Spend a Free Night In Jail with Thoreau

This is for Anchorage area readers.  Here's a promo I got from Cyrano's this morning.  I'm out of town, so someone out there has to take my seat.  This should be thought provoking to say the least.  The folks out keeping the occupy tents going and the rest of us who should be out there supporting them can surely gain some inspiration from this reading.

  Wednesday, January 25, 2012 FREE

From the email:

Cyrano's Theatre Company presents

a special staged reading of

The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail

by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee

Produced for CTC by Peter Porco and Jeff Aldrich

Directed by Bob Pond

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. 

Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away." [Walden, 1854]

"Thoreau's famous essay Civil Disobedience was an extremely personal response to being imprisoned for breaking the law.  Because he detested slavery (and the Mexican-American war) and because tax revenues contributed to their support, Thoreau decided to become a tax rebel. …Thoreau declined to pay the hated poll tax--a capital tax levied equally on all adults within a community.  …So, in July 1846, he was arrested and jailed.  He was supposed to remain in jail until a fine was paid, which he also declined to pay.  Without his knowledge or consent, however, relatives settled the 'debt' and a disgruntled Thoreau was released after only one night.  The incarceration may have been brief but it has had enduring effects through Civil Disobedience." [from Henry David Thoreau and Civil Disobedience by Wendy McElroy]

More at Cyrano's Facebook page.