The Exonerated
April 26 & 27 at 7:30
READER'S THEATRE
The first of two works read on stage at the Mallardi by local actors of all ages. The play, The Exonerated by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen and directed by Kathy Norgard, tells personal accounts of wrongful imprisonment and eventual release. Offbeat, cutting edge and just plain entertaining, benefitting performers with limited time and…ah...memory. Doors at 7:00 p.m. Curtain at 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $16 adults, $14 members, $10 students. Mallardi Cabaret Theatre, Second & Elk, Crested Butte.
Culled from interviews, letters, transcripts, case files and the public record, The Exonerated tells the true stories of six wrongfully convicted survivors of death row in their own words. In this ninety-minute intermissionless play, we meet Kerry, a sensitive Texan brutalized on death row for twenty-two years before being exonerated by DNA evidence; we meet Gary, a Midwestern organic farmer condemned for the murder of his own parents and later exonerated when two motorcycle-gang members confess. We meet Robert, an African-American horse groomer who spent seven years on death row for the murder of a white woman before evidence emerges that the victim was found clutching hair from a Caucasian attacker. We hear from David, a shy man with aspirations to the ministry, bullied into confessing at eighteen to a robbery/murder he had nothing to do with, scarred from a youth spent in prison and struggling to regain his faith; and from Sunny, a bright-spirited hippie who, along with her husband, spent seventeen years in prison for the murder of two police officers—while another man confessed and was ignored by the courts. And we meet Delbert, a poet who serves as the play's center, convicted of a rape/murder in the Deep South of the 1970s and later freed when evidence surfaced showing that he was not even in the town when the crime occurred. Moving between first-person monologues and scenes set in courtrooms and prisons, the six interwoven stories paint a picture of an American criminal justice system gone horribly wrong—and of six brave souls who persevered to survive it.
The first of two works read on stage at the Mallardi by local actors of all ages. The play, The Exonerated by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen and directed by Kathy Norgard, tells personal accounts of wrongful imprisonment and eventual release. Offbeat, cutting edge and just plain entertaining, benefitting performers with limited time and…ah...memory. Doors at 7:00 p.m. Curtain at 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $16 adults, $14 members, $10 students. Mallardi Cabaret Theatre, Second & Elk, Crested Butte.
Culled from interviews, letters, transcripts, case files and the public record, The Exonerated tells the true stories of six wrongfully convicted survivors of death row in their own words. In this ninety-minute intermissionless play, we meet Kerry, a sensitive Texan brutalized on death row for twenty-two years before being exonerated by DNA evidence; we meet Gary, a Midwestern organic farmer condemned for the murder of his own parents and later exonerated when two motorcycle-gang members confess. We meet Robert, an African-American horse groomer who spent seven years on death row for the murder of a white woman before evidence emerges that the victim was found clutching hair from a Caucasian attacker. We hear from David, a shy man with aspirations to the ministry, bullied into confessing at eighteen to a robbery/murder he had nothing to do with, scarred from a youth spent in prison and struggling to regain his faith; and from Sunny, a bright-spirited hippie who, along with her husband, spent seventeen years in prison for the murder of two police officers—while another man confessed and was ignored by the courts. And we meet Delbert, a poet who serves as the play's center, convicted of a rape/murder in the Deep South of the 1970s and later freed when evidence surfaced showing that he was not even in the town when the crime occurred. Moving between first-person monologues and scenes set in courtrooms and prisons, the six interwoven stories paint a picture of an American criminal justice system gone horribly wrong—and of six brave souls who persevered to survive it.
THE EXONERATED
By Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
Directed by Katherine Norgard
April 26th & 27th, 2013
The Setting
Death Row and Beyond
The Cast
DELBERT, DOYLE…………………………………….Tuck
KERRY, DAVID’S DEFENSE…………………………Matthew Hart
GARY, WHITE COP, SHERIFF CARROLL.………….Brent Laney
SANDRA, SUNNY…………………………………………..……..Donielle Carr
PAULA, COURT ATTORNEY, SUE, WHITE COP,
KERRY’S JUDGE…………………………………………………Heather Toth
JESSE, DAVID………………………………………..Ian Wrisley
RHODES, JEFF, ROBERT, KERRY’S DEFENSE…..Mike Pool
SUNNY’S PROSECUTOR, DEPUTY.....................Adele Bachman
ROBERT’S JUDGE, FEMALE LAWYER,
GEORGIA……………………………………………..Heather Holly
KERRY’S PROSECUTOR, BLACK COP………….Paul Haygood
Notes from Tonight’s Director
When Harry Woods invited me to participate in the production of The Exonerated, I was honored. The issue of the death penalty has been a part of my life for 20 years.
I have been involved in Arizona and Colorado as well as at a national and international level working along side others to end the death penalty. Thanks to that movement, the United States no longer executes children under age eighteen or people with mental retardation.
I met Sunny Jacobs the year she was released from death row. Her story is also documented in a made-for-TV movie, “In The Blink of an Eye.” Sunny, now remarried and living in Ireland, was happy to learn The Exonerated came to Crested Butte. She knows that an execution can never be reversed.
--Kathy Norgard
By Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
Directed by Katherine Norgard
April 26th & 27th, 2013
The Setting
Death Row and Beyond
The Cast
DELBERT, DOYLE…………………………………….Tuck
KERRY, DAVID’S DEFENSE…………………………Matthew Hart
GARY, WHITE COP, SHERIFF CARROLL.………….Brent Laney
SANDRA, SUNNY…………………………………………..……..Donielle Carr
PAULA, COURT ATTORNEY, SUE, WHITE COP,
KERRY’S JUDGE…………………………………………………Heather Toth
JESSE, DAVID………………………………………..Ian Wrisley
RHODES, JEFF, ROBERT, KERRY’S DEFENSE…..Mike Pool
SUNNY’S PROSECUTOR, DEPUTY.....................Adele Bachman
ROBERT’S JUDGE, FEMALE LAWYER,
GEORGIA……………………………………………..Heather Holly
KERRY’S PROSECUTOR, BLACK COP………….Paul Haygood
Notes from Tonight’s Director
When Harry Woods invited me to participate in the production of The Exonerated, I was honored. The issue of the death penalty has been a part of my life for 20 years.
I have been involved in Arizona and Colorado as well as at a national and international level working along side others to end the death penalty. Thanks to that movement, the United States no longer executes children under age eighteen or people with mental retardation.
I met Sunny Jacobs the year she was released from death row. Her story is also documented in a made-for-TV movie, “In The Blink of an Eye.” Sunny, now remarried and living in Ireland, was happy to learn The Exonerated came to Crested Butte. She knows that an execution can never be reversed.
--Kathy Norgard