"Caucasian-Aggressive Pandas and Other Mulatto Tales" by Chameleon Theatre Circle and Fearless Comedy Productions at Bloomington Center for the Arts

Duck Washington's funny, engaging, personal, and very honest sketch comedy show about being biracial in America has traveled a long road to its current home in Bloomington. Caucasian-Aggressive Pandas and Other Mulatto Tales began as a Fearless Comedy show at Bryant Lake Bowl, and then had a successful run a the 2016 Minnesota Fringe Festival. Chameleon Theatre Circle originally planned to include the show as part of their 2016-2017 season, but the Ames Center in Burnsville, their then home, refused to allow the show to be produced there for fear that some might find the word mulatto offensive. To make a long story short (you can read more about it here), Chameleon left the Ames Center because they objected to artistic censorship, and Caucasian-Aggressive Pandas is currently being presented at the Bloomington Center for the Arts (the home of Artistry) as the final show in their nomadic 2017-2018 season. That's a whole lot of preamble for what is a very funny, insightful, and necessary show about race relations in America, which can only be improved by acknowledging it and talking about it, and maybe laughing about it too in a safe space like this. Oh, the irony!

Fringe Festival 2016: "Caucasian Aggressive Pandas and Other Mulatto Tales"

Day: 2

Show: 8 

Title: Caucasian Aggressive Pandas and Other Mulatto Tales

Category: Comedy

By: Fearless Comedy Productions

Written by: Duck Washington

Location: Theatre in the Round

Summary: A series of comedy sketches about what it means to be biracial in America today.

Highlights: This is a very funny and insightful piece about race in America, especially for those that fall into the "other race" category. Duck and his fellow cast-members (Suzanne Victoria Cross, Ted Femrite, and Kirsten Wade, playing characters of all races, genders, and species, plus Matthew Kessen as the droll narrator) take us through several of Duck's personal experiences, many of which are funny in retrospect, some of which are disturbing. We learn about the first time someone called him the n-word (he was 12), and the crazy questions and assumptions people have and make (you're from the Middle East, right? you could be Hispanic!). You'll have a good time, you'll laugh (the narrator makes the audience pledge to laugh if something's funny, and not judge someone else who's laughing at what they think is funny, kind of in the spirit of "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist"), and you might learn a little about what it's like to be in someone else's different-colored skin, or see your own experiences reflected back at you.