Tucson: Staged Reading at The Rogue Theatre, "It Can't Happen Here"

 

From: The Rogue Theatre [mailto:rogue@theroguetheatre.org]
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 10:56 PM
Subject: Join us for a play reading at The Rogue Theatre

 

 

 

 

The Rogue Theatre
300 East University Boulevard, Tucson, AZ - 520-551-2053 - www.TheRogueTheatre.org 

presents

It Can't Happen Here
by Sinclair Lewis and John C. Moffitt

 

A Staged Reading in celebration of the
75th anniversary of the Federal Theatre Project

Monday, October 24, 2011, 7:30 P.M.

Suggested donation: $10 per person.

 

The Rogue Theatre is taking part in a nation-wide effort to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Federal Theatre's production of It Can't Happen Here.

 

In October 1936, It Can't Happen Here opened in 22 theaters in 18 cities across the country. It played a total of 260 weeks and was seen by more than 316,000 people. On October 24, 2011, theatres across the country will present staged readings of the play to commemorate its original, nation-wide opening.

 

Hallie Flanagan, director of the Federal Theatre Project from 1935-39, said this about the play: "We want to do It Can't Happen Here because it is a play by one of our most distinguished American writers. We want to do it because it is about American life today, based on a passionate belief in American democracy. The play says that when dictatorship comes to threaten such a democracy, it comes in an apparently harmless guise, with parades and promises; but that when such dictatorship arrives, the promises are not kept and the parade grounds become encampments. We want to do It Can't Happen Here because, like Doremus Jessup [the novel's newspaperman and hero] and his creator, Sinclair Lewis, we, as American citizens and as workers in a theatre sponsored by the government of the United States, should like to do what we can to keep alive the 'free, inquiring, critical spirit' which is the center and core of a democracy."

 

"No one agreed on the play" Hallie Flanagan told an audience some months later,"but everyone had to see it. It was called good, bad, savage, mild, American, un-American, fascist, communist, too far left, too far right, a work of genius, a work of the devil."

 

A complete list of theatres participating in the nation-wide reading can be found here.

 

Free parking is available in our lot off Herbert Avenue
(the alley just east of the theatre).

 

Click  here to purchase tickets.

 

 

 

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