Imagine encountering a kitchen table in a familiar public place or a striking painting on a street poster. Something unexpected makes you stop. You look and you want to know more.
A QR code introduces America Together and invites you to a four-day celebration of freedom and democracy.
The invitation
Several weeks before opening night, red, white and blue kitchen tables would begin appearing in cultural settings and gathering places. They are familiar enough to approach and unexpected enough to start a conversation.
Posters lead viewers to explore throughout the city
A poster on a wall and a card on a restaurant table become part of the same story.
Historic American Pop and No War exhibitions
Art provokes a conversation. A painting can spark curiosity, invite a different perspective and give people a shared starting point for an exchange of ideas. Historic American Pop explores history and shared memory through a contemporary visual language.
No War offers another perspective on conflict, peace and our responsibilities to one another. Together, the exhibitions invite reflection and conversation throughout the four-day celebration.
The proposed exhibitions would remain open across the four days, with opportunities for artist conversations and an opening gathering.
Music gives the gathering its energy
The second evening brings the audience together around a major musical performance.
The ambition is a headline artist whose presence makes the concert a destination in its own right, with a production worthy of the occasion.
Music makes freedom of expression something people can experience together. Brief moments of storytelling can connect the evening to the purpose of America Together while preserving the momentum and pleasure of the performance.
The planning model assumes 2,000 paid seats.
The American Table
On the third night, sixty tables. Six hundred guests. An evening built around the pleasure of a remarkable meal and the possibility of a conversation with someone new.
The American Table is the culinary centerpiece of Dallas and the Metroplex. Regional cuisines provided by local chefs, combined with personal stories, would bring the richness of American life into one room. Tables of ten create an intimate gathering within a much larger occasion, giving companies, families and community guests a natural way to take part together.
Between courses, concise stories and conversations will connect the meal to the freedom, democracy and shared experiences at the heart of America Together.
A room designed for a shared occasion
The proposed arrangement places sixty equal twelve-foot tables in three symmetrical rows around the stage, with thirty tables on each side. Five chairs on each long side provide ten seats per table and six hundred seats overall.
Let’s Talk America
A major reception opens the premiere evening, welcoming guests to gather and share conversation before the main program.
Let’s Talk America is the closing evening of the four-day America Together celebration. Planned for a live audience of 2,000, it brings people together for an unscripted conversation about freedom, democracy, citizenship, leadership and our shared future.
Art provokes a conversation. Music enlivens the experience. Food brings people together to share a meal and connect with their fellow citizens. Let’s Talk America brings those experiences and the questions gathered across Dallas into one shared conversation.
Part One: The Kitchen Table Conversation
The Dallas finale is intended to become the defining moment of America Together. Its opening conversation would bring together citizens and civic leaders, educators, veterans, students, cultural voices, democracy advocates, former public officials and journalists from Dallas and beyond to explore the common values and responsibilities that connect Americans.
Questions gathered throughout the four-day celebration would bring the audience’s concerns and hopes into the Presidential Conversation that follows.
The Presidential Conversation
The proposed Dallas centerpiece brings former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama into a conversation led by filmmaker Ken Burns: two presidents from different political traditions, guided by a storyteller whose work has deepened our understanding of the American experience.
Together, they would explore the choices that test a democracy, the responsibilities of leadership and citizenship, and the freedoms we share. The conversation would connect America’s past with the possibilities ahead, offering room for reflection, disagreement and common ground.
Let’s Talk America invites us to listen across differences and recognize what we can accomplish together.
America Together is fully bipartisan. All named participants are proposed and subject to invitation, availability and written agreement.