Big Table Productions to Host Fundraiser Reading of IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE

Big Table Productions will host a Fundraiser For Good: A reading of It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis on Friday April 17 at 8 p.m., at the Tina Packer Playhouse at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts.

As a novel written in 1936, the 2016 theatrical adaptation by Tony Taccone and Bennett S. Cohen tells the story of a Vermont newspaper editor caught in the whirlwind election of a larger-than-life Presidential candidate, Buzz Windrip. Brash, bold, charming, and funny, Buzz takes the White House and then the country by storm. Minute Men are deployed throughout the nation to enforce order. Lockdowns commence. Martial law is declared. And then, the citizens begin to respond.

The original play premiered in 1936, presented by the Federal Theatre Project; it opened simultaneously in 18 cities across the country. In response to the play's anti-fascist message and nationwide impact, The Dies Senate Committee was created. It shut down the Federal Theatre Project and then went on to serve as the model for Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee hearings.

Judy Braha (Co-Artistic Director at Great Barrington Public Theater and former head of the MFA Directing program at Boston University) is on board to direct.

This reading is presented as part of a nationwide series Fundraisers For Good: A Reading of It Can't Happen Here set to take place throughout 2026.