Based on interviews conducted in 2003, the play explores the compromised issues of trust and truth that arose between the American government and its people during the lead-up to the Iraq War.
When writing about the motivation to create such a work, writer and director Steve Cosson said "If a democracy depends in part on there being some common understanding of what is actually taking place in the world, then we wanted to know if in fact if such a consensus existed, and if not, then just how are people parsing reality?
The dialogue from the interviews is then woven verbatim into the script, producing a kind of theater that Brian Logan from The Guardian describes thus: "The Civilians co-mingle docudrama with cabaret, spinning their interviewees' responses into improbable, inquisitive song-and-soliloquy revues.
It presents a dynamic range of real-life perspectives from across the country, from an Arab-American cab driver to a staffer at the Department of Homeland Security, everyone in the phone book listed under the name Jessica Lynch, an elderly Jewish woman, and even an alien.
[13] U.S. premiere: Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Matt Dellapina, Brad Heberlee, Daoud Heidami, Caitlin Miller, Jennifer R. Morris, and Andy Boronson.