The main attraction is a feat of engineering dressed up as storytelling. Inside the Liberty Theater, entire stage sets rise from below the floor on massive platforms, presenting scenes from the American Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, and the Great Depression. Audio-Animatronic figures move through these tableaux with voices supplied by Dallas McKennon as Franklin and John Anderson as Twain. The show culminates in "Golden Dream," a musical film montage that has been updated three times since Epcot opened in 1982. The 1993 renovation replaced all the animatronics and reworked the theme song. In 2007, footage of 9/11 rescue crews was added. The 2018 update, arranged by producer Harvey Mason Jr., refreshed both the montage and the anthem, aiming to keep the finale "contemporary and relevant" while respecting the original 1980 arrangement by Don Mueller.

Before guests reach the theater, they pass through a lobby lined with quotes from famous Americans, including Walt Disney and Charles Lindbergh, and paintings depicting American life across the centuries. Upstairs, twelve statues personifying American values stand sentinel, six on each side of the auditorium. But the pavilion's most beloved performance happens in the ground-floor rotunda, where the Voices of Liberty, an eight-member professional a cappella group, fill the domed space with patriotic choral music throughout the day. The group evolved from Re'Generation, an a cappella ensemble that sang at Magic Kingdom in the 1970s, and has performed for presidents including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. Founded and directed by Derric Johnson, the Voices of Liberty perform special sets during the holiday season and on the Fourth of July, their harmonies reverberating off the rotunda ceiling in a space acoustically designed for exactly this purpose.

Directly across from the pavilion sits the America Gardens Theatre, an outdoor amphitheater that has hosted an eclectic roster of live entertainment since the park opened. Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance ran summer seasons in 1999 and 2000. The theatrical production Blast! performed on its stage. During Epcot's two signature festivals -- the International Flower and Garden Festival in spring and the International Food and Wine Festival in fall -- the venue hosts its popular concert series, "Garden Rocks" and "Eat to the Beat," featuring musical acts from the 1960s through the 1990s. During the holiday season, the theater transforms for the Candlelight Processional, a tradition that dates to Disneyland in 1960 and relocated to this stage in 1994. A massed choir and orchestra perform traditional holiday music while a celebrity narrator retells the nativity story. Past narrators have included Neil Patrick Harris, Whoopi Goldberg, Andy Garcia, and Edward James Olmos.

The American Adventure functions as something unusual in the theme park world: a building that takes its subject seriously enough to keep revising its own story. Each update to the Golden Dream montage reflects shifts in who and what America chooses to celebrate. The pavilion also houses the American Heritage Gallery, a rotating exhibition space that has presented displays on everything from American Indian art to the cultural contributions of various communities. Outside, the Regal Eagle Smokehouse, a Muppet-themed barbecue restaurant, offers a lighter counterpoint to the weighty patriotism inside. The juxtaposition is fitting. The American Adventure never pretends that American history is simple. It stages the Revolution and the Depression on the same floor, lets Franklin's Enlightenment optimism collide with Twain's frontier skepticism, and trusts that the audience can hold both. The building itself embodies the trick: five stories of complexity hidden behind a facade that looks effortlessly modest.