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A Brechtian exploration of 1960s Bay Area anti-capitalists and their efforts at igniting a new American revolution, this is a play in perpetual struggle session with itself--but like, in a nice way! FREE FREE FREE FREE is based on the true story of the Diggers, an anarchist theater collective formed out of the San Francisco Mime Troupe; the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and Students for a Democratic Society; and the rise of Asian American solidarity. Each group fights against capital and exploitation, fights for liberation, and envisions an America and a world beyond constant war, immeasurable poverty, and global hunger. But how the f do we, they, we get from here to there?
2018 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Finalist
2018 Exponential Festival , dir. Jaki Bradley
2017 Play Date at Pete’s, reading, dir. Lila Rachel Becker
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Akyiaa Wilson, Exponential 2018. Photo by Evan Zimmerman
“JESSIE. I’m standing outside the offices of Ramparts magazine, a safe distance back. Behind the line of cops who’ve arrived to case these armed and uppity black men. Bobby and Huey and about six other Panthers are circled around Mrs. X, Betty Shabazz, who’s at the magazine to give an interview. She’s escorted up the steps into the building and then the Panthers form a barricade between the street and the door. They hold their rifles up to the sky, not pointing them at anyone, not breaking the law in that way, but you’ve never seen so many white cops so scared.”
Songia Xiao, Will Turner
“ROSE. In America, where they were born, my parents are Chinese. They think, thought, owning a house would change that. I guess it did, or it gives them a security that doesn’t exist in any other way for them. It is enormous, owning property when twenty years ago it was illegal, or as good as. I see how proud they are. They’ve made their own belonging. But for me... I still don’t belong anywhere.”
JJ Bozeman, Akyiaa Wilson, Will Turner
“VICTOR. You know what the point of ideology is? Of having a platform of beliefs? It keeps you going. And it tells you who your comrades are. Comrades aren’t just friends. They’re committed to doing the work with you. So when absolutely everything is falling apart, you have a group of people you trust to keep doing the work.”
Will Turner, Seth Moore
“SEAN. I don’t see what it matters, if you’re hungry you’re hungry and if you’re poor no government on earth give a fuck whether you live hungry or starve to death. ‘Working class power’ might have meant something when everyone worked in the factories and in the yards. Where’s your revolution when there are no factories or yards left?”