Arms Around America is a devised, community-based theater project investigating ways in which we enact fear, power, identity, loss, and love through our relationships with guns. It culminates in a collection of short plays and monologues based on oral histories of families whose lives have been shaped by guns. A bar brawl devolves, literally, into a confrontation between cowboys and Indians. A widow agonizes over giving away her veteran husband’s historical rifle collection. Fresh out of jail, a young man searches for the younger brother he mentored in their adolescence on the streets. Staged as a radio theater company performing a live broadcast, three actors navigate a forest of microphones, voice dozens of characters, and create live “Foley” sound effects at tables piled with bizarre items. The performers share the stage with eight audience members seated at a kitchen table, who comment on the action as it is happening.
Land Acknowledgement: I live and work on land for which the original caretakers are the Tongva and Gabrielino peoples.
