The Original Showdown at Nathan's - Historical Story

Artists' Statement

     It is one thing to revisit the past, but it is another when someone must try to recreate it for a modern audience. After a quick run through of historical events, we were able to adapt something that most likely few have ever known about. It is a true example of how one little argument could spur a national phenomenon. It is a testament to how something seemingly trivial can become history. After all, why shouldn’t Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest have its roots explored in all of their potentially ridiculous glory?

            Following that thought, we began laying down the narrative of our piece. While there exists and account of the year and winner of the first contest, most of the other details have been lost in time. This allowed us greater flexibility with the storytelling. We were able to insert characters into the story, develop a background and make the narrative progression entertaining. We felt that having such an open historical event would serve the narrative better so we could better pinpoint story beats and a climax.

            Then we moved on to dialogue. Of course we did our research on 1910’s vernacular to make things historically correct. We felt that a few of these references would be consistent with our point about the silliness of the event. The characters are more or less stereotypes, so their dialogue should be appropriately melodramatic.  The style began to gel into what I personally envisioned the script: like an entertaining children’s show history lesson in the vein of Bill Nye The Science Guy.

            Overall, these points and others lend themselves to our main thought: it is amazing what will go down in the history books. You may have to embellish to make it fit as a story, but the premise almost writes itself.