“Songs of Resistance” is an original musical revue that traces the history of resistance through song.

Music, and especially song, has long played an important role inspiring people to resist tyranny in its many forms.  “Songs of Resistance” brings that musical resistance alive, by showing how people around the world have deployed music in the fight to achieve a just society.  American songs of resistance to slavery and in support of the Civil Rights Movements, of resistance to plutocracy and in support of worker rights, of resistance to unjust wars and in support of peace movements, will be joined with songs of peoples struggling for their freedom and justice and independence, from Ireland to South Africa to Hungary. 

Many of these songs will be familiar.  Others will be new to our American visitors, and we hope they find as moving and inspiring as such American classics as “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around…,” “Which Side Are You On,” “If I Had A Hammer,” and “We Shall Overcome”—to name just a few of the songs in this show.  Some could come as a surprise—yes, the French national anthem “La Marseillaise” very much started out as a resistance anthem, sung by a band of tough Marseille workers marching to defend the new French Republic against the forces of European reaction, on the battlefield of Valmy in 1792.  

Audiences are urged to join in the singing, even if only to hum along to a well-known tune.  For this is a show about the people’s music, and how the people have deployed song in their struggle for democracy, equality, dignity, justice, and freedom.  We at Resistance Theater believe that people today will find in these songs the inspiration to stir them to action in the struggle for American democracy against the forces of a resurgent American fascism, which threatens to extinguish that democracy for all time.