Casting the Vote:

An American Dinner Party & Casting the Vote: A Call to A Count

“Democracy is created person to person, moment to moment.”

about

The dinner table is where everything happens: friends meet families, communities see themselves for the first time, relationships take shape, solidarity is discovered and affirmed, and of course, hunger is satisfied. Passing the salt, refilling the water glass, and offering a second helping – there, laid bare, is the subtle integrity of human beings being together. Our American stories, our mythologies, and our activism are written at the table between courses – but lately, we seem to be eating alone.

You’re invited to a very special dinner party – back to the table, the drawing board, and the stage, back to eye contact. We have something to talk about, something as American as family dinner: the right to vote.

Created by director Charlotte Brathwaite in collaboration with journalist and filmmaker June Cross, dramaturg Sunder Ganglani, and writer Janani Balasubramanian – CASTING THE VOTE is a participatory, community dinner based on recent scholarship and activism around voter suppression in The United States. It’s a performance, a family style meal, and an attempt to ask and answer the most difficult questions of our time – together. Come with open hearts, empty stomachs, and as much good faith as you can offer. Suppress neither your appetite nor voice.

The trailer for this work is  here.

dates

St. Nicholas Park, in collaboration with Harlem Impact Rep (Summer 2020)
La Mama Repertory Theater (Fall 2019)
MIT Theater and Performing Arts (Spring 2019)

funders

Brown Institute for Media Innovation, MIT Theater and Performing Arts