EVERYTHING ELSE IS WAR - A COMEDIC MONOLOGUE ABOUT ULYSSES S. GRANT BEFORE AND AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

“EVERYTHING ELSE IS WAR” WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY RYAN FABIAN
PREMIERS AT THE HOLLYWOOD FRINGE FESTIVAL JUNE 2012 
TWO PERFORMANCES: SATURDAY JUNE 9TH AT 10PM AND TUESDAY JUNE 19TH 8PM. 
OPEN FIST THEATRE COMPANY, “FRINGE CENTRAL”
6209 SANTA MONICA BLVD. HOLLYWOOD CA 90038

On June 9th and June 19th in The Open Fist Theatre at Fringe Central in Hollywood is the premier of “Everything Else Is War,” a new full-length monologue by Ryan Fabian (Shackled to a Corpse). On a trip to buy liquor and condoms, Fabian came across Ulysses S. Grant’s face on a fifty-dollar bill. Feeling ignorant about not knowing who he was, he set himself to find out. It would ensue in a year of research and an almost religious obsession with Grant. He went on to find that before the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant was in his early 30’s working as a clerk in his father’s leather shop. It seemed as if he was doomed for failure and obscurity. After the Civil War, Grant was the most popular man in America. As president, he unwittingly surrounded himself with scoundrels who plunged his administration into scandal. The Panic of 1873 and the ensuing Long Depression demolished his lofty visions of reconstruction of the South. He made great fortunes and lost them all in a bad business arrangement. Still, he was still able to pull it together one last time, on his deathbed to save his family from financial ruin. Fabian interweaves Grant’s stories with a personal narrative of how it changed his way of thinking about failure, triumph, integrity and sheer determination. All these things, Grant embodied.