Duke Performances is now Duke Arts presents. Learn more.

Duke Arts Presents

Mike Daisey
American Utopias

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 | 8:15 pm

Thursday, January 31, 2013 | 8:15 pm

Friday, February 1, 2013 | 8:15 pm

Saturday, February 2, 2013 | 8:15 pm

Sunday, February 3, 2013 | 8:15 pm


Master storyteller Mike Daisey, whose “tragic comedy and patriotic outrage . . . identify him as a direct descendant of Mark Twain” (The Stranger), offers his latest monologue American Utopias for five days in PSI Theatre.

In his latest work, Daisey brings us a distinctly American vision of utopia — how people create public spaces in which they come together to act out dreams of a better world. Daisey travels everywhere to pursue the story: from Disney World and its nostalgic theme park perfection, to the drug-fueled anarchic excesses of Burning Man, to Zuccotti Park, where in the unlikeliest place the Occupy movement is born. Gunplay, raving animatronic presidents, and brutal police actions come together to paint the landscape of our American dream.

Daisey has spent 15 years honing a deceptively spontaneous style of solo performance, which brings subtle theatrical underpinnings to apparently freewheeling talk. With quiet rage and fierce humor, he covers an endless array of topics: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, urban transit, the Department of Homeland Security, and most recently, Apple: 2012’s controversial The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs was named “the best new play of the year” by the Washington Post.

Daisey deftly weaves personal stories and investigative journalism into larger narratives, consistently leaving his audiences surprised, informed, entertained, and moved. Explore the enmeshed byways of the private and the public with “one of the finest solo performers of his generation” (NY Times).