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National Engagements to be Announced for 2025-2026
Work in progress showings presented in 2022 in Bloomsburg & Philadelphia, PA The Great American Gunshow is an interview-based project exploring American gun culture, gun violence and trauma, and the tension within our society over the “right of the people to keep and bear Arms”. Created in partnership with numerous host organizations, Gunshow will document, map, archive and reflect our collective experience through a series of theatrical presentations across the country, each imagined as a unique hybrid of a live performance and a participatory townhall event. Gunshow explores the humanity at the heart of the gun debate and invites participants to engage in a more nuanced discussion about guns in America by setting aside political polarization and investigating whether or not we can find common ground.
Special thanks to those who have expressed interest and supported this work thus far! In Fall of 2022, Gunshow was a recipient of the NEFA National Theatre Project award. With this support, work will begin in Philadelphia, and will subsidize future engagements in Detroit, New Orleans, and Whitesburg, Kentucky. We are currently in the planning phase for the Philadelphia-based iteration of this project, which will take us all the way through 2023, with presentations in Philly scheduled for Summer/Fall of 2024. Please check back for updates! |
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The Pilot Phase of this project was created in collaboration with Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, with work-in-progress showings at Caldwell Consistory and Asian Arts Initiative (Phila) in Aug 2022.
Host Partners: Asian Arts Initiative, Japan American Society of Greater Philadelphia, Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble (Bloomsburg PA), Mondo Bizarro (New Orleans), A Host of People (Detroit), and Appalshop/Roadside Theater (Whitesburg KY).
Project mentor: Ping Chong and Company
Design Strategy partner: Mike O’Bryan/Humanature
Host Partners: Asian Arts Initiative, Japan American Society of Greater Philadelphia, Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble (Bloomsburg PA), Mondo Bizarro (New Orleans), A Host of People (Detroit), and Appalshop/Roadside Theater (Whitesburg KY).
Project mentor: Ping Chong and Company
Design Strategy partner: Mike O’Bryan/Humanature
Support for the great american gunshow
The Great American Gunshow was made possible with funding, in part, through an Exchange Grant from the Network of Ensemble Theaters’ Travel & Exchange Network (NET/TEN), THE GREAT AMERICAN GUNSHOW is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, Asian Arts Initiative, and NPN. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov. THE GREAT AMERICAN GUNSHOW was made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Theater Project, with lead funding from the Mellon Foundation and additional funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Support for Team Sunshine Performance provided by the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Wyncote Foundation, and Independence Foundation.
Find out more about the project and our support from the National Performance Network by reading A Sense of Safety: Makoto Hirano on Assimilation, Fear, and Gun Reform
Read about THE GREAT AMERICAN GUNSHOW in WHYY and Pacific Citizen below