Three years later and I'm still working on American Home. In 2008 it was a finalist for Echo Theatre's Big Shout Out Contest, a semi-finalist for the Princess Grace Award for Playwriting and in 2011 it was the Winner of Chicago's American Blues Theater's Blue Ink Award. As the winner of the Blue Ink Award it will receive a staged reading by American Blues Theater in Chicago - TBD.
about American Home
“To possess one’s own home, however small, is the hope of every family in our country. That is the American ideal, born of an exquisite sentiment, nurtured by a long national tradition, and proved right by its innumerable practical advantages.” – President Herbert Hoover, 1932
What happens when we fail at achieving that ideal -- the possession of one’s own home? What happens when we achieve it only to have it taken away? What is home and why is it so powerfully linked to our success as Americans? These are the questions explored in American Home.
Florence Rainwater is a ninety-year-old widow in Ann Arbor, Michigan who just wants to be in her home with her memories until her last day. Mike and Dana Washington are a thirty-something couple who thought they would be in their dream home in the hills of Los Angeles forever, or at least until they could trade-up. Prosperity Preacher Paula never imagined in her wildest dreams that her Florida mega-church would ever be threatened by foreclosure. And Robbie West, Michigan cop, just wants to help people and does not enjoy kicking them out of their homes.
American Home is about Americans forced to renegotiate the American Dream, the extremes people go to when faced with losing everything and the resilience of the American spirit.
If you would like to read American Home, please contact me at loveinthetimeofforeclosure at gmail.com
If you'd like more information about me as a playwright and my plays, visit me at my playwriting site: iamsaw.com
