It's all about USA

Eleven score and 13 years ago, a little something called the Declaration of Independence birthed a nation.
So "Happy Birthday USA!"

It's a rip-roaring tour of American history - a musical crash course that begins with Columbus and touches key points up to the present day, including a song about 9/11.

"It's all about the music and the narration to get it through from period to period," director and co-writer Anthony Ridley said.
The basic premise of the show remains the same from year to year, he said, and this Independence Day will mark the show's sixth at the Globe Theatre of the Great Southwest.

One night in 2003, Ridley said, he sat down "and just started writing."

In the following weeks, Ridley and three others - Kathryn Graybill, Bruce Beaird and Jennifer Mahan - collaborated as they cranked out the script. Since then, the performance has been a yearly staple at the theater.

Ridley said a cast of about 25 performers is on this year's cast, but in the past as many as 40 people have been a part of the production.

As one of the show's co-creators, he said, it is difficult to tell the story of America without focusing largely on its many wars throughout its short history, but that was one of the goals he and his co-creators strived for as they set the template for a total recreation of the nation's history.

In the end, Ridley said, the group found a happy medium of military and social historical focal points that give a pretty good recap of where the United States of America has been - and perhaps where it is going.

And all this through the age-old storytelling medium of song - and not just war songs.

"When you're doing something like this," Ridley said, "you realize all the patriotic songs are about war."

But like the events themselves, he said, he thinks the production uses a good mix of songs about war and songs about peace - basically, a variety of songs that define a great country and that tend to put people in a patriotic mood.

"This whole spectrum of all these songs together in one sitting is what appeals to people," Ridley said. "And, I think, the fact that the music gets them in the mood for the holiday."

0N THE NET
>> Globe Theatre of the Great Southwest: www.globesw.org
>> Patriotic song lyrics: www.usa-flag-site.org/songs.shtml

 IF YOU GO
>> What: ‘Happy Birthday USA!'
>> When: 8 p.m. Saturday and July 3; 2:30 p.m. Sunday and July 4.
>> Where: Globe Theatre of the Great Southwest, 2308 Shakespeare Road.
>> Ticket prices: $12 adults/ $10 students and seniors/ $8 groups of 15 or more.