Before you think you know what this play will be about, just give it a few minutes. It’s not a sitcom. No, because you’re about to see a production that turns expectations upside down — and not in particularly comfortable ways. It’s the 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning “Fairview” by Jackie Sibblies Drury, directed by guest director Jackie Alexander, artistic director of the North Carolina Black Repertory Company. Be prepared for a mind-bending twist as we witness — under careful scrutiny — the middle-class Frasiers getting ready to celebrate Grandma’s birthday in a whole new way.

Reflecting on her work, Drury says, “That experience of someone watching me with suspicion, sort of expecting me to do something ... bad or illegal — that felt familiar” and was the impetus for the play. Critic Jacob R. Jimenez calls “Fairview” “a creative expression of the Black experience in white-dominated spaces and forthright critique of the white gaze.” Shock will, hopefully, lead to self-reflection.