Yup – it’s a fundraiser for your favorite bookstore! And a true community treasure that needs your support!
Voices of A People’s History
Good news from Rainbow fundraising headquarters: Plans for our production of _Voices of A People’s History_ are really coming together!
Our production team held auditions during the last two weeks of May. 22 people auditioned for 12 parts, and we selected fantastic group of talented performers, including several people in the Rainbow family.
The play is a series of monologues drawn from the primary source materials used by Howard Zinn in his iconic _A People’s History of the United States_. We’re “localizing” our version of the play by including speeches from the full breadth of Wisconsin, from Black Hawk’s surrender speech, to Allen Ruff reading Harvey Goldberg, to M Adams performing her speech from the WI Uprising last spring (“What Next: Mobilizing or Organizing?” which can be found in _We Are Wisconsin_, ed. Erica Sagrans).
If the auditions are any indication, this is going to be a memorable community theater experience. It locates current events in Wisconsin within the long history of the struggles of the oppressed against their oppressors, and the effect is powerful. Take the courtroom address of August Spies, which will be performed by Rainbow volunteer Carl Sack. Its famous concluding lines have a special resonance today: “If you think that by hanging us, you can stamp out the labor movement-the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil and live in want and misery – expect salvation – if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread upon a spark, but there, and there, and behind you and in front of you, and everywhere, flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out.”
Mark your calendars: There will be four performances at Broom Street Theater, three at 11 pm and one matinee at 4 pm: July 12 (11 pm), July 13 (11 pm), and July 14 (4 and 11 pm). July 14 will be the main event, with a matinee performance followed by a party / reception at Brink Lounge at 7 pm.
Cast:
M Adams – herself
Dina Carpenter-Graffy – Howard Zinn
Ingrid Kallick and Petra Wakker – Narrator
Cam Shimniok – Woody Guthrie
Mark Langenfeld – Bartolomeo Vanzetti,
Esther Schwarzbauer – Emma Goldman
Heidi Hinshaw – Mary Elizabeth Lease
Alan Hart – Bartolome de Las Casas
Shaquita Griffin – Sojourner Truth
Tracy Doyle Black Hawk
Carl Sack – August Spies
Allen Ruff – Harvey Goldberg
Odari McWhorter – Fred Hampton
Brandon Barwick – TBD
Cristina Lor – TBD
Eric Cobb – TBD
Thistle Petterson – musicianProduction Team:
Casem AbuLughod – Director
Brandon Barwick – Assistant Director
Amber Boudreau – Stage Manager
Adam Waldron – Artistic Director
Kati Umhoefer – Poster Designer
Matt Sienkiewicz – Co-producer
Colin Gillis – Co-producer
