It Can't Happen Here

Description

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
adapted by Tony Taccone and Bennett S. Cohen

Directed by Maureen Hennigan

Remaining shows:

Friday, June 22  7pm.   Saturday, June 23 show looks likely to be rained out.  Check our website for updates - www.barnarts.org.

Friday, June 29 & Saturday, June 30 - 7pm,   Sunday July 1 - 4pm

Staring:
Aaron Michael Hodge
Abigail Bower
Alexis Taylor-Young
Amy Leavitt
Brendan Schwartz
Christina Coffman
D. Gene Kraus
Daniel Patterson
Erin Bennett
Jeff Tolbert
Larry Fuller
Lindy MacDonald
Marlena Farinas
Natalie Willow Carr
Peter Mendes
Quanah Tokarski
Tom Beck
Yael Taylor

It Can't Happen Here

A cautionary dark satire about the fragility of democracy and how fascism can take hold even in the land of liberty, It Can't Happen Here follows the ascent of a demagogue who becomes president of the United States after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values. Witnessing the new president’s tyranny from the sidelines is a Vermont newspaper editor who trusts the system will fix itself—until he ends up in a prison camp. Sinclair Lewis’ eerily prescient 1935 novel gets a fresh update in this new adaptation that examines what brings a citizenry to the point of sacrificing its own freedom and how a courageous few can prevail to overcome the fall.

The original novel by Sinclair Lewis was written at Twin Farms in Barnard in 1935 and will be performed just down the road.  The play is produced in association with film maker Teo Zagar's documentary It Happened Here about Dorothy Thompson's and Sinclair Lewis's lives in Barnard during the 1930's.