TheWhipping ManBY MATTHEW LOPEZDIRECTED BY MEREDITH MCDONOUGH

PLAY GUIDE

ABOUT THE THE WHIPPING MAN PLAY GUIDE

This play guide is a standards-based resource designed to enhance your theatre experience. Its goal is twofold: to nurture the teaching and learning of theatre arts and to encourage essential questions that lead to enduring understandings of the play’s historical meaning and relevance. Inside you will find history/contextual information and vocabulary that lay the groundwork of the story and build anticipation for the performance. Oral discussion and writing prompts encourage your students to reflect upon their impressions and to analyze and relate key ideas to their personal experiences and the world around them. These can easily be adapted to fit most writing objectives. The Bridgework connects theatre elements with ideas for drama activities in the classroom as well as integrated curriculum. We encourage you to adapt and extend the material in any way to best fit the needs of your community of learners. Please feel free to make copies of this guide, or you may download it from our website: ActorsTheatre.org. We hope this material, combined with our pre-show workshops, will give you the tools to make your time at Actors Theatre a valuable learning experience.

The Whipping Man student matinees and play guides address specific EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES:

• Students will identify or describe the use of elements of drama in dramatic works.

• Students will analyze how time, place and ideas are reflected in drama/theatre.

• Students will explain how drama/theatre fufills a variety of purposes.

If you have any questions or suggestionsregarding our play guides, please contactSteven Rahe, Director of Education, at502-584-1265 ext. 3045.

TABLE OF CONTENTS3 The Whipping Man Synopsis, Character List and

Setting

4 About Mattew Lopez, About Meredith McDonough

5 “Why is This Year Different From All Other Years?” Engaging our Past with The Whipping Man

6 Beyond the Seder: American Jews in the Civil War.

7 Bearing Witness–Excerpts from Thirty Years a slave:

from Bondage to Freedom

8 Interview with Chris Miller, Composer

9 Discussion Starters, Communication Portfolio, Further

Research

10-11 Glossary

12 Works Cited

Actors Theatre EducationSteven Rahe, Director of EducationJacob Stoebel, Associate Director of EducationJane B. Jones, Education AssociateLiz Fentress, Resident Teaching ArtistKeith McGill, Resident Teaching Artist Gabriel Garcia, Education/Teaching Artist InternLeShawn Holcomb, Education/Teaching Artist Intern Lori Pitts, Education/Teaching Artist Intern

Play Guide by Leshawn Holcomb, Gabriel Garcia, Jane B. Jones, Sarah Lunnie, Hannah Rae Montgomery, Lori Pitts, Steven Rahe, Christina Shackelford, Jacob Stoebel and Kathryn Zukaitis Graphic Design by Keith La Rue

The Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, supports

Actors Theatre of Louisville with state tax dolars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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The Whipping Man opens at the end of the Civil War, when a badly wounded Jewish soldier, Caleb, returns to his home in Richmond, Virginia. His family has fled, leaving behind two former slaves, Simon and John, in the torn and ruined house. Simon tries to safeguard the house and property while he waits for the return of his wife and daughter. John uses the house as a holding place for the things he loots from the surrounding community. When the men realize that it is Passover, the Jewish festival commemorating the story of Exodus when the enslaved Israelites were freed from Egypt, they begin preparations for a Seder meal, a Jewish ritual feast.

CAST OF CHARACTERSCalebCaleb is a Jewish Confederate soldier. Wounded, he returns home to find that his family has fled, and two of his former slaves are living in the ruins of their once grand home.

SimonSimon is a former slave of the De Leon family and a devout Jew. His wife and daughter also served the DeLeon family.

JohnJohn is a Jewish former slave of the DeLeon family, who is bursting with dreams.

It is April, 1865 in Richmond, Virginia.

