How Democracies Die is a New York Times best-selling book by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt about the ways in which democracies can slowly dwindle and be manipulated by elected leaders. Students involved in the theater program at UNH took the work of Levitsky and Ziblatt and transformed it into a theatrical analysis of the topic through various skits and visual explanations of the text. This play was held in the Paul Creative Arts Center’s Johnson Theater from Wednesday, Oct. 30 until Sunday, Nov. 3.
The play discussed two ways in which a democracy can die, quickly and brutally, or by eroding slowly due to the misuse of power and dictatorship. It highlights the danger of ignorance and forbearance, and the importance of fulfilling our civic duty of ensuring the people rising to power are fit for office; the play encourages viewers to be aware of the ways in which we as individuals can keep our democracy safe.
This performance was devised entirely by student actors and its director, David Kaye. The process of casting this play involved the students, who were assigned to this play the previous semester in the Spring of 2024, auditioning by explaining their thoughts on what democracy means to them. It was important to Kaye that the students being cast for this piece were creative and able to collaborate well together. After the cast was selected, they were assigned to read the book How Democracies Die over the summer and delve deeply into it, fully understanding the ins and outs of what Levitsky and Ziblatt wanted to convey about the state of our democracy. With that, the students put together a script and got to work rehearsing the play.
When putting on this play, Director David Kaye hoped for the audience to take away an important message. “We’re hoping, first, that it helps our audiences understand where our democracy is at this moment and how we got here. But we’re also hoping that through this understanding, people will be motivated to take action, and at the very least, get motivated to vote, but also motivated to play a role, perhaps in strengthening our democracy through individual action or through actual participation,” he said. This play was put on with the intention of being non-partisan, and for people to appreciate the power of the message no matter where they stood politically.
Throughout the play, students spoke from the heart to share their own personal thoughts and opinions on the state of our democracy, and their feelings on the state of our government. Kaye stated that students were challenged to speak to a member of the opposite side of the political spectrum, to be able to bring that perspective to the table in creating this piece.
In reference to the 2024 presidential election, Kaye and the cast hope to spread a feeling of hope and motivation after seeing the play. “Some people think that actually voting is, in some ways, not an effectual way to impact things. But I disagree with that. I feel like the act of voting is critical,” he said. “One of the things that we talked about in the play is coalition building, and that if we really want to save our democracy, then we need to build coalitions, but not just coalitions with people that think like us and think the way we think, but to form coalitions with people that we don’t agree with.”
