Jazz Parade for Democracy Interview with Lady Liberty, Sage Bradburn (11/15/2025)
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Dan Doernberg: We're here on Saturday, November 15, 2025 with Sage Bradburn. This is two weeks after the jazz parade down the downtown Mall in Charlottesville, and Sage was Lady Liberty, the starring role of the production. So Sage, maybe just general background about yourself and how you've been involved with Indivisible, and how you wound up in this production.
Lady Liberty beaming during "Jazz Parade for Democracy" (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission)
[0:27] Sage: I joined Indivisible in February I think. I was just distraught about the election, and I went to a meeting at the library. It took me a while to find a working group that worked for me, but I've been involved very regularly and in so many activities that they've done. And being a part of Indivisible has really helped me get through this year… emotionally. It helped me pick myself up off the floor. It gave me faith that I wasn't alone, and that my community was deeply involved and [Ed.—was] going to hold together. So that's just been amazing.
[1:08] I have no background in theater or the arts, but one of the women that I met in Indivisible mentioned that she was going to get involved with some women who wanted to do street theater. They weren't professional activists or artists, but I thought, “Well, that's cool. Can I just go and watch?” And then I got very interested in the action that they were proposing. We were working on the First Lady Liberty action, which was very short. And I volunteered to be Lady Liberty for that, because… the other women, I think… I'm in my 60s, but they were, I think, a little bit older than me. And I thought, well, if Lady Liberty has to fall on pavement, my knees are the most flexible, so I'll literally take a fall for the group. That was my first role as Lady Liberty. And I was incredibly honored when Nancy and Isabelle thought about reprising that role in this much more extended action, when they asked if I would be involved, because I admire them so much, and this was such a big project and more complicated.
[2:12] Dan: The street theater was on the [Ed.—Charlottesville Downtown] Mall; how long did that last?
Sage: It was maybe about 10 or 15 minutes. It was at the federal office building, and it was following up on one of Trump's attacks on legal firms, So Lady Liberty comes out, she falls on the ground, there's singing and the crowd is asked, “What do we need to revive liberty?” So it was a very short thing. Mostly, I just had to be there, fall, and stand up again. [Sage and Dan both laugh]
Dan: So how many weeks were you practicing the fall? [Ed.— smiling, jokingly]
Lady Liberty falling to her knees on the Downtown Mall cobblestones. (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission)
[02:53] Sage: Oh my God, these people don't practice. I mean, like we talked about it…three people were involved in, like, what's the outfit? What's going to happen in this action? And then the singing group, Wonderground, we just met on site, and then we just did it. And a similar thing for the parade. We did not practice. I mean, I guess the Grim Reaper and I maybe talked for like ten minutes about how we were going to interact. For instance: “I want you to push me. I want you to, like, physically interact with me. I want you to come after me, to give me something to do.” There's this kind of plan, but then improvisation. That's just a very interesting aspect that I've learned about street theater, at least our group.
[3:28] Dan: And you'd never done anything like that before?
Sage: Uh-uh.
Dan: Not at a real detailed level, but what was your experience of having this thing start to come together over a few weeks or a month?
Sage: Well, I just remember the group that was involved was amazing. I had to drop out of the [Ed.— discussion Signal] group because they were seeming to be having this extended conversation all day, every day. I'd come home at the end of work and there'd be 50 new Signal chats. And it seemed like I'd go to sleep, and when I woke up in the morning, there were more Signal chats. I mean, just the exchange of ideas, and the kind of energy and support for each other and the enthusiasm was amazing, but I could not be involved in the planning because it was more conversations than I could take.
