We are kicking off our 19th performance season by hosting the Mid-South’s free, community Reading of the Declaration of Independence on Saturday, July 4, beginning with a light breakfast buffet at 9:30 am on our Tabor Stage.
The Reading, generously sponsored by Evans Petree PC of Memphis, will be simulcast on WKNO-FM 91.1 public radio.
TSC’s doors will open at 9:30 am for the complimentary buffet in the lobby with live music. The theatre will begin seating patrons at 9:45 am for the Reading. Due to the live radio broadcast, once the Reading begins shortly before 10:00 am, no late-seaters may be permitted in the theatre. The Reading and Roll Call should run approximately 30 minutes.
This event is free and open to the public, but reservations must be made in advance for General Admission seating by going online here or by calling the Box Office at (901) 759-0604; open Tuesday-Friday from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm. TSC is located at 7950 Trinity Road, Memphis, TN 38018-6297. Free Tabor Stage parking and covered drop-off at the front door are available.
Directed by TSC founder Dan McCleary, the Declaration of Independence will be spoken by volunteer readers, including Chief Judge Sheryl H. Lipman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, Lakeland Mayor Josh Roman, Germantown Municipal Court Judge Rhea Clift, Marquis Dijon Archuleta, E. Frank Bluestein, Jeremy Bukauskas, Michael Christopher, Chris Cotten, René Curley, Margot Davis, Phoebe Davis, Michael Detroit, Kathryn Edmonds, Tracey Zerwig Ford, Lauren Hester Gunn, Stuart Heyman, Dr. Ted Horrell, James R. Humphreys, Debbie Litch, Steven McMahon, Frank Murtaugh, Jeff Posson, Sarah Sakaan, Bria B. Saulsberry, Kevin Sharp, Stephanie Shine, Kacky Walton, Christina Wellford Scott, and Pat Mitchell Worley.
“This document is now 250 years old, and though it does not create a country or a government, it articulates grievances of a people taking formal action against tyrannical rule,” says McCleary. “In an act of high treason, punishable by death, the second Continental Congress gathered in a hot Philadelphia meeting house in 1776. These members represented 13 colonies of people fighting on battlefields for the previous 15 months. They approved unanimously what likely took Thomas Jefferson only June to pen: a declaration of a peoples’ vision of independence. It is notable that these came before the ‘mission statement’ a decade later: the U.S. Constitution. While the latter is needfully a living, breathing document, the former reserves a permanently-crafted commitment to humanity and our soul.
“This is a frank document written by a practical philosopher. We should hear the words out loud, as they might have been originally spoken, and by members of the vast community it represents. Our volunteer readers standing in for Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Hancock are Memphis area elected officials, judges, teachers, businesspeople, parents, children, and arts leaders from all walks of life and of all ages. They remind us that, not unlike Shakespeare’s plays, our country’s calling is for and to everyone. And tyranny has no home here.”
Season 19 Sponsors
TSC’s generous sponsors of the 19th season, productions, and Education and Outreach Program include ARTSmemphis, Tennessee Arts Commission, James R. Humphreys, Nancy R. Copp, Evans Petree PC, Pat and Ernest Kelly, J. Walker Sims and the Sims Family Charitable Trust, Pete Pranica, National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Midwest, First Horizon Foundation through an ArtsFirst grant, AutoZone, the Dunbar Abston Fund for Sustainable Excellence, the Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, and the Jack Jones Children’s Literacy Fund. TSC’s season is funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee.
