Question

: Present

SETTING: Bare stage.

AT RISE: MAX LITTLEFOOT stands center. Behind him, THREE SILHOUETTES stand reaching upward toward the sky. As MAX LITTLEFOOT begins his speech, SILHOUETTES enact Amerindian dance to offstage drumbeat.

MAX LITTLEFOOT: I am American. My ancestors have lived on this land since memory began. My tribal elders speak of a large turtle that rose out of the sea. This Turtle Island—Earth—provides everything we need. My ancestors could read the earth. They saw a scuff in the dirt and would find deer to hunt. They smelled the thawing riverbanks and knew salmon were on their way upstream to spawn. They touched the rough bark of a pine and it would become a strong wigwam.

. . . (Drumbeat stops. MAX exits right. . . . TY SMITH enters right and walks down right. SILHOUETTES rise. 1st SILHOUETTE pantomimes swinging an ax. 2nd SILHOUETTE pantomimes hoeing a field. 3rd SILHOUETTE pantomimes scrubbing a floor. All three quietly hum “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”)

TY SMITH: I am American. My ancestors probably were Yoruba, from the West African coast. Sometime during the 1750s they were sold into slavery. I say “probably” because no records were kept of my people; slave traders preferred to consider them livestock. They survived the Middle Passage, the trip from Africa, chained below deck. They were brought to Virginia and sold—mothers to one owner, children to another, torn apart.

My ancestors weren’t allowed to go to school. They just worked sun-up to sundown, growing the cotton that went north to textile mills, then traded back to Europe. Many people got rich. Just not my people.

Life was so hard, my ancestors invented the Blues to ease the pain. (SILHOUETTES stop their pantomime and come together, holding hands, now humming or singing a verse from a Blues song.) They sang together in church, played washboards and spoons when they couldn’t buy instruments, and kept believing life would get better. It took over one hundred years for my ancestors to be free, and another hundred to live without segregation laws. I do not understand why it takes so long. (Pause) I am American, though. My family’s blood is in this very soil. (TY crosses exits left, crossing paths with BETHANY MCLAUGHLIN, who enters and crosses to center. SILHOUETTES release hands and pantomime arriving in America, looking around scared, with imaginary pole sacks on their backs.)



I Am American, by Jennifer Tibbetts © This play is reprinted from Plays, The Drama Magazine for Young People with the permission of the publisher Plays/Sterling Partners Inc. 897 Washington Street #600160, Newton, MA 02460

Question
To whom is Ty Smith speaking?(1 point)
Responses

Bethany McLaughlin
Bethany McLaughlin

his ancestors
his ancestors

the Silhouettes
the Silhouettes

the audience
the audience

Answer 1

the audience