250th Anniversary · July 25, 2026 · 8PM · SEVEN, Downtown Raleigh · Free Admission
Winner · Excellence in Playwriting · New York International Fringe Festival
Starring OBIE Award Winner James Urbaniak as George Washington
Free admission · Seating limited to about 100
Three weeks after the country turns 250, Kirk Wood Bromley's award-winning play brings the founding argument back into the room as something immediate, dangerous, funny, and alive.
It does not treat history as a museum piece. It treats the Revolution as a living conflict about power, ambition, democracy, betrayal, and who gets included in the story of freedom. It is funny and devastating in the same breath, and it moves at speed.
One night. One room. The audience sits close, close enough to hear every breath of the text, close enough to feel it.
Date
Saturday · July 25, 20268:00 PM
Venue
SEVEN501 Washington St · Downtown Raleigh, NC
Admission
FreeReservation required · limited seating
A dynamic staged reading is not a reading. It is a full performance that happens to hold the script. Think less actors behind music stands and more athletes in a room, language as music, history as theatre.
I — George Washington
"The struggle we just won has just begun."
II — Johnny Freeman
"Freedom ain't free, man."
III — Benedict Arnold
"America hates me, so I love her."
Kirk Wood
Bromley
Playwright
Kirk Wood Bromley is one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary American theatre and the founder of Inverse Theater Company in downtown New York. For more than three decades he has written plays that fuse Shakespearean language, political satire, myth, comedy, and philosophy. Among actors, his plays are famous for one thing: they are exhilarating to perform.
American Theatre Magazine: his writing "speaks directly to its audience's concerns and in its dialect."
James
Urbaniak
George Washington · Guest Artist
OBIE Award winner James Urbaniak is one of the great performers of the downtown New York stage. He originated the role of Thom Pain in Will Eno's Thom Pain (based on nothing), an international hit that earned him a Drama Desk nomination. Cult audiences know him as the voice of Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture in The Venture Bros., many of Hal Hartley's films (Henry Fool), and iconic turns in Sex and the City, Difficult People, and more.
On July 25, he is George Washington. In Raleigh.
Around James Urbaniak stands a company of Triangle artists.
Julie Oliver
John Adams
Laurel Ullman
Major John André
Andrew Carlile
Johnny Freeman
Dani Coan
Peggy Shippen Arnold
Lizzie Reynolds
King George III & Robert Shurtleff
Nate John Mark
General Lee & The Barker
Jaye Bullock
Alexander Hamilton
Bryce Nasir Preston
Crispus Attucks
Callie Banholzer
Marquis de Lafayette
Pamir Kiciman
General Howe
Louise Martin
Admiral Howe
Jacqueline Nunweiler
Benjamin Franklin
Dan Oliver
The Clerk
Ciara Le Fox
Lady Fox
Social Animal Theater opens its first production at SEVEN, in downtown Raleigh. The play asks the audience to sit close, close enough to hear every breath of the text, and SEVEN is exactly that kind of room.
We make this first night in partnership with SEVEN, and we are grateful to call it home for The American Revolution.
One Night.
Be There.
One performance. The founding argument, unresolved and alive. Admission is free and the room is small, so reserve before it fills.
Date
Sat · July 25, 20268:00 PM
Venue
SEVEN501 Washington St · Raleigh
Admission
FreeReservation required