Thaw (Theaters Against War) Freedom Follies

(PRWEB) May 23 2004--MAY FREEDOM FOLLIES -- IT'S HAPPENED BEFORE: A HISTORY OF U.S. MILITARY OCCUPATION Monday, May 24 at 7:30 p.m. The Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce Street off Seventh Avenue, Greenwich Village (www.cherrylanetheatre.com) Trains: 1/9 to Christopher Street; A/C/E to West 4th Street Hosted by Noel Salzman and Sophia Skiles

Fallujah, Vieques, Mindanao, Okinawa, Port-Au-Prince…The US currently has troops in roughly 70% of the world’s countries – not including the increasing use of sub-contractors and unclassified military operations.

THAW responds to the escalation of violence, human rights abuses and the use of torture in Iraq with May's gathering of artistic forces to look at both the long, sordid history of U.S. military occupation, as well as to the growing tide of protest worldwide. From Wounded Knee to Abu Ghraib – with notable US clandestine sponsorships of puppet regimes and/or supplying of money and arms to wreak turmoil in East Timor, Chile, Palestine, Equador, just to name a few countries – the export of US-style democracy historically arrives through the use of devastating force.

The line up features material related not only to the current US occupation of Iraq, but also to its long and troubled history of creating, sustaining and exacerbating international conflict with military might: poetry from Filip Marinovic, protest songs from Grandmother Against the War Joan Wile, as well as Alec Duffy, and Eamonn Farrell, excerpts from Ron Brynaert’s "The Rules of Embedment or Why Are We Back in Iraq?", Mark Eisenstein’s "World War Now or How Seymour Got His Gun Off", S.E.E. Theatre’s current production of Dalton Trumbo’s "Johnny Got His Gun", original material from singer-songwriter Laura Schleifer, performer Elliott Crown’s reading of an interview with former German cabinet member Andreas von Bulow, a searing curtain speech from playwright Gene Ruffini, found texts performed by Loretta AuditoriumTheatre and DadaNY’s Joanie Hieger Zosike and inaugurating our Virtual Follies: Dale Hamilton’s submission from the Great White North, and much more!

THAW (Theaters Against War) is an international network of theater artists responding to the United States' ongoing "War on Terror," aggressive and unilateral foreign policies, and escalating attacks on civil liberties in the U.S. and throughout the world.