“The lights rise on what was once the front entrance of a grand town home, now in ruins. Craters dot the hardwood floors. The wallpaper is stained with soot and parts of it are burned away. Most of the windows are broken. The damage to the house suggests recent destruction rather than years of neglect. This was someone’s home not too long ago.” —from the opening stage directions of The Whipping Man

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Fallen Confererate capitol, Richmond, Va., April 1865

SYNOPSIS SETTING

ABOUT MATTHEW LOPEZ

ABOUT MEREDITH MCDONOUGH

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It might seem incongruous to some that a playwright of Puerto Rican and Polish descent would write a play about Jewish former slaves and their master at the close of the Civil War. However, in an interview with New York Times journalist Felicia Lee, Lopez explains, “I don’t know if you have to be in a certain group to tell a story…We as Americans have to take responsibility for our past, even if most of us in this country today are not descendants of slaveholders.” The Whipping Man has become one of the more regularly produced new American plays, with dozens of productions all around the country. After the premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club in February of 2011, Lopez was awarded the John Gassner Playwriting Award from the Outer Critics Circle. Lopez is now the artist-in-residence at the Old Globe in San Diego. He is also commissioned by Roundabout Theatre Company, is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect and is a recent member of the Ars Nova Play Group.

New Associate Artistic Director, Meredith McDonough, has crafted a thriving career as a theatre director fueled by her passion for new plays and new musicals. Most recently, McDonough

served as the Director of New Works at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, California. While there she directed the world premieres of Laura Schellhardt’s Upright Grand and Auctioning the Ainsleys, as well as Now Circa Then, [title of show] and Opus (Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards: Best Director and Best Production). In New York City, McDonough has developed work with Roundabout Theatre Company, Atlantic Theatre Company, Keen Company, and Ars Nova. She has been the Associate Artistic Director of The Orchard Project, was the New Works Director for the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, a Drama League Fellow, an alum of the Women’s Project Directors Lab and a Kesselring Award Panelist. McDonough is pleased to return to Actors Theatre of Louisville, where she began as a directing intern, and then served as the Associate Director of the Apprentice/Intern Program for two seasons.The Whipping Man is Meredith McDonough’s first directorial project as Associate Artistic Director, though she has directed at Actors and in the Humana Festival of New American Plays previously. This production of The Whipping Man is particularly exciting to McDonough because of her friendship with Matthew Lopez and her love of his work. McDonough is captivated by Lopez’s range as a writer and his ability to write dynamic characters who must navigate complex personal and interpersonal conflicts. McDonough received her B.S. in performance studies from Northwestern University and her M.F.A. in directing from University of California, San Diego, where she studied with Actors Theatre Artistic Director Les Waters.

Matthew Lopez, playwright

Meredith McDonough, Actors Theatre’s Associate Artistic Director

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“WHY IS THIS YEAR DIFFERENT FROM ALL THE OTHER YEARS?”

On Saturday, April 15, 1865, three men hold a makeshift Seder in the ruins of a once-grand home in the fallen Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Theirs is an unusual celebration for a number of reasons. It’s happening several days late, for one thing, owing to the chaos that has prevailed in recent weeks. And given the privations brought on by wartime, the men must make do with what they have on hand—celery instead of bitter herbs, hardtack in place of matzah. But the improvised Seder in playwright Matthew Lopez’s The Whipping Man is most remarkable because of the men who are holding it: Simon and John, two recently freed slaves, and Caleb, their former master.

It is a fascinating but seldom discussed matter of U.S. history that in 1865, the end of the Civil War coincided with the beginning of the observance of Passover. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court house on April 9, marking the conclusion of a bloody four-year conflict that ultimately would result in the abolition of slavery throughout the reconstituted Union. Passover—the weeklong festival that commemorates the Exodus of Hebrew slaves from Egypt—began at sundown the following night. The symbolic resonance of this coincidence inspired Matthew Lopez to write The Whipping Man, an unflinching look at the unresolved hypocrisies of our shared American history. “While American Jews were celebrating this ancient observance of the Exodus from Egypt,” Lopez explained in a 2010 web interview, “a new kind of exodus was happening around them. I imagined a Jewish slave-owning family (such families did exist) and their slaves who have, over time, adopted the religion. Hopefully it causes audiences to question the meaning of freedom and personal responsibility, both in their own lives and as citizens.”

