Farmscape

Documenting the Changing Rural Environment

HQ Patio

6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
7:30 pm to 8:00 pm

This play documents American farmscape through interviews with real people involved in real changes in how we grow our food and live our lives in the rural United States. You’ll take delight in a sip of Zinfandel at a new winery and savor the taste of organic vegetables on a truck on its way to the local farmer’s market. You’ll make a stop at a bed and breakfast and Hispanic cultural center and gaze out the window at restored wetlands and prairie. You’ll also suit up in protective clothing and a mask before you enter a hog confinement operation and you’ll watch pigs move quickly down a conveyor belt at an IBP slaughtering plant. You’ll experience the David and Goliath story of an organic farmer up against the economic forces of the 3500 acre agri-business operation next door. In the end, you’ll understand that during the pioneer days, farming completely changed the ecosystem of the prairie. A hundred and fifty years later, this landscape is dramatically changing again.