CAST OF CHARACTERS
LUCÍA “LUCY” KOVÁCS, 18, Waitress
LÁSZLÓ “LOU” KOVÁCS, 45, Cook
MARIA SANTIAGO, 32, Journalist
TOM “SARGE” BENNETT, 52, Marine (Ret.)
AISHA RAHMAN, 28, Civil Rights Attorney
FRANK DELUCA, 56, Union Organizer
ELIJAH CARTER, 25, Minister
CLAIRE MOORE, 42, Playwright
JULES BOOKMAN, 60, Professor
MAGGIE McCUSKER, 21, Student
SYNOPSIS
On Election Day in a small New England town, a neighborhood diner becomes an unexpected civic forum. Longtime cook László “Lou” Kovács, who fled authoritarian rule years earlier, opens the diner with his daughter Lucía “Lucy” Kovács, newly naturalized and voting for the first time. As the regulars arrive—neighbors from different walks of life—Lou announces Lucy’s milestone, and the room erupts in a joyful toast, celebrating her as “Democracy’s Child.”
Moved by the moment, Lucy asks the question that has stayed with her through the citizenship process: What does it really mean to be an American? The diners answer not with arguments, but with stories. Each shares a personal vision of freedom shaped by lived experience: a playwright speaks of voice, a lawyer of justice, a journalist of truth, a veteran of duty, a young woman of loving openly, a union leader of solidarity, a minister of honest doubt, and a professor of education as the path to a more humane future. Together, they show Lucy that freedom is not just an idea—it is a practice, protected only when shared.
The next morning, after the election, the town celebrates, but Lucy is uneasy. Watching the news and reflecting on her choices, she admits she is afraid—of corruption, of unchecked power, of a future already slipping away. Lou answers with his own memories of tyranny and warns how autocracy always returns in new disguises. Surrounded by her community, Lucy learns that fear means something matters. From that fear she rises, claiming her voice for herself and for “all the children crying out for justice.” The show ends with a call to stand, speak, and act together, reminding us that power belongs not to tyrants, but to the people.