Off-Broadway play examines death penalty

The Cardinal Stage Company will present a reading of the off-Broadway play “The Exonerated” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday in the John Waldron Arts Center Auditorium as a part of ArtsWeek.  

“The Exonerated” tells the true stories of five men and one woman who were falsely sentenced to death and ultimately freed by DNA evidence.

Based off of court transcripts, public documents and interviews conducted with the wrongly convicted, the play puts a human perspective on the death penalty debate.

“We wanted to be part of ArtsWeek, and ArtsWeek is related to politics. We wanted to find something that fit,” said Randy White, Cardinal Stage Company artistic director. “I saw it in New York and was moved by it.”

In 2002, the play’s authors presented “The Exonerated” before Illinois Gov. George Ryan, just months before he commuted the sentence of more than 140 death row inmates, according to the play’s Web site.  

Following Friday night’s performance, the audience will have an opportunity to participate in an open discussion about the issues the play raises with professors Marla Sandys and Mark Hamm, and Chris Hitz-Bradley from the Indiana Information Center on the Abolition of Capital Punishment.

“It’s designed to be a reading,” White said. “It’s sort of a combination of a staged play and a reading. The idea is that people just sitting and telling the stories are compelling by them just telling the stories.”