TRIPAWAY THEATRE ASKS "WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AN AMERICAN?"

" On the Eve of His Execution: A Play About Thomas Paine runs for four weeks only, from April 21 through May 13
and plays Sunday and Monday nights at 8:00 pm at WNEP Theater, 3209 N. Halsted in Chicago. Tickets are $12.00.
(Mondays are Industry Nights: $6.00 with headshot or a with a resume for non-actors.)

A benefit preview performance for Tripaway Theatre will be held on Sunday, April 14 at 8:00 pm.
Refreshments will be served and the audience will have a chance to discuss the play with the author.
Benefit tickets are $20.00, Industry members $15.00. For reservations for all show dates, group sales
or more information, please call (773) 878-7785 or email us @ karin@tripaway.org

Tripaway Theatre presents "On the Eve of His Execution: A Play About Thomas Paine", a one-man show illuminating the life and trials of America's unsung Founding Father, written and performed by Chicago playwright Henry Andrew Caporoso.

On the Eve of His Execution finds Enlightenment Age American patriot Thomas Paine in his prison cell the night before his scheduled execution during France's Reign of Terror. With only hours to live, Paine dictates a desperate last minute letter to President George Washington to intervene in his affairs.

Although he may have helped win independence in America (It was John Adams who said, "Without the pen of Thomas Paine, the sword of George Washington would have been raised in vain."), Paine was a man who inspired and angered his fellow men (It was John Adams who also said, "[Thomas Paine's] political writings, I am singular enough to believe, have done more harm than his irreligious ones. He understood neither government nor religion"). On the eve of his execution in France, Paine recounts it all.

Critics at the Minnesota Fringe festival called this production "Inspiring" (Colin Covert, Minneapolis-St.Paul Star Tribune) and "A marvelous and moving success!"(John Townsend, MACT)

To write the show, Henry Andrew Caporoso interpolated the letters and writings of Thomas Paine."Thomas Paine was a voice of both reason and inspiration during a tumultuous time of revolution," says Caporoso." "Perhaps the most vital question Thomas Paine addressed was "What does it mean to be an American?", a question he answered with his life's conduct, and a question that is today being personally re-evaluated for many of us.

On the Eve of His Execution: A Play About Thomas Paine is written and performed by Henry Andrew Caporoso. Directed by Karin Shook. Lighting Design by Kerstin Broockmann. Sound Design by Matthew Krause.