Pang!

What is Pang!?

Pang! is Dan Froot and Company’s series of contemporary audio dramas based on the oral histories of families around the country who are hungering for change. Pang! has been downloaded over 2,800 times in 30 countries.

Dan Froot and Company creates live and recorded theatrical experiences that foster cross-class dialogue around urgent social issues. Pang! uses audio theater (or audio drama), a contemporary form of what used to be called radio plays, to ask, “What does hunger sound like in America?” We want to understand, from street-level, forces that come between the world’s abundance and so many of our neighbors.

We conducted book-length oral histories of families living below the poverty line in Los Angeles, Cedar Rapids and Miami. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and edited into book-length documents. One family from each city consulted with us as we interpreted their story in theatrical form. We perform Pang! live on stage in cities around the country. To learn more about our live shows, click here.

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Why audio theater? We want our audiences to feel they are “between the ears” of Pang!’s participating families, hearing what they hear. There is urgency in the impulse to tell these stories. We believe they have the power to dispel fear, challenge our values, and inspire compassion.

Pang! starts Natalie Camunas, Donna Simone Johnson, and Christopher Rivas. The podcast was recorded and mastered at Wayland Productions in Orange CA.

Recording engineer: Kc Wayland.

The music was composed by Robert Een, and recorded at i-ear music in Santa Monica CA. Recording engineer and editor: Ross Levinson.

Musicians: Robert Een, Dan Froot, Ross Levinson.

Who are our partners and funders?

Pang! is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project, co-commissioned by Legion Arts in partnership with Miami Light Project and NPN.

The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information on NPN please visit www.npnweb.org.

Pang! is made possible in part by UCLA’s Council on Research Faculty Research Grant program; City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; Network of Ensemble Theaters' Travel & Exchange Network (NET/TEN), supported by lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Puffin Foundation West; Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; and by an Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.

Pang! was also made possible in part through residencies at MacDowell Colony, Automata Art Space, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, and Knight Foundation; and by 117 individual donors who contributed through Hatchfund.org.

Pang!’s social services community partners include: in Cedar Rapids, Matthew 25, Jane Boyd Inc., and Horizons Family Services Alliance; in Los Angeles: Hunger Action Los Angeles, and LIFT-LA; and in Miami: Touching Miami with Love.