Pictured: Jason Odell Williams

Florida Studio Theatre’s annual August Play Reading Festival comes to a close this Monday with a reading of American In One Room, the latest from playwright Jason Odell Williams (Handle With Care). 

In September 2019, over a long weekend at a hotel in Grapevine, Texas, 500 or so voters from across the country gathered to talk about immigration. And taxes. And healthcare and the economy and pretty much all the contentious issues that so often divide the American people. They were of all ages and ethnicities, genders and races and political leanings, who agreed on one thing—to try to talk things out respectfully. The organizers called it America In One Room.

At a time when political rhetoric more closely resembled playground prattle, the dedication to civic decorum did not go unnoticed. The press ran stories. Former President Barack Obama offered praise. And Williams, whose play of the same name brings audiences up-close-and-personal with a small group of eight attendees trying to keep their cool, found the perfect premise for a story that could pry at the heart of what it means to be an American. “The idea is to explore,” he says.

And for a playwright looking to authentically voice eight or nine characters sporting fundamentally disparate perspectives, exploration looks a lot like research. “That was definitely the challenge,” says Williams, who went so far as to track down actual conference attendees of all stripes to hear their stories, understand their perspectives and see the event through their eyes. These conversations then shaped the characters and dialogue of the play. “Sometimes it was verbatim,” Williams says. “What they said would become a bit of dialogue for one of the characters.”

Now, Williams is eager to hear from a different group of people—the Sarasota audience. As part of Florida Studio Theatre’s August Play Reading Festival, Monday’s reading represents a crucial step in the playwriting process. “This will be the first time it’s done in front of people live,” says Williams, and though there will be time for a talkback and audience critique after the reading, it’s the moment itself that reveals all.

“That’s the only time you, as a writer, really know if what you have works or doesn’t,” he says. “It’s all been a beta test up until now.”

The reading of America In One Room is this coming Monday, August 16, at 7pm at Florida Studio Theatre.

Pictured: Jason Odell Williams