What Theater Knows About America
On myth, machinery, and the stubborn act of making something better.
Happy Friday đđŒ Itâs the 4th of July. Cue the fireworks. The sparkler emojis. The grill smoke.
Thatâs the version of the day that we see. Then thereâs the version we feel. The one made of family histories and half-learned civics lessons, inherited fears and unspoken dreams, of shame, pride, hope, heartbreak, and everything in between.
And the more time I spend working in theater, the more I see the overlap. Both are built on story. Both promise something bigger than the individualâand rarely deliver it cleanly. But even with all their flaws, I still believe in the possibility buried inside them. Because if you ask me, theater has always been one of the most honest ways we tell the story of this country. Not as it was, but as it felt. And as it could still be.
Letâs talk about that.
Theater as a Mirror
Theater has always been a place where this country sees itself more clearlyânot in its most polished form, but in its most human. It doesnât offer a cleaned-up version of the American story. It holds space for the mess. The contradiction. The ache of wanting more than whatâs been handed to you.
Where textbooks flatten history, theater restores its texture. It brings voice to the people whoâve been written out. It lets us sit in the questions long after the anthem ends. And it reminds usâsometimes uncomfortablyâthat freedom has never looked the same for everyone.
The way Ragtime threads ambition with injustice.
The way Death of a Salesman shows how the American Dream devours the very people it promises to uplift.
The way Fences breaks open the personal cost of being Black, working-class, and unseen in the âland of opportunity.â
The way Parade reminds us that patriotism and prejudice often wear the same uniform.
The way West Side Story stages the American melting pot as a powder keg.
The examples are endless. Because thatâs what theater does best. It doesnât tell us what to believeâit shows us what it feels like to be alive inside a country still trying to define itself.
The Civic Power of the Stage
In a country increasingly defined by division, distraction, and disconnection, theater remains one of the last places where strangers gather to feel something together. Itâs not just entertainmentâitâs ritual. Civic, communal, embodied.
When the lights go down, we sit shoulder to shoulder with people we may never otherwise meet. We agreeâconsciously or notâto pay attention, to stay quiet, to enter a shared world. For two hours, we practice listening. We practice witnessing. We feel things in real time, in public, with other people. And in that way, theater becomes a kind of emotional infrastructure. A place where empathy gets exercised.
Thereâs something radically democratic about that. It may not fix the country. But it reminds us we still belong to one.
Theater as America
If theater reminds us we belong to a countryâthen commercial theater reminds us how that country actually works.
Because commercial theater, like the nation it lives in, runs on a delicate (and sometimes delusional) balance: hope and hustle, vision and access, myth and machinery. Both sell dreams. Both are built on stories of reinvention. Both promise opportunityâand bury the fine print.
Itâs often called âthe dreamââbut itâs also a bureaucracy. A business. A machine with gatekeepers, investors, eligibility windows, and impossible odds. And yet people keep showing up. They chase the thing anyway. They pour themselves into something that might never return the favor.
If thatâs not American, I donât know what is.
Itâs easy to romanticize Broadway as pure art and America as pure aspiration. But in both cases, the truth is more complicatedâand more human. Theyâre beautiful not because theyâre perfect, but because people keep trying to make them better. From the inside. Over and over again.
Art as an Act of Patriotism
I used to think patriotism was about pride. Flags, anthems, a kind of practiced certainty. But the older I get, the more I believe that making art in Americaâespecially honest, human, complicated artâis an act of faith. Not faith in the systems, but in the people. In the audience thatâs still willing to listen. In the collaborators who keep showing up. In the fragile possibility that something we make might outlast us.
Thereâs nothing glossy about it. Itâs not always noble or romantic. Itâs long hours, tight budgets, bruised egos, and lots of ânoâs.â Like planting wildflowers in concrete. You donât know if it will bloom. You donât know who will see it. But you do it anyway, because the act itself says: I was here. I tried. I believed it could grow.
Patriotism doesnât have to look like pride. Sometimes it looks like effort. Attention. A refusal to turn away.
A stubborn love.
One Last ThingâŠ
The 4th of July has meant a lot of different things to me over the years.
When I was a kid, it meant big backyard partiesâfriends, family, too much food. Later, at overnight camp, it meant fireworks in downtown Minocqua, sitting cross-legged on blankets with people who felt like my whole world. Then I moved to New York, and it became rooftops, late nights, sparklers held above the skyline.
Now itâs changed again. Two years ago, Sam and I got married on July 3rd. We wanted to reclaim the holidayânot just as a national ritual, but as a personal one. A celebration of our own making. Something small and sacred and ours.
I think thatâs what I love most about days like this. They keep changing. They carry memory. They mark the passage of time in ways we donât always notice until we look back.
And maybe thatâs the quiet power of ritualânot that it stays the same, but that it reminds us who weâve been along the way.
Where we were. Who we loved. What we hoped for.
So whatever youâre up to today, this weekend, I hope itâs worth remembering.
See you next week â„ïž
âMatt