Based on the novel by Louis Adamic (1898-1951)

The purpose of the production is to present Dinner at the White House, a book by Louis Adamic that has never been published in its entirety in Slovenian translation. It was Adamic’s book Two-Way Passage (1941) that impressed the USA President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor so much that they wanted to introduce Winston Churchill to Adamic and his ideas, namely that the new world which owed so much to the old one should help Europe in ruins after the war. The dinner took place on 13 January 1942, following Winston Churchill’s first interwar visit to President Roosevelt. Louis Adamic and his wife Stella Sanders Adamic were also invited to this dinner. Louis Adamic wrote the book on the suggestion of his friend and famous writer Upton Sinclair. It was published in 1946 by Harper & Brothers. After the book’s publication, however, problems arose not only with Winston Churchill, but also with Adamic’s role during the American “witch-hunt”. It is the final book completed by Adamic before his violent death in 1951, when he was writing The Eagle and the Roots, a book about events in Yugoslavia after 1948. The book was edited posthumously by Stella Sanders Adamic and Timothy Seldes. The role and significance of Dinner at the White House have been staged by actress Nataša Keser and actor Niko Goršič in a series of scenes, with Miklavž Komelj acting as a commentator.

Adapted by Andreja Kopač
Directed by Nick Upper
Performed by Nataša Keser and Niko Goršič