The Guthrie Theatre production of Suzan-Lori Parks’ In the Blood, opens April 25 at the Guthrie Lab. Previews begin on April 20. The show is scheduled to run through May 13.

Originally staged at the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival in fall 1999, the play is a deconstruction of Hawthorne’s classic, “The Scarlet Letter.” In Parks’ play, Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne, who was branded with the infamous “A,” is transformed into Hester La Negrita, a homeless woman with a needy brood whose knowledge of the alphabet only goes as far as “A.” Parks’ Hester lives beneath the Manhattan bridge with her five kids, all of whom have different fathers, all of whom treat her with a different kind of hypocrisy.

As reported, former director-in-residence at the Mark Taper Forum, Timothy Douglas (Syracuse Stage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky, Woolly Mammoth’s The Last Orbit of Billy Mars) helms the Guthrie production.

The cast for the show includes Kelly Taffe, Dion Flynn, Ray Anthony Thomas, Isabell Monk, Anthony Ciaravino and Marquetta Senters.

The creative team comprises set designer Tony Csek, costume designer Amelia Busse, lighting designer Michael Gilliam, sound designer Scott W. Edwards, dramaturg Jo Holcomb, voice and speech consultant Virginia Ray Ness, stage manager Martha Kulig, assistant director René Moreno and production assistant Theresa Schatz. Tickets range from $18 (previews) to $22-$26 after opening. The Guthrie Lab is located at 700 N. First St., Minneapolis. Tickets are available at the box office at (612) 377-2224.

—By Murdoch McBride