[4:29] Dan: The group started a Signal thread, you were on the signal thread for a while, [but] the volume of that was just too much… So you stopped following the Signal [Ed.— planning] thread…
Sage: Exactly, yeah. And I just said ”Tell me what you want me to do. Tell me where you want me to be.” Isabel, Nancy, the Grim Reaper, the [Ed.—First] Activist, and me, we just went down to the Code Building [Ed.— on the Downtown Mall, the building where Act 1 ended and Act 2 began], and we just kind of like talked about how that action would go. And then the Saturday that we had the event, we're just, you know, weird, that small group is gathering in the Ting Pavilion, and then you have the musicians coming in, and then you have the Women's Choir. And it was just amazing. I'd never been physically in one space with more than like five people that were involved in that action. And then, I don't know, 80-100 people converging on the Ting Pavilion, and the musicians tuning up (because they hadn't practiced together either). And it was just amazing. It's like, “Okay, we're going to do this thing.”
[5:12] Dan: The final count was over 100: 30 choir singers, 45 musicians, and I think there were 30 actors, pallbearers, marchers… so over 100 people were involved.
Sage: Yeah.
Dan: And Isabelle made the point like you guys never had anything close to a dress rehearsal.
Sage: Never, never. And Emily, who led that parade, she kept the pace, she set the tone that, I mean, she just did that. She just, like, stepped up. That was the day of, no practice.
Dan: Wow. And she had just endless energy. The whole event was supposed to be an hour… I guess the marching was a little bit slower, and it went for an hour and a half… and you guys were just moving and dancing and emoting the entire time.
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Drum major Emily Little and Lady Liberty dancing joyously during Act 3 (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission) |
Lady Liberty dancing holding her plastic torch (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission) |
[6:01] Sage: Oh my god. It was, like, so intense. It was such an energy lift that, that evening, I was so sore… my hip flexors, my tendons, my calves… [but] it was amazing. I just turned 62… that I could dance all the way up the Mall. I certainly felt it. But it was just amazing.
Dan: And for people not from Charlottesville, that's maybe half a mile or so [Ed.— each way] continuously… [with a] 40-piece brass band behind you… you can't really let your energy flag.
Sage: You don't even have to think about it. It just lifts you. At the end, I can see in the video, I think Emily and I were both kind of wearing out, and we were both overdressed, and so we were really hot and tired… [but] it was amazing.
Dan: Overdressed means like…number of layers?
Sage: Literally, because it was a pretty chilly day, but like, when you're standing and you're dancing and all of that. So, yeah…
Dan: As this very informal process is going on, no rehearsals, not tons of interaction, Isabel, who was the stage manager, and Nancy… the two of them were, constantly shifting/tweaking; “Let's have you stand over there” and “Let's have the coffin oriented in this angle.” What was that like as an inexperienced person with kind of a moving target of a script?
[7:22] Sage: Yeah… well, actually, I added some suggestions because even though none of us were actors, I realized… I had some anxiety about the fact, like, I am going to be kind of by myself. I mean, I'm surrounded by people… Emily and the coffin were ahead of me, and the band was behind me, but I knew, because I'm the one in chains, there was going to be a lot of attention on me, and just to sustain that for the whole walk down the Mall. And a walk that was incredibly slow… I had some anxiety about how am I going to maintain this kind of emotional tension. And so I was thinking about that. I have multiple degrees in English and, even though I don't have a theatrical or a choral background I can do thinking in imagery.
[8:11] The one time I met with the Grim Reaper, I was like, “I want you to come after me, I want you to threaten me. And when we get closer, I want you to come and I kind of, I want you to shove me a couple of times because I need something to react against”. So that was helpful going down the Mall. And when we got to the end, I was thinking, well, if the coffin is this way, my back is towards the audience, so let's tilt it a little bit differently, and so that was something that I was aware of. I didn't want to just be like, standing there looking like a …
Grim Reaper jabbing at Lady Liberty during Act 1 (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission)
[8:44] Dan: A shlub?
Sage: Yes. And because none of us had that background, but because that kind of weight was going to be on me, that was something I was thinking about a lot.
Dan: Well, you did a really amazing job of staying in character and staying engaged for that hour and a half…. hard to pull off.
[9:04] Sage: Oh, it was totally engaging… not something that I had to work on. The one thing I did practice beforehand is how to get down on the ground, because it's on pavement. The first time I was Lady Liberty [Ed.— last spring], I was like, “Michelle, [Ed.—I’ll] act like I'm falling, but you're supporting me.” But now it was just like me… so I did kind of have to practice like, how am I going to, like, get my over 60-year old body down to the ground, you know, from standing to lying down. So I practiced that in my kitchen a couple of times.
