Category: Current New Deal News

IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE!

LOCAL PERSONALITIES PRESENT READING OF SINCLAIR LEWIS’
IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE!
Mon., Nov. 6, at 7 PM
Adobe Rose Theatre, 1213 Parkway Dr., Suite B, Santa Fe, NM 87507
A Benefit for the National New Deal Preservation Association
www.brownpapertickets.com, to reserve tickets (Santa Fe, NM) An 80-year-old Sinclair Lewis play about the election of a totalitarian president and the manipulation of the press will be brought back to life in Santa Fe, one of many communities throughout the country staging revival performances of It Can’t Happen Here!

The New Mexico Chapter of National New Deal Preservation Association (NNDPA), a non-profit group, is putting on a dramatic reading of Lewis’ semi-satirical play, based on his same-titled novel, on Monday, Nov. 6, at 7 p.m. at the Adobe Rose Theatre. Tickets are $15, and can be purchased at www.brownpapertickets.com, or by calling the NNDPA office at 505-690-5845. All proceeds will benefit the NNDPA.

“Given the current political climate, this groundbreaking play is quite timely,” said NNDPA Executive Director Kathy Flynn. “It was performed in 21 U.S. theaters in seventeen states on October 27, 1936 in productions sponsored by the Federal Theater Project, a program of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA). Fast forward to 2016 after the U.S. presidential election when interest in the play was revived and again performed nationwide. After seeing it in Albuquerque in October 2016, our board wanted to bring it to Santa Fe and is excited about the cast being put together to share the relevant plot.”

Former Lensic Executive Manager, Bob Martin will direct the reading with participation from an unusual cast of prominent Santa Feans and local actors. Some of those on the cast list include Martin, Pen La Farge, Hollis Walker, Monica Sosaya Halford, retired New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Patricio Serna, and Jennifer Graves.

Flynn founded the NNDPA in 1998 to promote nationwide the identification, documentation, preservation and education about the many New Deal programs in visual and performing arts, literature, crafts, structures, infrastructure and environmental projects created between 1933-43. To date, the NM Chapter has raised over $500,000 to catalogue and help restore more than 150 New Deal art pieces, monuments, and buildings in New Mexico.