About the Show

On April 14,1890--25 years to the day after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre--onto the stage steps Harry Hawk, actor-manager of an itinerant company of players who have clearly known better days. A threadbare actor of the old school concerned above all with keeping a day's ride ahead of his creditors, Hawk announces that tonight we will witness “the story of the late War to Save the Union, drawn from the very words of those engaged in that heroic struggle, bedecked with the never-to-be-forgotten melodies of those tempest-tossed years, and illuminated by the astonishing wonders of the Magic Lantern!” 

With a wave of Hawk's hand, the curtain rises on his “musical epic—in miniature.”

The story will be told by 6 very resourceful actor-singers, each of whom takes on many supporting roles in addition to a primary character: an irreverent but devoted secretary to the president, a charismatic Union general, an idealistic young New England abolitionist-turned-battlefield nurse, a fiery activist who had come North as a runaway slave, an elegant freedwoman who becomes a confidant of the First Lady, and a carefree young Union volunteer swept along with the tide of war. 

Told in a series of songs, stories and projections, the events that overtake these characters will add up to a distilled history of the Civil War as it was experienced by the North.

Always at the center, of course, is Lincoln. Though he never appears in the play, we come to know him through his young secretary, a worldly Ivy Leaguer who serves at his side throughout the war and confides in us from the stairs outside the great man's office. Drawing on equal parts of self-deprecating humor and no-holds-barred political tactics to save the Union at any cost, Lincoln is attacked from all sides--by radical abolitionists, conservatives, ambitious fellow politicians, squabbling generals, gladhanding office-seekers and the phenomenally popular commander of the Army of the Potomac, General George McClellan.

McClellan is everything Lincoln is not--cultured, handsome, chivalrous, the ideal Victorian knight. He quickly becomes the most popular man in the North, and as the war drags on and the north divides further over the issue of slavery, McClellan becomes the lightning rod for the many who detest or disagree with Lincoln. While Lincoln rises time and again above the insults aimed at him and his wife, McClellan sees conspiracies everywhere. The transformation of Lincoln and McClellan from cordial partners into bitter antagonists is one of the most dramatic public clashes ever played out in American history, leading to threats of rebellion by the army in support of a dictatorship for McClellan.

Played against the story of Lincoln and McClellan are the intimate stories of an ex-slave battling for the cause of emancipation and the right to fight for his people's freedom, an abolitionist writer from New England on her own for the first time as a volunteer nurse in Washington, a free black seamstress who moves freely behind the scenes at the White House, and a carefree young mill hand who joins the army for adventure, but stays to see slavery put to an end. Along the way, the company of six actors all take on incidental roles, giving each the opportunity to display a wide range.

The script was adapted from letters, diaries, memoirs and newspapers, all written by men and women who were there—some famous, many forgotten. The songs that drive the story were all popular in the North during the war, but have completely new arrangements.

The story opens with a fugitive slave standing above the Ohio River, gazing upon the blue sky of the free north and dreaming of a way over the river that separates the free from the slave. From there it quickly moves to the meteoric events of Abraham Lincoln's arrival on the national scene, his nomination and election, his arrival in Washington, the crisis of secession and the opening shots of the Civil War.

In tracing the events of the war as they were seen in the North, the stories catalog the triumphs and reversals of the Union: the euphoria and controversy over emancipation, the frustration over Lincoln's inability to find a general to equal the South's commanders, riots in the North and the public's demand for an end to the killing, Lincoln's predicted re-election defeat and his sudden political rebirth, Sherman's March to the Sea, and Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

But in the wake of the surrender, Harry Hawk steps in front of the footlights to recount his horror when he stood as a young actor on the stage at Ford's Theatre, having spoken the last words Lincoln would ever hear.

As the low whistle of the westbound funeral train fades in the distance, carrying Lincoln into history, the actors emerge from behind their characters to share the end of their journeys: the young nurse describes the homeward march of the army; the young soldier recounts his joy at the simple task of starting his saw mill once again, the secretary shares a letter written by Lincoln, the freedwoman reclaims her daughter from the south, and the black veteran replies to his former master's invitation to return to live with him.

"To my old master:

"I was glad to find that you wanted us to come back to live with you again. We have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send our wages for the time we served you. With interest, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand, six hundred and eighty dollars. Say howdy to George Carter. And thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

"Your former servant...."

Silhouetted against a night sky, Harry Hawk is joined by the company in Stephen Foster's heartfelt masterpiece, “Hard Times, Come Again No More,”as the lights fade to black.

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