[9:33] But I have so much emotion [Ed.-- choking up], like it doesn't take me very long to get to that place of being really sad, and I also just felt like I was channeling… I know so many people who are so distraught, and just like to channel that energy. So it wasn't anything like I had to try and do, it was just like once the music started it was just like… [Ed.—Sage makes a jet engine sound]... like this emotional… infusion of this… grief and despair.
[10:02] One thing I just started doing when I was going up the Mall was holding out my hands and imploring people in the crowd to help me. And that was interesting, because a lot of people, when I got to them, sometimes they would smile… you had a range of [Ed.— emotions]... but some people [Ed.—seemed to be thinking], “oh, that's so quaint”, or “how humorous”, or things like that. And I was like, “Am I going to be able to hold on to this grief when they are responding this other way?” And it was absolutely, totally easy to do, because I know that this, this grief runs so deep, and the pain, there's so much pain that I could be like… “I understand you don't know how to respond to this [Ed.—pain] at this moment…”, but it felt like I was holding it for everybody.
Lady Liberty imploring the crowd to help her during Act 1 (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission)
[10:45] Dan: For people who may be looking at this and have not seen the videos of the parade, it was a march of about half a mile down the Charlottesville Downtown Pedestrian Mall. So half a mile one way. And then there were some stops for street theater and choir singing. And then there was a jubilant The Saints Go Marching In on the way back… but what you're talking about, Sage, the first part, is a funeral elegy [Ed.—written by John D'earth]. It's like a New Orleans-style jazz [Ed.— funeral dirge]. John D’earth, UVA’s famous, super-respected jazz trumpeter, led the way [Ed.— at the head of the band, not the parade], and it was very sad music and slow and long; that's what made it easy for you to stay in character?
[11:30] Sage: Well, I mean that… and also the things that made it easy to stay in character are just the profound grief that I feel and that I know so many other people feel, and the music was amazing, and also Emily keeping that slow pace. I mean, we could only take one step at a time, step and step. And so I was right behind the coffin. So there were a lot of my internal cues, and then the external cues, it was not anything I had to think about.
Dan: Is there anything else you'd like to say about being in the production? How you felt about it the day before, the day after? Now it's two weeks to process the experience…
[12:13] Sage: Well, it was actually, like, [Ed.— choking up] one of the most profound experiences that I've had. I told people afterwards, I thought that, when I'm on my deathbed, you know, the things that might pass before my eyes as I leave this earth like… this could be one of them.
Dan: Wow.
Creative Director Nancy DeWitt (L) and Production Coordinator Isabelle McMahon (Photo by Dan Doernberg, used with permission).
[12:30] Sage: Part of it is it's just such a beautiful story of Isabelle and Nancy coming together, these two people that are so different in their backgrounds. Nancy has a background as an elementary school teacher, and Isabelle as a USAID contractor, tough as nails, like delivering food in war zones and many other things that she did… such different backgrounds. And that they came together and did this, and that it just felt like such an act of friendship… and love… Isabelle would be, like, “I really want to make Nancy's vision come true.” So that was really moving to me. It was, by itself, moving, but also… I think, [Ed.—it] illustrated this time in our history, where many of us are coming together in ways and forming deeper connections, with each other and with our community, and trying new things to kind of meet this moment. So it meant a lot to me in that way…
[13:30] And just also to see my town show up like that! I mean, it was amazing… our community, just hundreds of people, and people that I hadn't seen for years. Like the musicians “Oh my God, that's one of the dads from my son's cooperative preschool, he was one of the drummers.”, and “there are a couple of professional musicians… that guy fixed my son's saxophone all the way through high school, and that guy was his band teacher.” And [Ed.— some of] these people brought their kids… I think our youngest musician looked like he was about four or five, he was playing the drums, right? I mean, there were, like, kids in there and people that I didn't know and that we just came together… God, I just had so, just so much love… sadness, but also so much love… and hope… it was… that was… profound.
