Grant’s Tomb chronicles one theater of operations on July 4 in the broader war between blue and red armies.

Refugees
Alaska, b. 1942, moose totem
Victorious Garcia Doe, b. unknown, transient
William Kemp, b. 1850, Columbia student
Joseph Papp, b. 1921, theater impresario

Reinforcements
Maeve Brennan, b. 1917, transient
Fanny Brice, b. 1891, performer
Famous Dairy, b. 1958, deli
Billie Holiday, b. 1915, singer
George Kolombatovich, b. 1946, fencer
Muriel Manings, b. 1923, dancer
Audrey Munson, b. 1891, model
New York Philharmonic, b. 1842, musicians
Dorothy Parker, b. 1893, theater critic
Emery Roth, b. 1871, architect

Chorus of Reinforcements

Sunrise
Columbus Circle
8 am
Columbus Circle
8:30 am
Central Park Casino (NLE) near E. 72nd Street
9 am
Decca Records (NLE), 135 W. 70th Street
10 am
Plato’s Retreat (NLE), 2109 Broadway
Famous Dairy (NLE), 222 W. 72nd Street
11 am
The Beresford, 211 Central Park West
Delacorte Theater, Mid-Park at 80th Street
1 pm
Savoy Ballrooom (NLE), 596 Lenox Avenue
5 pm
The Hendrik Hudson, 380 Riverside Drive
Lights Out
Grant’s Tomb, Riverside Drive and W. 122nd Street
Sunrise
Reveille.
8 am
PAPP. Places!
ALASKA. Attention, non-combatants, there’s no escape.
PAPP. When you’re ready.
BRICE. Rewolt!
KEMP. The opening salvo of red artillery and musketry, fired from loopholes in 52-story-high «January 6» banners, kills humans indiscriminately at the foot of the Red Hotel.
DOE (blows whistle). You want to go there already? Because if you want to go there? (blows whistle)
KEMP. Uniformed red horsemen, flashing bayonets, trot into position around the base of their glass tower.Survivors split into two camps, red and blue. A cast of thousands clobbers itself. The fuss wakes the dead. Rich and poor, famous and anonymous alike, dislodged from their homes, dodge bullets and shells. Everyone is a target.
Explosion backstage.
PAPP. Ladies and gentlemen, our writer has been assassinated backstage.
DOE. Sic semper tyrannis!
PAPP. Where he is, he won’t miss a word. When you’re ready.
Explosion at Red Hotel.
ALASKA. The reds have left the building, ass-backward.
8:30 am
KEMP. A flanking maneuver by red volunteers gets them double-quick into the Park.
PAPP. Welcome to the Casino.
HOLIDAY. Negro.
ROTH. Jew.
PARKER. Critic.
KEMP. In the Sheep Meadow, they trample Hoovervilles and capture the New York Philharmonic.
HOLIDAY. The Yanks are coming.
KOLOMBATOVICH. Épée.
BRICE. Sabre.
PARKER. Foil.
KEMP. Literary Walk confounds them.
PARKER. Sabre? Show us.
BRICE. Show your foil.
HOLIDAY. Without cover, we are sacrificial lambs.
BRICE. Take my horse.
PARKER. Take my horse.
PAPP. According to my map, there are portals here.
ROTH. Decca Records.
PAPP. Here.
ROTH. Famous Dairy.
PAPP. And here.
ROTH. The Beresford. Greeks, Romans and New Yorkers placed boundary markers at crossroads to ward off harm.
MANINGS. Hermes guided the dead to Hades.
HOLIDAY. Throw the dice.
ROTH. Hades or bust.
MUNSON. This way, please. Watch your step.
KEMP. Surging north, the reds pour across Bethesda Terrace, toppling the Angel of the Waters. Stretching from Bow Bridge, a be-medalled superior officer decorates troops in rental boats taken by force. The San Remo, Eldorado and Majestic tremble.
PAPP. They were impassive in a previous draft.
9 am
PAPP. When you’re ready.
BRICE. Rewolt!
ALASKA (sings words on portal lintel). «If fraternal love held all men bound
How beautiful this world would be.»
HOLIDAY. This little number is called «No Good Man». Present company excepted, gentlemen.
PAPP. We have to leave, according to the script.
ALASKA. Climb aboard. The meter is running.
10 am
KEMP. Unable to agree on a flag design, the blues cannot rally around a standard. The 1,850th California, their flakiest regiment, presses in single file in every direction. Reinforcements burst from the 66th and 72nd Street subway stations. Mayhem on Broadway obliges a mounted brigadier general waving a Revolutionary War sword to gallop to West End Avenue, her 1,818th Illinois trailing on tender feet. Blue deserters shopping on Columbus and Amsterdam are shot with Spencer repeating rifles. A secret dossier pertaining to the red leader’s sex life is discovered in the basement of the Blue Hotel.
DOE. A beet-red boaster in Plato’s Retreat falls for Apollodorus. Unless he is with Crito. I quote: «We do NOT acknowledge or honor the original stewards of this land, the Munsee Lenape.»
KEMP. A 20th precinct police captain preaches the wisdom of barricades.
MUNSON. This way, please. Watch your step.

FAMOUS DAIRY. Vegetarian chopped liver, up! Mushrooms, delightfully prepared!
PAPP. A talking vegetarian deli is revolutionary.
DOE. I can go without food, but I can’t go without water.
BRENNAN. A frowning male in a business suit bursts in, seizes a secluded table. His square shoulders frame a big red tie and a small lapel pin, the Stars and Stripes. He devours specialties of the house. In the middle of his fifth cream delight, he recoils from the menu as if hit by a bullet. «The meat’s fake?!» He hurls his empty plates before amscraying without tipping.
Explosion at Blue Hotel.
ALASKA. The blues, and a red, have left the building, back-assward.
KEMP. Sensing a trap, a red spy creeps away to provisional HQ, the American Museum of Natural History.

End of Preview

Autopsy Report
Writer

Image Credits
Dakota + Rubble: Museum of the City of New York
NY Phil: NY Phil

Other Images

rev. August 21, 2026