Arms Around America: LA-Based Theater Company

Arms Around America is a collection of short vignettes based on oral histories of six diverse families around the country whose lives have been shaped by guns. The play examines ways in which we enact fear, power, identity, loss, and love through our relationships with guns. Staged as a radio theater company performing a live broadcast, four actors navigate a forest of microphones, voicing dozens of characters. They’re accompanied by a live “Foley” artist performing sound effects. They share the stage with eight audience members seated at a kitchen table, who discuss the performance as it’s happening in real time.

Arms Around America is produced and directed by Dan Froot, whose work has toured internationally since 1983. Froot’s awards include a Bessie (New York Dance & Performance Award), a City of Los Angeles Artist Fellowship, and a Foundation for Jewish Culture Playwriting Fellowship.