UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance presents Dan Froot & Company’s “Arms Around America” World Premiere at the Nimoy Theater at Nimoy Theater

UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) presents the World premiere of Dan Froot & Company's “Arms Around America” on Friday, November 15 and Saturday, November 16, 2024 at 8:00pm, in Los Angeles at the Nimoy Theater. The live theatrical performances explore the stories of real families from around the country whose lives have been shaped by guns.

Artistic Director Dan Froot and his compassionate associates spent several years conducting six book-length oral histories of families in Southern California, South Florida, and Western Montana. These oral histories provide the basis for “Arms Around America,” which also has a limited podcast series that launched in the summer. Tickets are priced at $38.08 and can be purchased at: https://ucla.evenue.net/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/SEGetGroupList?prc=C24DAN&caller=PR&linkID=ucla-multi

Ticket purchasers will receive a Know Before You Go email approximately forty-eight hours before the performance with information on the venue, parking, length of performance, pre- and post-show activities and other information. For more information about the Nimoy Theater visit: https://cap.ucla.edu/ucla-nimoy-theater

About “Arms Around America”
By opening a window into these families’ lives, Dan Froot & Company brings together a constellation of stories that represent diverse perspectives and fosters dialogue around the complex roles that guns play in our society. “Arms Around America” focuses not on guns themselves, but on the ways that fear, love, power, identity, and entitlement are enacted through our relationships with guns, against the backdrop of socio-economic upheavals, culture wars, and other external dynamics. Every member of Dan Froot & Company believes that telling our own stories, and listening to others', decreases fear, increases respect and understanding, and helps us all learn how to talk to each other (rather than talk at each other) about gun-related issues.

Staged as if a radio theater company is performing a live broadcast, “Arms Around America” will include four actors navigating a forest of microphones while voicing dozens of characters. Froot will create live foley sound effects with an eclectic collection of everyday objects. Wholly contributing to the experience is a three-piece band, bringing the score to life.

There will also be a diverse cross-section of community members seated at an actual kitchen table on stage (space allowing) or adjacent during the entire performance and the audience will hear from them afterwards as they unpack the themes presented. Froot elaborates: “‘Arms Around America’ experiments with the audio theater format we began exploring in “Pang!”.

Creating a work of national scope around such an urgent social issue challenges us as artists and activists to participate in wider socio-political discourses. Neither pro- nor anti-gun, ‘Arms Around America’ is an anti-violence and pro-dialogue project.” For more information about “Arms Around America” visit: https://www.danfroot.com/arms-around-america