Drummers of varying ages ((Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission)
[14:26] Dan: As we went down the Mall, people would be watching, and then some of them would join and some not, but we think maybe 750 people. This was like a really pretty day, November 1. People had lots of options. But three o'clock on a Saturday, they came downtown for a jazz parade/political theater. Really, all the Indivisible actions…the No Kings Day and Hands Off….the energy is really positive and really palpable.
Sage: Yeah. I've been to the No Kings protest. I'm there holding a sign. And last time I went with Wonderground [Ed.—Singers] and so we sang protest and spiritual songs.
[15:05] The other thing that was so interesting; there's this funeral march, then Lady Liberty dies, and people are really passive, and then the Activist comes and says, “Is this what we want”? And they're like, “No!” . And then, you know, the crowd is like, “No, we want reproductive rights!” “No, we value diversity!” “No, we need the rule of law!” And just that kind of like cheering energy, like, “No, we want these things!” And then that kind of jubilation and that just celebratory dance [Ed.— back up the Mall... [and] the singing. People who were there to sing sang, but also people who were in the crowd sang.
The First Activist removing the cover obscuring the "No" or "Never" message under the "RIP Research" tombstone during Act 2 (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission)
[15:43] It was amazing because that kind of street theatre…incorporates elements of play. It very much reminds me of how I played when I was a kid; you meet other kids you don't know, and you create this world. And it follows that typical narrative structure of, there's conflict and some kind of battle for good or evil and then the goodness, spiritual goodness, wins. There's something about going through that that is both play, but it also feels real. And it's like, “If you can imagine it, it can be.”
[16:21] There's some people on the right that trolled the videos that we posted, and they're like, “Aw, a bunch of clowns!” It was like, “Yeah, yeah, that's clowning!” There's this, like, element of play and mockery and, and it's kind of kitschy in a way… the torch was like this cheap torch that you could get at Walmart, right? I mean, it's just plastic, right? So there's the element of all of those things. But also, because you see it and you go through it, even though it's in this kind of like play realm, it feels real and it really inspires you; “Yeah, we can do this!”
[16:56] And as Emily said (she was the drum major, she led the parade), it felt so real. One of the most moving moments in one video: after I've died, I'm on the ground, and she has the American flag, and she's like, kneeling [Ed.—choking up], taking a knee. And it was like, “God, she's… she's kneeling for the death of Lady Liberty.” And even though it was just made up… pretend… It was so absolutely moving.
[17:21] It reminds me of how people… like athletes… will practice, they'll mentally rehearse something… they'll get in a deeply relaxed state, and then they'll see themselves going for the race. And they might imagine this… maybe if they're a miler they might imagine going through that fourth lap, which is so difficult, but they see themselves feeling that surge of energy and getting through. It's kind of like this mental rehearsal… and if you can see it, that enables them to perform it in reality, and it feels like one of those things. That's one of the many reasons why that action [Ed.— the Jazz Parade] is so powerful.
[17:59] I got myself off track… Emily, she mentioned something like, “When we do these things together, like when we sing together and we're making eye contact and we're kind of syncing… you build trust in that way.” And so when the bad times come, you have that deep sense of connection. You're connecting with people without all these pretenses, without these social mores and niceties… you're connecting with people, you’re acting with them, you’re syncing your breath with them, you're locking eyes with them, and that builds a kind of connection and trust that will help us get through the really difficult times that are [Ed.— here] now, and that will get more difficult coming up. I don’t know if that makes sense…
[18:40] Dan: It does, very much so. Susan [McCulley], the choreographer, talked about how moving together is part of basic human connection.
Thank you so much for talking about this stuff and sharing. And you were great, you were really, really great. So thank you for contributing in so many ways as you have…
Sage: It was my honor…privilege… alright Dan.
Dan: Lady Liberty will rise again; we salute you.
Sage: I'll see you later.
Dan: Take care, bye-bye.
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