THEATER
Dan Froot & Company’s
Arms Around America
Friday, March 21, 7:30pm
Saturday, March 22, 2:00pm & 7:30pm
The Lorraine Boccardo Theater
“Gut-wrenching performances.” — New York Times
Arms Around America is a community-based theater project investigating how Americans experience fear, power, identity, loss, and love through our relationships with guns. The show is staged as a live radio-theater broadcast. Four actors voice dozens of characters in a constellation of six short plays based on real families whose lives have been shaped by guns. They are accompanied by a sound effects artist (Dan Froot) and Julio Montero’s driving score.
The plays focus not on guns themselves, or even their political dimensions, but on our relationships with guns and with each other. Members of our local community will host the evening from their seats at an on-stage kitchen table. After the performance, the kitchen table participants will discuss the relevance of the plays to themselves and our communities.
Arms Around America is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by CAP UCLA and NPN.
Arrive Early for the Conversation!
March 22, 2024 // 6:30pm
Guest Scholar: Dan Froot, MFA World Culture and Dance
Discussion: Reflecting diverse perspectives on gun safety and legislation through community-based storytelling.
Arms Around America is a project of Los Angeles-based theater group, Dan Froot & Co, who conducted oral histories of families whose lives have been shaped by guns (in South Florida, Montana and Southern California). The group has adapted these families’ stories into a live theater work, seeking to inspire hope and foster dialogue around the complex roles that guns play in our society.
Dan Froot & Company “believe that telling our own and listening to others’ stories decreases fear and increases respect and understanding, and that this can move us toward productive dialogue.” In addition to facilitating engaged post-show conversations with audience members, the group also creates community gatherings that foster dialogue around hunger, race, the gun debate, and other pressing social issues.
This program is made possible through a grant from Utah Humanities. Utah Humanities strengthens Utah communities by cultivating connections, deepening understanding, and exploring our complex human experience.
This presentation of Arms Around America was made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Project, with lead funding from the Mellon Foundation and additional support from the Doris Duke Foundation.
This programming is supported in part by Creative West and the National Endowment for the Arts.
