Broken Morning (2003)

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By Chiori Miyagawa
Lyrics by Mark Campbell/Music by Daniel Sonenberg
Directed by Sonoko Kawahara

HERE Arts Center

Miyagawa provides potent food for thought in this remarkable work….. Broken Morning is compelling storytelling of the highest order; it will cause you to ask questions, to challenge your assumptions, and to reconsider what you thought you knew about some fundamental social issue. This is theatre at its best, doing what theatre does best. It is not to be missed.-nytheatre.com, Martin Denton

Broken Morning doesn’t have anyone argument to make about its subject. It’s more about incremental discoveries, picking up subtle clues about the humanity of the people we as a society have consigned to death and the people in whose name we’ve done it. – offoffoff.com, Joshua Tanzer

HERE Arts Center is presenting Broken Morning: Stories from the Death Row Factory, an impressive compilation of vignettes and personal stories. -electroniclink.com, Kessa De Santis

About the Play

Broken Morning is a fictional play inspired by people the playwright met in Texas in 1996 – men on death row, security officers, the death row factory manager, the warden, all at the Huntsville prison; a woman on death row in the Gatesville prison; and women from the Victims’ Outreach in Dallas. The play takes place in the sewing factory at the Ellis One Unit of the Huntsville Prison where men awaiting execution go to work every weekday. Interwoven with their stories of violence, poverty, and struggles against society and their own demons, are the stories of people who surround the business of death row and the sorrows and hopes of the victims’ families. The play combines harsh realities with poetic language, creating a world where aggressors, victims, and people who are not even aware of this dynamic are all connected as if they are caught in a spider’s web.

GALLERY

Production Credits

Written by Chiori Miyagawa
Directed by Sonoko Kawahara
lyrics by Mark Campbell
Music by Daniel Sonenberg
Performed by George Hannah, Brian Nishii, Kaipo Schwab, Margi Sharp, and Sophia Skiles
Lights: Garin Marschall
Costumes: Naama Greenfield
Sound: Andy Cohen
Stage Manager: Kristen Petliski
Associate Producer: Hillary Spector
Assistant Producer: Megan Riordan

February 20-March 16

Broken Morning -Stories From the Death Row Factory is made possible in part with public/private funds from The Fund for Creative Communities from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Manhattan Community Arts Fund from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Asian American Art Alliance/J.P. Morgan Chase SMART Regrant program, and ART/NY Nancy Quinn Fund.