5th Grade Musical – The American Dream
LINDNER[I Had A Dream] – Viking solo, Columbus solo & Chloe solo
Christopher Columbus: I plant this flag upon this Promised Land in the name of King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella of Spain.
Viking Leif Eriksson: Don’t get too comfortable, Columbus! I hate to break it to you, but my
Scandinavian family and I arrived here 500 years before you. And, I heard there was an Irish Monk
named Brendan who was here 500 years before us, so…
[Columbus and Eriksson argue – sound fx of arguing]
Chloe (Native American woman): Excuse me!
[Columbus and Eriksson continue to argue – sound fx of arguing]
Chloe: Hello-oo!!!
[Columbus and Eriksson turn to face Clovis]
Eriksson: Oh, excuse us… We were just arguing over who was here first. Who are you?
Chloe: My name is Chloe. I heard you arguing as I was passing by, and I thought you should know that
you’re both late to the party.
Columbus: What do you mean?
Chloe: I am part of the Clovis family and we’ve been here for over 12 thousand years.
Eriksson and Columbus: Oh no!
Columbus: What will I tell the King and Queen of Spain? [Starts to cry]
Eriksson: News like this is enough to make a grown Viking cry! [Starts to cry]
Chloe: It’s alright. Your story of exploration is still important.
Eriksson and Columbus: It is???
Chloe: Of course it is! Your story is one of following your dream. In fact, people have been following
their dreams to come here for thousands of years.
Narrator 1: The New World Drew explorers like a magnet. Vasco Nunez de Balboa, John Cabot,
Ferdinand Magellan, and Coronado de Soto all made their way here to live out their dreams.
Narrator 2: It became a haven not just for seekers of fame and fortune, but for those who yearned for a
place in which they could live and worship as they pleased.
Narrator 3: A cartographer named Martin Waldseemuller drew a map in 1507 that included the New
World for the first time. He named the new continent “America” after Amerigo Vespucci, one of the
greatest explorers of all time.
ROSSITER[We Call it America]
Narrator 4: For the next 200 years settlers came to America from all over the world, full of all sorts of
American Dreams. But those dreams came at a cost.
Chloe: Many of my people were pushed from their land. We had no voice in how things were run.
Narrator 5: While settlers were living in America, they were still considered citizens of European
countries. They were still paying taxes on goods they were bringing to the colonies. Eventually it became
too much for the settlers to bear, and they decided to fight back!
[Gonna Be a Revolution]
Dialogue during the song
- A Son of Liberty: Rally there! Bring your axes! Tell King George we’ll pay no taxes!
- A Colonist: If we have no representation, there will be no more taxation!
- Paul Revere: Hear ye! Hear ye! One and all! The British are coming! To arms, one and all!
- Ben Franklin: The seeds of liberty are universally sown there, and nothing can eradicate them.
- Colonial Woman: We will not stand to be slaves to the crown. Come on, it’s time to tear them
down.
-
Patrick Henry: I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give
me death.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson: “By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farers stood,
And fired the shot heard ‘round the world.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mercy Otis Warren: “In freedom we’re born, and like sons of the brave, will never surrender…” Mercy
Otis Warren
John Adams: “The revolution was affected before the war commenced. The revolution was in the minds
and hearts of the people…” John Adams.
CONVERSE[We the People]
Narrator 6: The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 doubled the size of the United States of America. President
Jefferson commissioned Lewis and Clark to explore the new territory. Sacagawea showed them the way.
Narrator 7: European settlers kept coming. They were asked to sell their land to the new settlers. When
asked to sell his land, the great Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, asked…
Tecumseh: Sell the country? Why not sell the air, the clouds, and the great sea?
Narrator 8: New settlers kept coming. In 1811 they started to work on the National Road, and in 1830
the first locomotives were built.
Narrator 9: And still, they kept coming. The American Dream included women like Susan B. Anthony and
Sojourner Truth.
Narrator 10: They just kept coming, and coming, and coming!
[Movin’ On Out]
ANY STUDENT CAN HAVE THIS SOLO[Reprise: I Had a Dream] – Lincoln’s solo
Frederick Douglas: I, Frederick Douglas, appear this evening as a thief and a robber. I stole this head,
these limbs, this body from my master, and ran off with them.
Sojourner Truth: If I had my way, if I had my way, if I had my way, I’d be tearing this building down.
Henry Clay: My name is Henry Clay. Some might call me The Great Comprimiser for I devised the plan
that led to the Missouri Compromise. For nearly thrity years we lived in peace, half slave, half free. I
know no North, south, east, or west.
Frederick Douglas: No day ever dawns for the slave, nor is it looked for. For the slave it is all night… all
night, forever.
Lincoln: I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I had a dream, I
had a terrible dream…
PUSEY[Broken Dreams]
Dialogue during the song
- Lincoln 1: The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never
forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated to the unfinished work
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
- Lincoln 2: It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that
from these honored dead, we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last
full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in
vain.
- Lincoln 3: That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government
of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
[Final Reprise – I Had a Dream]
Dialogue during the song
- Harriet Tubman: With the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863,
Abraham Lincoln ended slavery in America once and for all.
- Confederate soldier: As painful as the Civil war was…
- Union solider: The Union survived.
- Confederate and Union soldiers: The American Dream Lived On.
- Chloe: Since then, more and more people from all over the world have followed that dream to
our beautiful shores.
- Entire chorus: Norway! Germany! Thailand! Vietnam! India! Kenya! Egypt! Guatemala! Laos!
Japan!
- Statue of Liberty: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these the homeless - tempest-tossed to me, I
list my lamp beside the golden door.
LINDNER[American Dream Finale]