Albany, NY - The Theatre Program of the University at Albany’s Department of Music and Theatre is pleased to kick off its production season with In the Blood, a contemporary drama by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. The production will feature UAlbany student actors directed by Visiting Assistant Professor Shaun Patrick Tubbs, who previously helmed the Theatre Program’s production of the musical The Rocky Horror Show last spring and Tennessee Williams’ Glass Menagerie in fall 2023. The work of student designers, mentored by Theatre faculty, will bring In the Blood to vivid life in the Performing Art Center’s Lab Theatre. 

“In the Blood centers its story on the systemic injustices that are far too common within the fabric our society and the harsh realities of poverty and motherhood for Black women, and the crushing weight of societal neglect,” says director Shaun Patrick Tubbs, describing the play as “supremely raw at its core.” 

“Though I believe that having wealth in no way affords us a perfect life, this play makes it clear that poverty carries a cost that those with economic privilege will never know,” Tubbs adds. “As it unfolds it stings us with a truth that repulses, titillates, haunts, and makes us self-reflective.” 

In the Blood is one of Parks’ two Red Letter Plays, inspired by Nathanial Hawthorne’s classic novel The Scarlet Letter, and exploring similar thematic territory about the hypocrisy of American society, especially as relates to issues of morality and controlling women’s sexuality. When the play premiered at the Public Theater New York in 1999 it starred Albany-native Charlayne Woodard in the lead role of Hester. The play has gone on to become a contemporary classic, with a major New York revival at Signature Theatre in 2017. 

Suzan-Lori Parks is a multi-award-winning American writer and musician, who became the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, for her play Topdog/Underdog. “Having our students bring to life Suzan-Lori Parks’ poetic language and theatrical vision, and to learn by experiencing the work of such an important contemporary writer, is such an important part of their learning process,” says Music & Theatre Chair Kate Walat. 

“It’s a bold beginning to our 2025-2026 season, which takes another look at community with Thornton Wilder’s American classic, Our Town, later this fall,” Walat continues. “Next semester we return to Shakespeare with a fantastical new staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Visiting Assistant Professor of Acting Michael Schantz, before concluding with our annual FRESH ACTS festival of new plays.” 

Performances run 10/22 – 10/26, Wednesday and Thursday at 8pm, Friday at 3pm, Saturday at 2pm and 8pm, and Sunday at 2pm, at the Performing Arts Center at UAlbany’s Uptown Campus. Tickets and more information can be found at: https://www.albany.edu/pac/news/2025-blood-oct-22-26-2025. For questions more information, please contact Music & Theatre Chair Kate Walat, kwalat@albany.edu.