LUCÍA “LUCY” KOVÁCS is an eighteen-year-old waitress at the Foxtown Diner and the daughter of László “Lou” Kovács, who fled political repression in Hungary before bringing her to the United States as an infant. America is the only home she has ever known, yet she has only recently become a naturalized citizen after years of waiting and preparation. Today marks the first election in which she is eligible to vote a milestone she approaches with excitement, pride, and a quiet sense of gravity. Thoughtful, observant, and deeply aware of the world around her, Lucía listens closely to the conversations unfolding in the diner, absorbing both the promises and anxieties of democratic life. Standing at the threshold between generations, she carries forward hope tempered by vigilance, embodying the question of what it truly means to be an American and what responsibility comes with that.

LÁSZLÓ “LOU” KOVÁCS is a forty-five year old immigrant and short-order cook at the Foxtown Diner who fled political repression in his home country as a young man. English is not his first language, but through years of hard work in American kitchens he has built a life rooted in routine, dignity, and quiet pride. A devoted single father to Lucía, whom he raised in the diner, Lou understands freedom not as an abstract ideal but as a lived experience shaped by memory and loss. Having known a world where speaking, gathering, and choosing were dangerous acts, he values the right to vote and the promise of democracy with deep gratitude and an unshakable awareness of how easily those freedoms can be taken away.

MARIA SANTIAGO is a thirty-two-year old journalist who grew up in a working-class immigrant household where English was learned by listening to the radio and reading the newspaper aloud at the kitchen table. She became a journalist not to “change the world,” but to explain it—clearly, carefully, and in good faith. In recent years, she has watched trust in journalism erode, facts dismissed as opinion, and her profession attacked as partisan regardless of accuracy. Still, Maria believes deeply in the public’s right to know, even as she finds herself caught between a sense of urgency and a growing, quiet exhaustion.

TOM BENNETT is a fifty-two year old retired Marine who spent more than twenty years in uniform, including multiple overseas deployments. He believes deeply in service, structure, and personal responsibility, values that shaped his life long after he returned home. For Tom, voting is not simply a right but an obligation earned through sacrifice. Yet as he watches institutions he once trusted grow distant and unresponsive, he struggles with a private doubt: whether the duty he fulfilled so faithfully has been honored in return. Caught between pride and disillusionment, Tom represents those who served with conviction and now wrestle with what that service means.

AISHA RAHMAN is a twenty-eight year old civil rights attorney who comes to the diner most mornings before work. She chose law because she believed the system could be made fair—if someone fought hard enough inside it. Her clients often have legal “rights” on paper but little access to justice in real life, a reality that has made her both pragmatic and persistent. She respects the law even as she confronts its failures every day. For Aisha, Election Day is not symbolic; it is practical—shaping judges, prosecutors, and policies that determine whether justice is enforced or delayed. She carries hope carefully, tempered by experience, and keeps showing up.

FRANK DELUCA is a 56-year-old union organizer who has spent decades advocating for working people—on shop floors, at bargaining tables, and in town meeting halls. He believes fairness isn’t abstract; it’s something you fight for collectively, one contract and one conversation at a time. Frank trusts solidarity more than slogans and measures progress by wages earned, hours protected, and dignity preserved. He knows the system rarely gives anything freely, but he also knows it can be pushed. For Frank, Election Day matters because policy becomes paychecks, and leadership decisions land squarely on workers’ lives. Direct, plainspoken, and deeply loyal to his neighbors, Frank sees the diner as another kind of union hall: a place where people gather, argue, listen—and keep going together.

ELIJAH CARTER is a twenty-five year old minister who leads a small, aging congregation in a town that feels increasingly divided. He believes deeply in the power of faith to sustain community, even as he struggles with where faith ends and politics begins. His hesitation is not born of fear of controversy, but of love—for people he worries might be lost if pushed too hard or too fast. On Election Day, Elijah wrestles with whether prayer is a form of retreat, a form of resistance, or somehow both at once. Carrying private doubts, including questions about his own identity, he continues to show up, seeking a way to hold conviction and compassion in the same breath.

CLAIRE MOORE is a forty-two year-old playwright who writes because she believes stories change people more reliably than arguments. In recent years, she has faced canceled productions, cautious boards, and quiet pressure to “tone things down.” She isn’t interested in provocation for its own sake—but she refuses silence. Claire sees the theatre as a civic space, one where difficult questions can be held without shouting. On Election Day, she feels the weight of speech itself being questioned, and wonders what it means to keep telling stories when speaking freely no longer feels guaranteed.

JULES BOOKMAN is a sixty year old professor who has taught psychology at the local community college for most of his adult life. He’s the kind of teacher who remembers names, asks follow-up questions, and believes learning begins with curiosity rather than certainty. His classrooms have always welcomed students figuring things out about school, about work, and about themselves. These days, Jules is increasingly aware of how easily thoughtful conversation can give way to silence. On Election Day, he finds himself reflecting on the value of open inquiry and the responsibility of educators to protect the space where questions are still allowed.



MAGGIE McCUSKER is a twenty-one year old student at the local community college, balancing classes with part-time work and a full calendar of campus life. She’s outspoken without being unkind, quick to listen, and not especially patient with excuses, her own included. Maggie believes people are at their best when they’re allowed to be fully themselves, and she brings that belief into every room she enters. On Election Day, she carries a sense of urgency shaped by the knowledge that the choices made today will shape the world she’s just beginning to inherit.