THEATER ENSEMBLE PRESENTS “MONTAGE OF AN AMERICAN DREAM DEFERRED”
December 13 @ 3:45 pm - 5:45 pm
Montage of an American dream deferred
– A newly devised verbatim play with music –
In 1931, when writer James Truslow Adams coined the term “the American Dream,” it had more to do with idealism than material prosperity. The American Dream, he wrote in “The American Epic”, was “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
“Montage of an American dream deferred” is a bit of an homage to Langston Hughes’ book of poetry. The play and Hughes’ poetry are about the lives and dreams of Americans and they ask if there is still an opportunity for all people to access this greater vision. This verbatim play is devised from personal interviews, Story Corps, and Quora. The Perpich Theater Ensemble has tackled the subject of the American Dream, offering a wide array of perspectives, and sometimes raising more questions than answers. Despite Truslow Adams’s definition, the ideals that America is supposed to represent have always been contested, marked by its conflicting challenges of its political nuances and paradoxical insights.
