The story
Whiskey Rebellion Festival in Washington
Washington, Pennsylvania's Whiskey Rebellion Festival interprets the conflict sparked by the 1791 federal excise tax on distilled spirits. Street theatre and reenactment move the history through town, with period displays, music, food and interpreters explaining protest, federal response and episodes such as the symbolic tar-and-feathering of an official. The recurring practices—street reenactments of the 1790s conflict, period exhibits and interpretation, and programming around the historic Bradford House—tie the public program to the place and the people who sustain it.
A tax collector appears on a Washington street, arguments gather around him and an eighteenth-century political crisis begins again in short scenes among modern storefronts.