Reppe staggering to FSC stage

FITCHBURG - Performer Rik Reppe brings the stories and the emotions of Americans to Fitchburg State College with his one-man show, "Rik Reppe: Staggering Towards America."

The event comes to Kent Recital Hall at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8. Tickets are $10 for the general public, $7 for seniors and $5 for FSC students and those under 18.

Tickets for all events are available at the college's box office, by mail order, or online at www.fsc.edu/cultural. For information, call (978) 665-3347 or (978) 665- 3709.

In November and December 2001, Reppe shut down his business and took a winding journey across the country trying to find what it means to be a citizen and hoping to find a nation he could believe in. He did.

For Reppe, a management consultant from Los Angeles, his response to 9/11 was to completely alter his life. After closing his business, he packed his pickup truck and left California for an eight-week trip across the country, stopping at the sites of the attacks, and talking to people about what it means to be an American.

Reppe, a self-acknowledged cynic, started out disparaging the country and its people, but found "in small acts that such things as honesty, charity, nobility, community and patriotism really do exist and that blows my cynicism all to pieces." Out of that journey grew his one-man theater/ performance piece - "Staggering Towards America."