written by Romulus Linney from Ernest J. Gaines novel
directed by David M. Thomas

“...powerful passions...a sense of poignancy building inexorably toward the climax...”
Washington Post (full review)

“Superb…a two-tissue ending…”
The Maryland Independent

July 11 & 12, 18 & 19, 2003 at 8:00 in the evening

5 male, 2 female

Juvaun Dixon, Chris Holbert, Elizabeth Theobalds, Charmian Crawford, Felipe Harris, Brian Donohue, and Alex Zavistovich

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Jefferson, an innocent young man, is condemned to death in backwoods Louisiana in 1948. At the trial his lawyer, trying to save his life, called him no more a human being than a hog. In prison, he acts like one, insisting that he will be dragged like that hog to his death in the electric chair. His godmother asks a schoolteacher to teach him to die like a man. The teacher, Grant Wiggins, struggling to quit his poor parish school and leave the South, faces both Jefferson and himself as execution day arrives. Ernest J. Gaines’ celebrated novel makes an engrossing, moving and finally devastating play for the stage.