Events

What happens when fear and political pressure make constitutional rights politically inconvenient? Explore this question with the ACLU of D.C. and Arena Stage, at an evening featuring a pre-show panel discussion and a showing of the play Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? About the pre-show panel discussion The panel will feature Monica Hopkins (executive director at the ACLU of D.C.), Scott Michelman (legal director at the ACLU of D.C.), and a member of the creative team at Arena Stage discussing how the play’s portrayal of the House Un-American Activities Committee resonates with contemporary debates over free expression, dissent, government accountability, and the protection of civil liberties. About the play Straight from Off-Broadway comes Eric Bentley’s timely American docudrama, Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?, directed by Tony Award winner Anna D. Shapiro. This electrifying story drops you into the tense world of the 1940s House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, where fame offered no protection and political pressure could end a career. Using the original transcripts, the play features the words of artists like Arthur Miller, Jerome Robbins, Paul Robeson, Elia Kazan, Lillian Hellman, Abe Burrows, and Lionel Stander as they faced impossible choices: defend their integrity, protect their careers, or betray their peers. And yet the probing, chilling questions posed by the committee are as powerful as the testimonies themselves, revealing a climate of intimidation and moral conflict that resonates far beyond its time.