Jackson Free Press

You need to meet C.P. Ellis, a Klansman turned civil-rights activist. And Emma Knight, a jaded, feminist Miss USA. ("The only beauty queen in history that didn't cry when she won.") And a certain wise Puerto Rican bellhop. And a young black woman returning to college to make a better life for her family.

If you haven't yet met the real-life heroes of Studs Terkel, folks he calls "women, guys, big shots, working men," you haven't heard real storytelling. But you'll get your chance on March 1, when the esteemed Acting Company out of New York brings their traveling "play with music" to Thalia Mara Hall in a not-to-be-missed blending of Americana, narrative non-fiction literature, theater and music.

Terkel, now 90 and still going strong in Chicago, has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his detailed true stories about Americans. This play is based on his 1980 book, "American Dreams: Lost and Found," and was premiered by the Acting Company just last month at Queens Theatre in New York. We're very lucky to be so early in the queue to not only read or hear Terkel's stories, but to see them performed by a diverse cast of New York actors, all of whom also sing and play an instrument at some point during the performance.

The original book featured the stories of about 100 people. But in the play the roster is winnowed down to 23, but thankfully all the dialogue is taken verbatim from Terkel's famous interviews.

Terkel himself is a model in how to live a full, compassionate if slightly decadent American dream. He told New York Newsday in January: "My American dream is for sanity, peace in the world, and a good martini and a cigar—and mostly an awareness of the 'other.' And that's about it."
Tickets start at $10.