Themester

As a part of Themester's fall focus on "Identity and Identification," Themester will showcase recent graduate Jayne Deely's Decolonizing Your Mind with Walter Mercado, a play that discusses queerness, Puerto Rico, friendship, and more. Deely is a 2022 graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program in Playwriting from the IU Department of Theatre, Drama and Contemporary Dance.  

Deely says the play is a "quasi queering of the Christmas Carol narrative," where the audience explores the story of the protagonist, Zee, and her complicated relationship with dating and the identity that comes with it. Three Puerto Rican ancestors engage with Zee to bring her back to what they call the "essential truth" of her identity.  

"As a light-skinned Puerto Rican who came into my gender identity later in life, this is a specific yet universal story about an adult finding their way back to the integrated self that we all possess as kids," Deely said. "This is before society imposes its own ideas about gender, sexuality, and the other identities that intersect within us."  

Deely says this is a great opportunity to introduce what identity means specifically. They say Decolonizing Your Mind with Walter Mercado asks the audience to reconsider their relationships, their interpretation of identity, and what exactly "counts" as an ancestor– and who gets to decide that, too.  

"I think this production is a fun, wild, and unique take on the 2022 Themester theme of identity and identification," Deely said. "I’m very excited to share this uniquely Puerto Rican, uniquely New York, and uniquely queer story of one person coming home to themselves and making peace with living in the in-between with the IU community!" 

Decolonizing Your Mind with Walter Mercado opens at the Studio Theatre on Sept. 22 at 7:30 PM and continues daily until Sept. 24. 

Plan your visit 

Dates and times:  

• Thursday, Sept. 22 at 7:30 p.m. 
• Friday, Sept. 23 at 7:30 p.m. 
• Friday, Sept. 23 at 11:00 p.m. 
• Saturday, Sept. 24 at 2:00 p.m. 
• Saturday, Sept. 24 at 7:30 p.m. 

Location: Studio Theatre, Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center, 275 N. Eagleson Ave. Bloomington, IN 47405 
The Studio Theatre is just around the corner from Theatre’s administrative offices on the 2nd floor. 

Parking:  
Free parking is available on campus at specific locations during weekends. Unless otherwise posted, parking is free in IU parking garages beginning at 6 p.m. on Friday and all day Saturday and Sunday. The nearest parking garage to this event is East Parking Garage at 150 N. Eagleson Ave. at the corner of Eagleson Ave between Third Street and Seventh Street. Pay parking is available on the upper level on Thursday. 

Please see IU Office of Parking Operations for more information on this garage and other parking options. 
 
Accessible entrances: There are accessible entrances on the north and south sides of Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center. See a map of accessible entrances. Please note that the Studio Theatre is most readily accessible from the  

Accessible parking: The nearest accessible parking garage is the East Parking Garage at 150 N. Eagleson Ave. A limited number of other ADA-compliant spaces are available in the vicinity. Please see a list of accessible campus parking.