Historian, teacher, playwright and activist Howard Zinn’s landmark 1980 book, “The People’s History of the United States,” taught academia that history told only from the point of view of winners and conquerors isn’t real history at all. Zinn’s book gave voice to those in the margins and on the fringes and losing sides. These voices of rebellion, opposition and daring are heard even clearer in Zinn’s 2004 companion book, “Voices of a People's History of the United States,” and in a theatrical event spawned by the book: “The People Speak.”

Merging art and action, theater and history, “The People Speak” has toured the country with various actors performing voices of dissent throughout history, such as Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, Emma Goldman, Helen Keller, Eugene V. Debs, Fannie Lou Hamer, Genova Johnson Dollinger, a striker at General Motors in Flint, Michigan, and James Lawrence Harrington, a Gulf War resister, among others.

“The People Speak” comes to Provincetown Town Hall in a special event in recognition of the sixth anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. Presented by the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, performers include Erin Cherry, Andre Gregory, Laura Esterman, Robert Finch, Cortez Nance, Hubert Point-Du-Jour, John Rothman, Kathy Shorr, Lili Taylor and Jeff Zinn, WHAT artistic director and son of Howard Zinn, who will introduce the excerpts. ....