Look Back in Awe

Republicans and Democrats alike can surely agree that the last seven years have been exceptional, if not surreal. List just the incidents that seem memorable enough to be written into the next generation's history books, and you have 9/11, the Patriot Act, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, stratospherically rising gas prices, the credit crunch, and the first African American presidential candidate. As unbelievable as it seems, many people continued to lead fairly normal, everyday sorts of lives during all that turmoil. Not unaffected by it but not personally caught in any of it, either. How does it happen? Tim Collins explores how we make our lives amidst the turmoil of the last seven years in his one-man show, A Fire Bright as Heaven. Collins creates 40 characters who discuss this slice of history as they experience it, from the conflicted antiwar protestor to the NRA member. The St. Louis Actors' Studio presents Collins in A Fire Bright as Heaven at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (October 10 through 19), with an additional performance at 8 p.m. Thursday, October 16, at the Gaslight Theatre (358 North Boyle Avenue; 314-421-4400 or www.stlas.org). Tickets are $18 to $25.
Thursdays-Sundays. Starts: Oct. 10. Continues through Oct. 19, 2008