Minneapolis’ Mixed Blood Theatre’s production of “Theory of Mind” will be performed at the Hormel Historic Home on Tuesday. This sensitive yet unsentimental story presents a portrait of a young man with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Bill is a college-bound 17-year-old, equipped with scholastic brilliance but low emotional intelligence; a keen self-awareness yet an inability to read social cues, and a charming directness yet prone to taking everything he hears literally. His outing with a young woman becomes a memorable, insightful look at the tugs, shifts, and about-faces found on the autism spectrum.

“Theory of Mind” is written by Ken LaZebnik, a veteran Mixed Blood company member whose other writing credits include “Touched by an Angel” and the Mixed Blood-produced plays “Calvinisms,” “League of Nations,” “Vestibular Sense,” and “On The Spectrum,” the latter two also autism-themed.

First toured by Mixed Blood in 2009, Theory of Mind again features Jason Paul Andrews as Bill in a cast that also includes Thallis Santesteban (returning to the role in which she toured for Mixed Blood in 2012) and Raúl Ramos. The production is directed by Skyler Nowinski, who played Bill in Mixed Blood’s previous tour of Theory of Mind.

The show is one of four productions toured this season by Mixed Blood, a professional, multi-racial theatre company based in Minneapolis that promotes cultural pluralism and individual equality through artistic excellence. The other touring productions include the Martin Luther King biography “Dr. King’s Dream”; “Daughters of Africa, a music-driven history of African American women”; and “Minnecanos, a look at a century’s worth of Chicano cultural history in Minnesota.”

Theory of Mind begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Hormel Historic Home. Tickets for the play can be reserved by calling 507-433-4243 and will also be available at the door.

The event is sponsored by The Parenting Resource Center, Peer Power Partners Mentoring Program, and the Hormel Historic Home.

April is Autism Awareness Month

Autism and autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are both general terms for a group of complex disorders of brain development.

These are characterized by varying degrees of difficulties in social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, repetitive behaviors and sensory processing. The Center for Disease Control identifies one in 68 American children as on the autism spectrum, a tenfold increase in prevalence in the last 40 years. It is four to five times more common among boys than girls. There is no known cause of autism. Symptoms tend to emerge between two and three years of age, vary widely and are life-long.

Early identification and intervention with evidenced based therapies can significantly improve outcomes.

In Austin, the Hormel Historic Home offers summer camps, respite nights, and educational outreach opportunities for families affected by autism. For more information contact the Hormel Historic Home at 433-4243, or www.hormelhistorichome.org, and the Parenting Resource Center at 437-8330, www.familiesandcommunities.org.

This information was gathered from www.autismspeaks.org.