Griffin Theatre Company Announces Casting for World Premiere of IN TO AMERICA

Griffin Theatre Company is pleased to announce the 13-member cast of its world premiere IN TO AMERICA, a 400-year journey through the immigrant experience, written by Artistic Director Bill Massolia (Letters Home) and directed by Dorothy Milne.

IN TO AMERICA will feature Juanita Andersen, Katie Campbell, Jennifer Cheung, Aneisa Hicks, Christopher W. Jones, FranCisco Lopez, Adam Marcantoni, Sean McGill, Rasika Ranganathan, Omer Abbas Salem, Scott Shimizu, Jason VonRohn and Elizabeth H. Williams.

Part of Griffin Theatre's 2016-17 Season exploring the American Dream, IN TO AMERICA will play March 18 - April 23, 2017 at The Den Theatre's Heath Main Stage, 1333 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago. Tickets are currently available at www.griffintheatre.com or by calling (866) 811-4111. The press opening is Sunday, March 26 at 3 pm.

IN TO AMERICA is a world premiere drama that traces the American immigrant experience from Jamestown to present day through the stories of ordinary men, women and children who departed their homelands in the hopes of creating a new life. The play features more than 60 personal immigrant narratives representing more than 30 countries to tell America's multicultural story An extraordinary story 400 years in the making that transcends time, space and race to reflect the diversity and commonalities of our shared American experience.

Artist Director William Massolia comments,"IN TO AMERICA owes a great deal of its inspiration from my own families immigrant roots and from Ronald Takaki's award-winning book A Different Mirror, where he states so eliquentley, 'In the making of multicultural America, the continent's original inhabitants were joined by people pushed from their homelands by poverty and persecution in Asia, Latin America and Europe, and pulled here by extravagant dreams. Others came here in chains from Africa, and still others fled here as refugees from countries like Vietnam and Afghanistan. And all of them belonged to the great migrations that made the American people. These men and women might not have read John Locke, but they came to believe that 'in the beginning all the world was America.' They envisioned the emerging country as a place for a bold new start. Crossing borders not delineated by space, they broke the 'cake of custom' as they transcended traditional fixed points of classification. Marginalized and degraded as the 'Other' minorities came to believe even more fiercely and fervently than did the founding fathers in the 'self-evident truths' that 'all men are created equal,' entitled to the 'unalienable Rights' of 'Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.'"

The production team for IN TO AMERICA includes: Joe Schermoly (set design), Rachel Sypniewski (costume design), Lee Fiskness (lighting design), Stephen Ptacek (sound design), Brock Alter (projections design), Adam Goldstein (dialect coach), Catherine Allen (production manager), Kelly Parker (casting director) and Jason Crutchfield (stage manager).

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