Crashing the Party

About the Show

American History explodes when a historical reenactment, intended to display the compromising spirit of the Revolutionary era, goes off the rails and ego­-fueled partisanship prevails. A group of ideologically diverse senators descend upon a New York museum for a televised symposium about the balkanisation of political discourse. The keynote session features a historical reenactment of Founding Fathers, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton’s political negotiations during a courtly dinner party. Jockeying for increased air­-time, the senators insist that they, rather than the hired actors, will reenact the historical play—taking on colonial garb and language—but historical accuracy is brushed aside when the initially stodgy reenactment becomes a bull-­horn for extreme ideology of all stripes.