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Previews: April 20-23 & 27

April 28 - May 21

7:30 PM

American Century - Part 1

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TICKETS:

Free ticket policy in 2023

LOCATION:

The Space at Irondale

85 S Oxford Street

Brooklyn, NY 11217

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American Century Part I is a non-linear musical in which the Irondale Ensemble explores original songs, music, and a variety of acting styles to examine art and culture during the emergence of the United States as a world power; straddling the events and impacts of the Great Depression, World War II and its social and political outcomes, The Civil Rights Movement, McCarthyism, and the progression of liberalism during the 20th century.

Using seven key great American plays as source material, the evening-length work is a cross between an open rehearsal and an in-depth investigation into how theater was influenced by world events and how the writing styles of seven great playwrights created what we now call the American Theater.

The plays: The Verge by Susan Glaspell (1921), The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (1928), Machinal by Sophie Treadwell (1928), A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (1947), The Crucible by Arthur Miller (1953), Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill (1956), and A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine-Hansberry (1959).

The journey through these works and their central lessons amplify the growth of American theater and the evolution of American social and political culture, from vaudeville to the dressed-up melodramas, to an era that is seen as one of the greatest in the three thousand years of western theater making. The Irondale ensemble composes its own origin story of how this period of time has influenced how we see the world today and experience the theatre of today, without apology or retreat.

All tickets are FREE during Irondale's 40th season. Reserve your tickets now!

"If the theater doesn’t grow up, the American public doesn’t grow up either,” he wrote. “Instead, it gets hotted up, every 20 years or so, over the same issues — sex, politics and religion — the three matters that art, according to some strangely permanent lunatic fringe of American opinion, must never be allowed to deal with, at least not in any open manner." – Neil Genzingler

INSPIRE 2023

We are delighted to celebrate our 40th Anniversary Galanand to honor Irondale Founder and Carnegie Mellon University Professor, Barbara Mackenzie-Wood and the Children of Ukraine, who continue to find light and joy in dark times.

Click on the button below to learn about the event, view sponsorship options, purchase single tickets or donate to support our work!

INSPIRE 2023
The space at Irondale Building
Phone: (718) 488.9233Fax: (718) 788.0607info@irondale.org
85 South Oxford Street
Fort Greene, Brooklyn 11217
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