​​Arms Around America is an evening of six short plays based on oral histories of families whose lives have been shaped by guns, from across the geographic, racial, political, and generational spectrum. Performed as live radio plays, four actors voice dozens of memorable characters, accompanied by a propulsive 3-piece band, and a “Foley” artist creating live sound effects from bizarre household objects. 

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The plays move through humor and heartbreak as they explore different facets of the U.S.’s unique and fraught relationship to firearms through the voices of hunters, veterans, children, and survivors, told with the warmth and wit of the families themselves. Although these stories emerge from the uniquely American subject of guns, the plays ultimately explore larger questions of family, identity, survival, and how communities navigate conflict. The work invites audiences into a more nuanced encounter with contemporary American life than is often available through news media or political discourse. The plays refuse easy caricatures, revealing the tenderness and contradictions of people living within an increasingly polarized society.

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Arms Around America premiered at UCLA's Nimoy Theater on November 15 & 16, 2024​, and on tour around the country after that.