"American Hero"
Planet Ant Theatre
Hamtramck, Mich.
Through Dec. 7, 2025
What happens when down-on-their-luck sandwich shop employees are abandoned by corporate and forced to fend for themselves? That’s the premise of Bess Wohl’s comedy “American Hero,” directed by Kymberli Skye and now playing at Planet Ant Theatre.
The show begins with a new sub franchise owner – from an undetermined European country where he was once a dermatologist – hiring employees for the latest branch of Planet Toasty, played by Scott Sanford. We meet 18-year-old Sheri (Geshawna Francis), who has to work two jobs to afford her ailing father’s medications and 33-year-old single mom Jamie (Mary Butler) desperate for a job to keep her kids in a custody battle. We’re also introduced to 43-year-old family man Ted (Dan Pesta), a laid-off former corporate banker with an MBA who sees his only option to get back on top is starting from the bottom.
As they learn their assembly-line style sandwich-making roles and franchise protocol, they’re soon abandoned by the new franchise owner and corporate office. The three must band together to keep the shop alive among dwindling supplies and angry customers, forging bonds and taking pride in their resourcefulness.
The cast is solid in their roles. Francis captures the constantly exhausted, yet hardworking and optimistic problem-solver. Butler and Pesta are outwardly more carefree but later reveal dire personal struggles that keep them returning to a situation most people would abandon after five minutes.
Sanford steals the show in a multitude of roles, which include an angry customer and corporate representative, in addition to the franchise owner. But the best is as the trippy sandwich Jesus, who appears to Sheri in a dream to inspire her to save the sandwich shop in one of the best scenes of the show.
The play is lighthearted, though an ultimately pessimistic take on the idea of the American Dream and modern American society in general. The story, while absurd, highlights the extremities desperate people will go to in order to survive. A teenager having to work two jobs to pay for her father’s medication is the direst example of our broken system and a representation of corporate greed and unaffordable healthcare millions of American face (which will grow substantially next year). The circumstances of the other two are less sympathetic but still highlight a dismal labor market where corporate greed has people at the bottom of the economic latter fighting for scraps.
The show is both a celebration of the American hustle and a sad reveal of the fallacy of the American Dream. While it has a handful of laugh-out-load moments, it’s more mildly amusing and ultimately sad.
