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GROUNDED Tells Compelling Story of Drone Pilot
By maudeaster on 2014-10-31 10:42:40
Last year I saw the powerful play by George Brant, GROUNDED, in New York City and suddenly understood that even
though the pilots of American drones “fly” the planes from desks in the US, they too can become victims of drone warfare.
I’m excited that this much acclaimed play is now in the Capital Region for 5 performances in the next month. GROUNDED
tells the story of a fighter pilot reassigned to operate military drones from a windowless trailer outside Las Vegas. She stares
at a screen by day trying to decide who is in imprecise images from Pakistan and whether she should kill them --and then
returns to her family at night. The powerful conflicts she experiences resulted in GROUNDED receiving the Off-West End
Theater Award for Best Production of 2013. Earlier it was produced in England and was named one of the Top 10 London
Plays of 2013 by The Guardian and The London Evening Standard. The Theatre Institute at
Sage (TIS) and Women Against War have worked together to bring this production to our area. It is directed by TIS Artist in
Residence Leigh Strimbeck and is the final performance project of an exciting young actress, graduating senior Katelyn
Burrello. It opened last night to an enthusiastic crowd of students and community members at
the Chapel + Cultural Center at Rensselaer, with a large model drone towering next to the stage and the Drones Quilts
exhibit nearby. You have four more chances to see it! All free and open to the public:
e Nov. 11, 7 PM, at The Arts Center of the Capital Region, 265 River St. in Troy.
¢ Nov. 13, 7 PM, at The Campus Theater at the College of St. Rose, 996A Madison Ave in Albany.
¢ Nov. 15, 7 PM, at the Old Chatham Quaker Meetinghouse, 539 County Route 13 in Old Chatham.
¢ Nov. 19, 7:30 PM, at the Academy of the Holy Names Upper School, 1074 New Scotland Rd in Albany.
The Drones Quilts will be on display, commemorating civilian victims of US drone warfare, at the Chapel + Cultural Center
at Rennselaer until Nov 4" and at the Hubbard Interfaith Sanctuary of the College of St.
ose from Nov 5-14". The lesson for me from the play and the quilts is that
there are many different victims of drone warfare — and that it's time for the US to reconsider this policy. Congress needs to
reassert its control over US war-making and insist on ending this drone program. Of those who speak for us in Congress,
Senator Schumer is only one who has not acted to demand that Congress be the decider over what is now becoming an
undeclared and endless war policy — in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen. Mark Mazetti reported in a
June 26, 2014 New York Times article that the Stimson Center’s bi-partisan panel of former CIA and Pentagon officials
concluded, “The Obama administration’s embrace of targeted killings using armed drones risks putting the United States on
a ‘slippery slope’ into perpetual war and sets a dangerous precedent for lethal operations that other countries might adopt in
the future.” If you think about how the families and neighbors of civilians killed by our drones now see the US as their
enemy, and about traumatizing experiences of the drone pilots, it is also easy to understand why this policy is so
counterproductive. In Pakistan alone, where our GROUNDED pilot is targeting people, over 900 civilians have already been
killed by US drones strikes —that’s a lot of grieving, angry communities. Please go see GROUNDED and see what you
think.
