Becoming ’Merican: The Game Show

Becoming ’Merican: The Game Show is an interactive performance that turns the U.S. citizenship process into a live absurd competition. Hosted by Carolina Quiroga, with Tom Chalmers as game-show assistant, the audience volunteers become contestants facing mock interviews, paperwork races, loyalty rituals, cultural explanations, and unpredictable bureaucratic tests. Blending satire, personal narrative, and participation, each round reveals the strange performances often required to prove belonging: what to explain, what to confess, what to pay, and how long to wait.

Sometimes the process pauses for no clear reason, while life does not.

Funny, sharp, and unexpectedly moving, the show invites audiences to laugh while recognizing how bureaucracy shapes identity, dignity, and the feeling of becoming “American.”