The Andersonville Trial

by Saul Levitt

April 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20 2008

Close to a century and a half has passed since the United States was nearly sundered by the Civil War, but the issue of humanity and conscience versus responsibility, what one person has the right to do to another, continues to bedevil us. As always.

Captain Henry Wirz commanded the prison at Andersonville, Georgia where nearly 45,000 Union prisoners endured captivity in the space of a small farm. Fourteen thousand of them died, at times a hundred a day succumbing to the heat, malnutrition, and shoddy sanitation. We hear all this through the stories of the witnesses at Wirz’s trial.

The Andersonville Trial is an absorbing drama, grabbing the audience through the characters and emotions, making us want to comprehend how it all went wrong. And somehow we understand the humanity of why.

Tami McDonald directs and produces the Apollo production.
Costume design is by Susie Sayre.

Produced by arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc.