The Podcast Era Mashes Up The Classic Radio Drama With PANG! - STORIES FROM ANOTHER AMERICA At Autorino Center

The Autorino Center for the Arts and Humanities at the University of Saint Joseph announces the presentation of Dan Froot & Company in Pang! - Stories from Another America, a unique theatrical experience that mashes up the podcast era and the classic radio drama. The performance is Friday, October 25 at 7:30pm with tickets available as part of the Autorino Center's Pay-It-Forward program made possible by prior gifts of generosity. Attendees can choose their own ticket price knowing that their generosity will underwrite future free and Pay-It-Forward performances

Pang! is an evening of highly original theatre pieces about real families facing the challenges of contemporary working class life in America - from hunger and gun violence to foreclosure and anti-immigration bias - with love, humor, and intelligence. This "unplugged" presentation of Pang! is staged as a radio show with Foley sound effects for a live podcast. If you are a fan of The Moth, Snap Judgment or This American Life, you'll love Pang!

Pang! is a response to our increasing socioeconomic disparity. Over the course of eight months, Dan Froot and Company created six book-length oral histories of families living with food insecurity in Cedar Rapids, Los Angeles and Miami. They then collaborated with one family from each city to devise each of the 30-minute stories that comprise Pang!. The families consult with the Company continuously throughout the adaptation, rehearsal and performance processes.

Dan Froot is a producer, composer, choreographer, writer, saxophonist, dancer, actor and director. He has performed his dance, music and theater work throughout the U.S. and overseas since 1983, and has worked with artists as diverse as Yoshiko Chuma, Ping Chong, Mabou Mines, Dan Hurlin, Ralph Lemon, Guy Klucevsek and Victoria Marks. Dan and long-time collaborator David Dorfman have co-created a popular and ongoing series of interdisciplinary duets collectively entitled "Live Sax Acts." He received a Bessie (New York Dance & Performance Award) for his music/theater piece, Seventeen Kilos of Garlic, and a City of Los Angeles Artist Fellowship and a playwriting commission from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture for his gangster-vaudeville, Shlammer. He recently completed a national tour of Who's Hungry, a collaboration with celebrated New York puppet artist Dan Hurlin and Seattle-based composer Amy Denio. Who's Hungry tells life-stories of individuals living with hunger and/or homelessness in Los Angeles. Dan's current project, Pang!, is a triptych of live radio plays based on the life stories of three families living with hunger in Miami, Cedar Rapids, and South Central Los Angeles.

This Pay-It-Forward performance has been made possible by donations made at previous Pay-It-Forward performances. Attendees can choose their own ticket price knowing that their generosity will underwrite future free and Pay-It-Forward performances. Tickets can be reserved by visiting autorino.usj.edu, by calling (860) 231-5555, or purchased at the door at the Frances Driscoll Box Office. The Autorino Center is located on the campus of the University of Saint Joseph, 1678 Asylum Avenue in West Hartford.

Pang! at the Autorino Center has been made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts, Expeditions Program and the Connecticut Office of the Arts.

The Autorino Center has inaugurated its new Faculty Fellows program with the 2019-2020 season, an educational endeavor that augments the performances that occur onstage with online content curated by University of Saint Joseph faculty. For Pang!, Benjamin Peters, PhD, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Honors Program, has assembled supplementary materials that can be found at autorino.usj.edu/facultyfellows.