“At this moment, when the US is deep in the throes of an impeachment investigation, it is startling and bracing to be immersed in the debate over the country’s founding principles, however simplified and with musical accompaniment.” (The show is Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone’s 1776.) “But the added layer of who performs that story transcends the present-day politics in unexpected ways. Phrases from our founding document, such as: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’ spoken on a makeshift stage by a cast predominantly made up of black and Hispanic men, becomes a personal declaration, not simply a national aspiration, one often ignored in these days of closing borders and shallow nationalism.” – The Stage