‘Arms Around America’ Brings Gun Talk to the Kitchen Table

Dan Froot brings his “Arms Around America” ensemble in a show examining America’s relationship with guns to the Lehman Theater at Miami Dade College’s Lehman Theater on Thursday, Feb. 20 and Friday, Feb. 21 through Feb. 21. (Photo courtesy of Rose Eichenbaum)

Gun control.

If you’re looking for a surefire way to start off a debate, all you have to do is utter those two words, then step back and watch the fireworks explode.

And most people, who are either vehemently for it or adamantly against it, will dig their heels in deep, refusing to share a common ground.

That’s where Dan Froot & Co.’s “Arms Around America” comes in.

Dan Froot in “Arms Around America.” The live radio drama, presented by Dan Froot & Co., Live Arts Miami and Miami Light Project, examines America’s relationship with guns. (Photo courtesy of Bailey Holiver)

On Thursday and Friday, Feb. 20 through Feb. 21, Miami Dade College’s Live Arts Miami, Miami Light Project and Froot, a performance artist, composer and musician, will present a live radio drama examining America’s relationship with guns. The show, based on three years of stories collected from Miami, Montana and Los Angeles, will feature an ensemble of cast members including Donna Simone Johnson, Justin Austin and two students from the New World School of the Arts with an original score by Julio Montero.

The conversation continues as students at MDC’s North Campus will be encouraged to explore the issue offstage through open mic events, songwriting and poetry workshops.

“The thesis for this piece is understanding that there are huge divides between people who want to hold on to their guns and people who want there to be less guns and more restrictions,” says Froot.

His goal is to bring both sides together and notes that there is one area that most people agree on.

“Every gun owner I speak with believes that gun violence is bad. And so that’s our common ground.”

One way to highlight commonalities is to foster a community-based discussion right before the conclusion of each show.

“As part of the performance, we have eight local people on stage sitting at a kitchen table who comment on the performance and its relevance to their lives and their communities,” says Froot.

Cast member Donna Simone Johnson appears in “Arms Around America.” The show is based on three years of stories collected from Miami, Montana and Los Angeles.
(Photo courtesy of Bailey Holiver)

Kathryn Garcia, executive director at Live Arts Miami, says that Froot’s method in broaching such an important topic, while incorporating individual stories, is one of the aspects she loves most about the show.

“The thing that really resonated with me was this emphasis on dialog versus debate,” remarks Garcia.  “He takes these super complex stories and he humanizes them. And what’s beautiful about this project is the centering of these stories and trying to model civic dialog so that no matter where we stand on contentious issues, we can come together as members of this community to find ways forward”.

Beth Boone, Miami Light Project’s artistic and executive director, agrees.

She says that the play not only does a great job of tackling an incendiary issue but also promises to deliver a unique experience.

“It is an unexpected evening at the theater,” says Boone.  “It is a beautiful, lively piece that is done with a master of craft.

She explains that the onstage radio play with sound effects has an energy.

Arms Around America is a project of Los Angeles-based theater group, Dan Froot & Co. that conducted book-length oral histories of families whose lives have been shaped by guns, in South Florida, Montana and Southern California. The live theater work is being performed in each family’s home community and around the country. (Photo courtesy of Bailey Holiver)

“People will be delighted to experience the work and will understand that while it is dealing with a difficult subject matter and difficult stories, it is an inspiring evening in the theater. Dan takes their very private, often painful stories and turns that into something  poetic and universal, that human beings can then watch and see themselves in.”

And if fans of Froot’s work feel that the format for  “Arms Around America” feels familiar, it’s because it is. This isn’t the first production Froot has launched that is designed to address a larger conversation.

“Pang!,” a radio drama, held the same objective and unwittingly served as a springboard for discussing guns and gun culture.

“We felt we had gotten to a place with our production where we were really making an impact in the communities where we were working, and we wanted to think about what else we might apply this model to,” explains Froot. “We’d been working with food insecurity for about 10 years or longer, and as we were finishing the production in Miami, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting happened up in Parkland, and we turned to each other and we said, ‘Okay. That’s next.’ And that began our journey and we haven’t looked back.”

Froot says that the reaction to the play and his “Arms Around America” podcast has been overwhelmingly positive. So much so that he has encountered those who have modified their views because of it. This includes a gun rights advocate who will be a guest on their podcast and is slated to appear in a kitchen table discussion in Salt Lake City next year.

“His name is Clark Aposhian and he is a really strong Second Amendment advocate,” says Froot. “This is somebody who went to the Supreme Court to represent the case for bump stocks. Bump stocks turn a semi-automatic firearm into essentially a machine gun . . .  he and I really come from different perspectives. I’ve met with him several times, and he’s still very much a gun rights advocate, and will always be.”

Ensemble cast member Justin Austin in Dan Froot & Co.’s “Arms Around America.”
(Photo courtesy of Bailey Holiver)

However, Froot presented one instance that caused Aposhian to slightly shift gears.

“I think that a lot of people feel like this is a kind of non-partisan production in that we’re not saying that guns are good or bad. We’re saying here’s a family where the dad took his own life, and now the son wants to learn how to shoot, and the mom has to make a decision whether to allow her son to feel close to the dad by learning to shoot, or to make sure that the son never comes in contact with guns because of their family history.”

Aposhian has since advocated for a law that allows police departments to accept people’s guns when someone is mentally unstable.

“A lot of his gun rights community were really upset with him for doing that but he is somebody who really supports ending suicide, and he holds that and his support for gun rights at the same time,” says Froot. “So he, at first, did not want to have anything to do with our production, but we found this common ground around suicide, and he is a huge advocate for what we’re doing. Now he’s connecting us to legislators in Utah and all kinds of gun rights communities.”

Froot said that along the way he has also realized a thing or two.

“I’ve learned how naive I am,” admits Froot.

Where he once believed that guns shouldn’t exist at all, he says that he has discovered that the vast majority of gun owners are responsible and educated in safety and proper gun practices.

In addition, Froot says that he has since realized that the history of the United States shows a propensity in continuously supporting gun ownership.

“I learned that the idea that we would do something like what Australia did, which was to basically take away the population’s guns, a very effective way of decreasing gun violence, that would never, ever happen in this country because of the way that it’s written into the

Constitution and the way that this country is built on a history of violence.”

But most of all, producing the play has only underscored what he already knows and that is how to implement the finest technique in bringing people together.

“I’ve learned that the best thing that we can all do is to learn to listen.”

WHAT:  “Arms Around America”

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20 and Friday, Feb. 21

WHERE: MDC North Campus, Lehman Theater, 11380 NW 27th Ave., Room 1315, Miami

COST:  $35, $10 with ticket code LOVE 

INFORMATION: Live Arts Miami or Miami Light Project

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