The CaravanAn initiative of Macabre Americana

Abstract

The United States is made up of 50 states: 3,007 counties filled with various cultures, beliefs, and fundamental ideals. Consequently, there are millions of untold stories, scattered across this vast nation. Each story plays an important role in the larger narrative that is our country’s history. In recent years, the United States has become more and more divided by politics wherein different communities fail to have an empathetic understanding of one another. The power of live theatre and music is immeasurable; consequently, the cultural phenomenon of storytelling has increased dramatically in recent years, causing a resurgence of popular folk music to emerge as well. Macabre Americana, a NYC-based folk fusion collective (and developing nonprofit), originally formed to write and share music about the dark side of American history, past and present. However, as we dove into our work of reimagining untold stories from the darker side of American history as single songs, it became clear that there was a gap that needed to be bridged. General storytelling, documentary-based theatre, and the folk music resurgence haven’t been connected. Until now. Enter The Caravan, Macabre Americana’s new developmental theatre initiative which connects the worlds of theatre and folk music. The Caravan seeks untold, unheard stories, hidden across the diverse cultural landscape of the United States. Through the power of music and spoken word, The Caravan reimagines those stories in developmental theatre workshops and presents them in a public forum. By reimagining the true stories of the people who have lived them, featuring casts of the people who keep them, The Caravan envisions drawing a new map of the United States, not one charted by borders but one connected through cultural understandings, brought to light through the power of storytelling. The following document serves as a detailed guide of The Caravan’s development plan: our history, our product and services, our niche, our marketing vision, operational plan, as well as our funding plan, budget, and samples of our creative and educational work.