NYC Theater Company Pens Open Letter to President Obama

The Representatives, whose latest show, PRIVATE MANNING GOES TO WASHINGTON, which imagines a secret meeting between transgender Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning and President Barack Obama, have penned an open letter to the President in response to the recent US election results:

"An Open Letter to President Barack Hussein Obama:

Mr. President, we need you now more than ever.

Even before we reclaimed #BoycottHamilton this weekend in a fast, furious, and rallying call to arms, the question pulsing through our theatre community has been how in the world we use our art form-which relative to other forms has a vexingly slow turnaround time-as a platform for response.

As you know, theatre has the unique opportunity to engage thinking minds and open hearts with words intersected by design intersected by live, embodied human expression-and for the past five years, The Representatives has made it their mission to seize this opportunity to energize, to empathize, to galvanize... to forge change.

Now more than ever, on behalf of The Representatives and PRIVATE MANNING GOES TO WASHINGTON, President Obama we invite you to join us for an evening of intersections.

This play is about you. And it's about now. We're desperate to engage you, and our entire community, to listen carefully, to think critically, and to respond dutifully as we march forward together towards the setting sun over a darkening political landscape. While we have you in office, we need you now more than ever. We ask for your thinking mind and your open heart to join us.

With Respectful Urgency, The Representatives"

The play, which played to sold out houses and glowing international reviews this summer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, follows the journey of Internet pioneer and hacktivist Aaron Swartz, as he tries to construct a piece of theatrical activism to free Manning while he himself is fighting his own federal indictment for data theft. PRIVATE MANNING GOES TO WASHINGTON is a timely and trenchant new play about the power of theatre to create empathy, understanding, and justice in an age of virtual realities and manufactured truths.

The play, written by Stan Richardson, and starring Matt Steiner & E. James Ford, with design by Paul Hudson and dramaturgy by Jordan Schildcrout, was recently named one of the "5 Out-of-the-Box Shows" to see this winter by Playbill.

Performances for the very limited run of PRIVATE MANNING GOES TO WASHINGTON begin on November 29th at 8pm at The Studio @ 345 in the Meatpacking District. As with all productions by The Representatives, every performance is followed by a party (beer & wine provided). Tickets are now on sale at therepresentatives.org and brownpapertickets.com.