Telling: Sacramento

Documentary theater is the most immediate way to tell the truth about personal experience—witness Moisés Kaufman’s The Laramie Project or the work of Anna Deavere Smith. In this case, The Telling Project has worked with local veterans to produce a staged “telling” of their stories specifically for their communities. The local project is directed by Tod Fortner, a faculty member at American River College, and the cast features several local veterans, a military wife and the mother of two U.S. Marines. Telling: Sacramento was scripted by Jonathan Wei, and is a formal artistic response to the silence that so often surrounds military veterans’ experiences. Performances are Friday and Saturday, May 14 and 15, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 16, at 3 p.m. at the Guild Theatre, 2828 35th Street. Admission is free, but audience members are cautioned that the mature language and themes of war are not suitable for children.