Our Story
We're making an original theater work about what happened when German playwright and provocateur Bertolt Brecht turned up in Santa Monica in 1941, a refugee from Nazi Germany. It was a time when the FBI kept
meticulous files on German war exiles in Los Angeles—people like Peter Lorre
and Thomas Mann and Brecht himself. A time when beloved artists like Paul Robeson and
Jerome Robbins were called on to testify about their political beliefs in front
of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. A time when civil liberties were
threatened by blacklists, and people of integrity
were forced to grapple with the true cost of living up to their principles.
Not unlike today, you might say.
Part 
cabaret and part courtroom, Galileo in America is nominally set in the 1940s. But in the surreal time-space of the piece, Brecht meets both a
character from one of his own plays and the FBI agents who had him under
surveillance as a suspected communist.
During
his exile in California, Brecht worked on a new production of a play he
had written about Galileo's struggle with the Catholic Church. The noted
film actor Charles Laughton helps him with the translation and takes on
the role of Galileo himself. Meanwhile, Brecht and his friends are
being dogged by FBI agents, while Brecht is having trouble with
Galileo's daughter Virginia, who is unhappy with her depiction in
Brecht's play. Then, at the very end of this troubled period, Brecht has
his own reckoning with authority when he is called to testify before
the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee.
The Show
It all comes together in late February 2012, when Galileo in America will have its world premiere
at the Contemporary Art Center at the University of California, Irvine. The show dates are February 23-25 and March 1-3, 2012, and you can buy tickets online (and don't forget you can get free tickets with donations of $100 and up). It will be the first full production in the new Experimental Media Production Lab, and we think it's going to be an exciting, provocative piece. But to get there from here, we need your help.
Who We Are
Galileo in America originated in a workshop organized by graduates of
the Columbia University Theater Program who wanted to create a piece
that spoke to their reality as working artists in Hollywood as well as
Americans living in doubtful times. The development process included
staged readings of the work-in-progress in October 2004 at the Goethe
Institute, Los Angeles, and the Villa Aurora, Pacific Palisades. We are grateful to all those who attended the workshops
and readings and offered their insights on the project.
Since the project's inception, writer and visual artist Antoinette LaFarge and director Robert Allen have been primarily responsible for its continued evolution. Over the past decade, they have jointly created a number of politically inspired, media-savvy performance works, including Hangmen Also Die (2010), Playing the Rapture (2008), Demotic (2006, 2004), The Roman Forum Project (2003), Virtual Live (2002), and The Roman Forum (2000).
But the upcoming production of Galileo in America rests greatly on the talents of the rest of the team they've assembled:
- Philip White (composer)
- Melody Brocious (costume design)
- Ian Garrett (lighting design)
- Sam Breen (Brecht)
- Toussaint Jean-Louis (Galileo/Laughton)
- Kristina Kahveciyan (Virginia)
- Christopher Rivas (FBI Agent 1)
- Tasha Tormey (Clown 1)
- Jay Wallace (Clown 2)
- Ashley Henley (stage manager)
What We Need & What You Get
Galileo in America has been a labor of love for most of the people involved up to this point. The early development stages have been partly supported by individual donors, and we're grateful to them for demonstrating their belief in the project. The university is providing us with space and tech support, but there's a limit to what it can do in this time of fiscal austerity. We've been able to raise $7,300 of our total needs for the upcoming production, but that leaves us $6,400 short of our goal of being able to provide all of the following:
- professional honorariums for our designers and collaborators
-
high-quality costume construction
-
high-quality set construction
- high-quality video documentation
Our primary goal is to be able to pay our people. We'll make do with smaller sets and simpler costumes if need be.
In gratitude for your help, we're offering a range of perks, from signed show posters and show tickets to a very special limited edition photobook of the performances.
Other Ways You Can Help
Please pass the word to all your friends. And of course: come see our shows!
