year is a manifestation of LOVE in its many forms. We give passionate artists free rein to explore, challenge, and transform the world around us. Be inspired by two World Premieres and the return of the Makers Series with electrifying voices both familiar and new. Get involved with creative programs, events, and opportunities that spark joy, connection, and careers. See our long-time home on Chicago Ave. reborn as Pillsbury Creative Commons to foster a more thriving and empowered community.
2025 is a year of expanding possibility for our organization, our neighborhood, and our city. We’re feeling the LOVE. And we can’t wait to share it with you.
SIGNE V. HARRIDAY AND NOËL RAYMOND Co-Artistic Directors, Pillsbury House + Theatre
For year two of the Makers Series, we imagine new possibilities on stage, on the page, and beyond. See challenging original work developed by boundary-pushing artists at the intersection of arts and social justice. Creating space for intimacy, exploration and remembering. Centering stories by artists taking bold risks.
LOVE RISING
DRAG STORY HOUR
The Drag Story Hour (@dragstoryhourmn) is on a mission to celebrate diverse and healthy gender expression for kids and their caring adults through the arts. See what hatches when Doña Pepa, Sid Sity, and Old Man Zimmer bring three new stories to our stage in “Love Rising” — a blend of puppets, lip syncs, songs, and dance to entertain and empower young audiences.
Love Rising, Ep. 1 - February 22
Love Rising, Ep. 2 - April 26
Love Rising, Ep. 3 - May 31
2015
DANEZ SMITH
Poet and writer Danez Smith brings their new play 2015 to PH+T — a time-traveling, truth-troubling negotiation between grandmother and grandchild. Smith is the author of four poetry collections (Don’t Call Us Dead, Homie, and, most recently, Bluff) and the curator of Blues In Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes. Their awards include the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Danez lives in Minneapolis with their people and teaches at Randolph College and the Black Youth Healing Arts Center.
BLACK AUGUST QUEER FILM FEST
Closing out the month of Black resistance, PH+T will showcase screenings, discussions, performances, and workshops that explore film as a space to archive, dream, liberate, and testify. Curated by Danez Smith. August 18 - 31.
Sequoia Hauck (they/them) is a two-spirit, queer, Anishinaabe and Hupa filmmaker, interdisciplinary artist and director who creates work that indigenizes the process of art-making. Their work weaves Indigenous epistemologies, indigiqueer identity and the possibilities of Indigenous futurism. Sequoia is a 2023 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow as well as an Aniccha Arts Artistic Associate. sequoiahauck.com
BREAKING ICE YEAR-ROUND
This award-winning program opens courageous and productive dialogue within organizations around issues of diversity, equity and inclusion to foster a culture of belonging. Led by our company of professional actors and facilitators. Learn more at BreakingIce.org.
On the mainstage this year, two world premiere plays from courageous artists whose love stories defy expectations.
CLOSE TO HOME
SHARIFA YAZMEEN
Trans director, actor, and playwright Sharifa Yazmeen tells stories at the intersection of Queer and Arab identities. She is the recipient of numerous directing fellowships and the inaugural SCDF Barbara Whitman Award for directing. Her plays have been produced with Playwrights Foundation, Amphibian Stage, Women’s Theatre Festival, American Blues Theatre, and others. Her new play Close to Home is the story of three very different people — a homeless trans girl, a young Southern man, and a quiet Muslim man— who might just find what they’re looking for beneath the branches of a 200-year-old oak tree.
A LESSON IN LOVE
NUBIA MONKS WITH DARRICK MOSLEY
Award-winning actor, playwright, educator, and PH+T regular, Nubia Monks has performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, The Women’s Theatre Festival, and others, and is a ‘23-’25 recipient of the Jerome’s Fellowship at the Playwrights’ Center. With actor Darrick Mosley fellow PH+T regular (A Raisin in the Sun at The Guthrie, Jitney at Penumbra Theatre.), Monks created A Lesson in Love, a play about ex-lovers stuck in a Lyft who must face an unresolved past while navigating new feelings in the present.
ARTS INTEGRATION & EDUCATION
Our programs foster the artist in everyone with workshops, partnerships, and activities that come to life in our building and in community.
CenterstAGE
WINTER/SPRING
Arts based workshops for seniors
ARTIST WAY WORKSHOPS
INSIDE OUT 4
JULY 26
Chicago Avenue’s biggest block party is on! Experience everything PH+T has to offer in a summer tradition filled with joy, neighbors, and creative opportunities for all ages. There will be food, music from KRSM DJs, artistic performances, the ribbon cutting for Pillsbury Creative Commons, and more ways to learn, celebrate, and get involved.
ARTIST MARKETPLACE
@ INSIDE OUT
Immerse yourself in the boundless creativity of Minneapolis. Part of INSIDE OUT, this one-day-only Artist Marketplace gathers the work of neighborhood artisans, ceramicists, painters, and other makers. See, shop, and share what makes our artist community so special.
“Through our teaching artist practices and relationships, individuals find their creative gifts and explore their worlds.”
