Play by Adam Bock
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Director | Kyle Stoffers
Associate Producer & Sound Designer | Brent Ervin-Eickhoff
Lighting Designer & Master Electrician | Garrett Steinke
Featuring | dado, Jessica Ervin, Jacob Alexander, and Dano Duran
Director’s Note
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”I was in elementary school when 9/11 happened and Nationalism hit a peak and in middle school when the "Torture Memos" regarding the authorization of torture treatment of Iraq War detainees were leaked to the press in 2004. Growing up in a very rural/ suburban, apolitical Indiana environment I somehow never heard about the Memos and, even later, whenever I did learn about the torture of prisoners in the Middle East or Guantanamo Bay it was always presented as justifiable.
"We need to find out what people are going to do before they do it." -Beverly Wilkins
Adam Bock wrote this play in response to those memos and it premiered in 2007 at the end of the Bush Administration as more and more information came to light and Bush administration officials, including President George W. Bush, flocked to the television news outlets to glibly proclaim that the torture was justified "Because the lawyers said it was legal."
Fast forward to 2024 and as an American, this glibness toward torture and atrocities comes into even clearer focus in the play. We see the same level of xenophobia, paranoia, and nationalism as the genocide of the Palestinian people plays in a loop on our phones via Instagram and TikTok and Twitter.
"She sees pictures of the people over there and what we are doing to them and she cries. I keep telling her 'Don't look at those pictures.'" - Edward Raymond
So, what are we supposed to do? In the face of so many national and global crises, do we flee, feign loyalty, or become active agents in propagating these problems? How do we react when we discover the wrongs we have committed? How do we live our day to day lives in juxtaposition? What are the consequences? The play does not answer these questions for us, but I hope that they do shine a mirror at the audience for them to question their culpability in these matters and to perhaps make a decision rather than sit idly by.
In response, please consider a donation to Palestine Children's Relief Fund. Visit www.pcrf.net for more information.”
Summer 2024
Kalliope & Co
A Red Orchid Theatre
