YORKTOWN — Off-Broadway actor Douglas Taurel will perform “The American Soldier,” a one-man show at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown June 14.
The show is centered around letters from servicemen and women as they endured wars and conflicts throughout the nation’s history.
“It was a project that I started after I had come out of the North Tower on Sept. 11, 2001. I got really addicted to what was happening in the Middle East. As I became more obsessed with it, I started reading stories about veterans, specifically about veterans who couldn’t pay their bills, and at that time the suicide rate was just starting to be talked about,” Taurel recalls.
His show debuted at the Battery Poetry Club in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 2015.
“It was only 20 minutes of the version I have now. I thought it was going to be a one-time performance, but it turned out to be something much bigger. There was a gold star sister that came up to me after I performed it and she remarked that I was on to something special with this show,” Taurel said.
The original show was focused on veteran homelessness and the struggles those veterans faced upon returning home from war.
“I wanted people to understand that we were at war and that we were sending men and women to go fight those wars. I wasn’t really trying to talk about whether we should be in Iraq or Afghanistan. What I was trying to say is that it’s unfair that men and women are going off on four or five deployments or more and they can’t pay their bills, and I wanted people to understand that when we say thank you for your service, this is what it’s about,” Taurel said.
Taurel’s show now features characters and letters based on first-hand accounts of soldiers and their families from the American Revolution through the Iraq war. The show continues to shine a light on what these veterans deal with upon returning home.
His show at the American Revolution Museum coincides with the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army.
A son of immigrants, Taurel hopes that those who see the show walk away with a newfound appreciation for being an American.
“I believe that this country is the greatest country in the world and I know I don’t want to live anywhere else. I’m grateful for the men and women who go out and fight for this country. I think we, as a society, have to understand that and we have to remember that sacrifice. As a nation, if we don’t start remembering their stories, whether or not we agreed with the war or not, we start to lose ourself as a nation,” Taurel said.
Tickets for the performance on June 14 are available through the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown for $17. For tickets and to learn more, visit jyfmuseums.org.