RESIDENT TEACHING ARTISTS’ VALUES STATEMENT
Explorations for artists at all levels of experience
STILTING TROUPE
Partnerships with local schools and youth organizations
PUPPET CAMP OUT
Intergenerational puppet and mask workshops
PLAYWRITING MENTORSHIP
Focused mentorship for a young playwright
CHICAGO AVENUE PROJECT
MAY & DECEMBER
CAP centers the creative development of young people in South Minneapolis through partnerships in and after school. It pairs local youth with the Twin Cities’ best adult playwrights, actors, and directors to create and produce original plays, culminating in two not-to-be-missed public performances.
FELLOWSHIPS, INTERNSHIPS & RESIDENCIES
MCKNIGHT FELLOWSHIPS FOR COMMUNITY-ENGAGED ARTISTS
FEBRUARY – JUNE
For established community-engaged artists using their practice for social transformation, this juried fellowship provides significant financial support to push their work forward. Application opens January 24, 2025. Application deadline March 21, 2025 (5pm CST).
NAKED STAGES
APRIL – NOVEMBER
This fellowship provides emerging Minnesota performance artists with the time, resources, and mentorship they need to develop a sustainable career. Be there for performances where they share their singular voices and visions. Applications open in January.
STEP UP INTERNSHIP SUMMER
For young people interested in exploring the fascinating world of theater tech, this paid summer internship provides hands-on skills, experience, and connections to level up for in-demand creative careers. Internship runs 8 weeks, June through August.
PCC WORKFORCE TRAINING
PCC is addressing the deep disparities in employment and resources in our arts and media industry with this new program to develop skills, training, and career pathways.
ART IN COMMONS
YEAR-ROUND
This artist studio program, based in the lobby of our main building, provides artists with free, 24/7 access to a studio space for 4-8 weeks. For more info, email: mikeh@pillsburyunited.org.
Phase 1 2025
A BIGGER PLATFORM FOR KRSM
An anchor of our community narrative work, this new two-story facility will include multiple broadcast and recording studios with training and education facilities visible on Chicago Ave. KRSM Radio in this new home will continue to provide a platform for elevating the voices, narratives, and cultures of communities with a history of being erased by traditional media.
NURTURING FUTURE ARTS AND MEDIA LEADERS
PCC’s new dedicated workforce training facilities will support local BIPOC apprentices to enter high-paying career fields — helping to close deep racial disparities in our regional arts and media industries. Our new scenic workshop, which opens in late 2025, greatly expands our capacity to produce world-class theater as we train future theatre technicians, designers, and media artists.
A HOME FOR CREATIVITY, OPPORTUNITY, AND BELONGING.
The dream of Pillsbury Creative Commons began many years ago. In 2025, our integrated arts and economic development campus makes a giant leap into reality. This August, PCC officially opens its doors as the new home for KRSM Radio, a hub for youth development and community events, and much more.
JOIN US July 26th FOR THE GRAND OPENING OF PCC AT INSIDE OUT 4
Share the love. Visit Pillsbury.cc for updates on events and opportunities and help us empower a more creative and equitable future for our city.
“PH+T is an invaluable cultural oasis where the convergence of diverse communities, the arts, sciences, mind, body and spirit thrives based on mutual respect, the exchange of ideas, concepts, cooperation and solutions are incubated, developed, shared and disseminated.”
DOUGLAS R. EWART 2022 MCKNIGHT DISTINGUISHED ARTIST
MORE CONNECTION, MORE POSSIBILITY, MORE LOVE. WITH YOUR SUPPORT.
Pillsbury House + Theatre is transforming inside and out… and more than ever, we need our community with us. Your donation in any amount helps bring visionary art to more audiences, prepares youth for exciting futures, and lifts up neighbors and families across our community.
We can’t wait for all that’s to come this year.
THANK YOU FOR BEING PART OF IT.
“Doing theater has changed my life… I could be brave.”
SKYLAR, PARTICIPANT IN CHICAGO AVENUE PROJECT
“It’s the most bodacious and surprising show onstage in Minnesota now, one that … captures a viewer with its imagination and lyricism.”
STAR TRIBUNE ON A WALLESS CHURCH
Scan the QR code to donate or send a check in the envelope provided.
Sara Abdelaal, Audience Engagement Director
Bart Buch, Arts Integration Liaison
Maria Cortez, Afternoon Receptionist
Claudia Errickson, Technical Director
Signe V. Harriday, Senior Artistic Producing Director
Michael Hoyt, Creative Community Director
Masanari Kawahara, Naked Stages Director
Kurt Kwan, Breaking Ice Manager
Estrella Mercado, Operations Coordinator
Mankwe Ndosi, Resident Community Engaged Artist
Julia Snider Nickerson, Chicago Avenue Project Director
Noël Raymond, Senior Director of Arts & Culture
Rachael C. Rhoades, Production and Project Manager
Andrè Samples, PCC Workforce Training Director
Joel Thompson, Facilities Engineer
Teaching Artists: Aimee K. Bryant, Bart Buch, Masanari Kawahara, Clay Man Soo
3501 Chicago Avenue S Minneapolis, MN 55407
Box Office: 612-825-0459
pillsburyhouseandtheatre.org