The Exonerated

Shubert Theatre, Chicago

About the Show

The Exonerated is ripped directly from today’s headlines. Directed by Bob Balaban, the play stars stage and film star Brian Dennehy and TV star Marlo Thomas. During the summer of 2000, married authors Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen traveled across the United States interviewing 40 former death row prisoners. They went as far south as Texas and Florida, as far north as Illinois and just about everywhere in between to meet the people whose stories appear in the play. The interviewees were from vastly different ethnic, religious and educational backgrounds. Their views on the world varied greatly. The only thing they had in common was that all 40 had been sentenced to death, spent anywhere from 2 to 22 years on death row, were subsequently found innocent and eventually freed by the state. Their verbatim interviews and individual court documents form the core of this new drama.