The American Dream Performance
Start: Slow entrance Street scene some street performers enter set up in corners, business person enters, a man waiting, American workers,Street performers begin, add hustle, liberty girls in back , add tourists, more businessmen and then
Dominic: We are Ms. Granniss’ 3rd period Honors English class. We are performing The American Dream an original work that includes “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, “I Hear America Singing” by Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes response, “I Too.” We are trying to show these poems’ themes involving the American Dream, outsiders becoming insiders and racial acceptance.
Tourists point, cellphone photos of “Liberty” all turn
Liz: Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
Girls: A mighty woman with a torch
Kalen: whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
All: Mother of Exiles.
Liz: From her beacon-hand glows world-wide
Girls: welcome
All: welcome
Kalen: her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
Lydia: “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!”
Liz: cries she with silent lips.
(On the following line, move in groups to statue)
Lydia: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses
All: yearning to breathe free
Lydia: The wretched refuse of your teeming shore send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
Girls: I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
(Speakers DS in line, all others back to chorus)
Lydia: So what is America? Who defines it?
Kalen: The American Dream is having a house
Uli: The American Dream is to be what you want
Liz: The American Dream is eating a fried Twinkie
Dominic: The American Dream is not worrying about your children being torn apart limb from limb by bears
Tim: The American Dream is profound
Erika: The American Dream is what you make it
Chorus: I hear I hear I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear
Anna: Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong
Dominic: Is it the mechanic?
Jen: The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
Atticus: The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
Chorus1 (Boys): Do you hear America singing?
Chorus 2 (girls): the varied carols I hear
Uli: Is it the fisherman?
Josh: The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat
Erica and Ben (together): I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother.
Anna and Jen (together) the deck-hand singing on the steamboat deck,
Atticus and Josh (together) The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench
Kalen: These are the people
Uli: America is its people
Dominic: Who is included in the American Dream?
Lydia: Who is left out?
Erika: They send me to eat in the kitchen
Ben: When company comes
Erica and Ben (together): I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother.
Tim: the hatter singing as he stands, The woodcutter’s song,
Edwina: the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning
Chorus: I hear America singing
Ben: But I laugh
Erika: And eat well
B&E: (threatening) and grow strong
Ben: Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table
Erika: When company comes.
Lydia &Liz: The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Liberty Girls: (quietly) Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
Erika: Nobody’ll dare say to me,…Then.
Ben: “Eat in the kitchen,”
Chorus: I hear America singing
Uli: Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else
Kalen: The day what belongs to the day—
Erika: They’ll see how beautiful I am
E&B: And be ashamed—
Worker1: And be ashamed—
Liberty Girls: Be ashamed
Dominic: at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
Stacey, Isbella and Atticus: singing
Liberty Girls: singing
(Stacey and Isabelle start song)
Workers: singing
Boys: their strong melodious songs
Girls: We hear America Singing
(In bursts, students cross and mingle – hug, high five)
All (popcorn) I am America
All: We are America
