To Be Honest: A Play on the Role of Islam in American Politics
Sep. 07, 2017
Thursday
To Be Honest is a campus production composed entirely from interviews with 172 San Antonians during the 2016 presidential campaign regarding the candidate’s statements about Islam.
The 70-minute production presents an emotional, intimate, and–at times–difficult look at San Antonians’ opinions of Islam and its place in American politics. To Be Honest partners with TPR’s “Dare to Listen” campaign and the McNay Art Museum.
“This is a subject that is all over the media, but audiences don’t often see actual, person-to-person conversations about, because it can be sensitive,” said Sarah Beth Kaufman, Trinity sociology professor and one of the authors of the play. “This performance brings together diverse voices all talking about an issue that can be very polarizing.” To Be Honest is partnering with the McNay Art Museum and Texas Public Radio’s “Dare to Listen” campaign.
The performance grew out of a 2016 summer research project led by Kaufman, Habiba Noor, interdisciplinary scholar, and William Christ, communication professor, along with undergraduate students Hanna Niner ‘17, Savannah Wagner ‘17, Iris Baughman ‘17, and Matthew Long ‘19. This team, funded by a Mellon Foundation Initiative, interviewed people across the political, religious, and social spectrum in San Antonio about Islam-related rhetoric during the recent presidential campaign. From over 200 hours of intimate conversations, Noor, Kaufman and Christ created a performance that shares surprising revelations and passionate debates. Trinity theatre professor Stacey Connelly directs the play and has advised the team about working in theatre, which is new to them.
The team has workshopped the play three times, with the most recent performance drawing a standing-room-only crowd in Trinity University's Attic Theater. The response has been overwhelmingly positive with people encouraging the group to present the play locally, statewide, and even nationally. This program is made possible in part with a grant from Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
“This isn’t just a performance,” Kaufman said. “We want people to stick around after the play and talk about some viewpoints they found that might be different from their own.”
To Be Honest: A Play on the Role of Islam in American Politics
by Sarah Beth Kaufman, Habiba Noor, William Christ and students
September 07, 2017
The performance will be held at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 7, 2017 at the McNay Art Museum’s Leeper Auditorium. The event is first-come, first-seated, and free of charge.
The evening includes a 6 p.m. reception and 6:30 opening remarks from Trinity President Danny Anderson, TPR’s Nathan Cone, and McNay Museum Head of Education Katherine Carey, with the play’s performance to follow. The night will conclude with roundtable discussions about the performance.