The play chronicles the fraught reunion of Simon, John and Caleb in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Richmond, as the men attempt to sort through the wreckage of their former lives, and begin to imagine the future. When Captain Caleb De Leon, a badly wounded soldier in the defeated Confederate army, returns to his home, he finds his family gone and the place changed beyond recognition. Simon, who has spent his life as a slave in the De Leon household, has stayed behind to take care of the house and to wait for Caleb. Meanwhile John—a younger former slave, alongside whom Caleb grew up—loots from the surrounding abandoned homes while planning his next move. But these men all safeguard dangerous secrets, and ultimately they must contend with the ghosts of the past, and with each other, before they can move forward.

“I’ve long been fascinated with the idea that history is made up of more than just great, calamitous events; it is also the quiet moments (which, in truth, are never all that quiet) between the big events in which life is allowed to return to normal,” says Lopez of The Whipping Man’s inception, explaining how his first play began as a voyage into his own curiosity. “There was no event more calamitous in American history than the Civil War and slavery. How can you be a slave all your life and then suddenly be presented with freedom? How do you make that shift? Is it sudden or gradual? What if you were forced to make that shift in the presence of your former master? How do you react to him?” These are questions that resonate powerfully in a nation still grappling with slavery’s legacy, and since its 2006 premiere at Luna Stage in Montclair, New Jersey, The Whipping Man has

enjoyed one of the most impressive regional runs in American theatre today—including a critically acclaimed 2011 production at New York’s Manhattan Theatre Club, and more than 25 recent or upcoming productions at theatres around the country.

When queried by the New York Times about his own relationship to his material—Lopez is neither black nor Jewish—the playwright challenged the notion that, when it comes to writing, one must stick to what one knows. “I don’t know if you need to belong to a certain group to tell a story,” he argued. “If you did, I would only write about gay Puerto Rican guys who live in Park Slope. We as Americans have to take responsibility for our past, even if most of us in the country today are not descendants of slaveholders.”

Indeed, the call to engage with the stories of the past is the animating spirit of the

Seder. The ritual has its origins in the Book of Exodus, which commands that every year Jews should tell their children the story of their ancestors’ bondage and liberation. Because the function of the feast is one of remembrance, questions and answers are an important part of the ritual. Perhaps the most famous question asked at the Seder, usually by the youngest child present, is “Why is this night different from all other nights?” In April, 1865, as a divided country began the slow process of healing after a long war—and as four million former slaves contemplated newfound freedom—John’s revised question would have spoken to the significance of the moment with a startling clarity: “Why is this year different from all other years?” Like the Seder itself, The Whipping Man is also a kind of ceremony of recollection. Lopez asks his audience, regardless of race or religious identity, to look back together on the complicated, sometimes painful truths of our nation’s history—and to remember.

ENGAGING OUR PAST WITH THE WHIPPING MAN

—Sarah Lunnie

SIMON: John, you say today is April fourteenth?JOHN: It is.SIMON: You know that puts us at Passover.JOHN: Imagine that. Couldn’t come at a better time.CALEB: It comes every year at this time.JOHN: You know what I’m talking about.SIMON: I think he’s talking about−CALEB: I know what he means.SIMON: −the fact that here we are this year, where we are this year, in the middle of all we are this year and Pesach happening at the same time.JOHN: Why is this year different from all other years?

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BEYOND THE SEDER:

In Matthew Lopez’s The Whipping Man, three Southern Jews celebrate a very unusual Passover Seder. The play shines a spotlight on an aspect of Civil War history that is often overlooked. Let’s step back for a broader picture of the experience of American Jews during the Civil War.

Demographics:At the outbreak of the Civil War, there were approximately 150,000 Jews living in the United States, out of a total population of more than 31 million. • Nearly two-thirds of American Jews were immigrants, summoned to the shores of the New World by the promise of prosperity, equality and religious freedom. Most of the recent arrivals were Ashkenazi Jews from Germany and Eastern Europe; the more established communities tended to be Sephardic Jews (like the DeLeon family in The Whipping Man), with roots in Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East.• They settled in the North in greater numbers but rose to greater political prominence in the South, thanks in part to the appointment of Judah P. Benjamin, a Jewish senator from Louisiana, to three successive Cabinet positions in the Confederacy. • Eight to Ten thousand American Jews enlisted as soldiers in the Civil War, devoting their services, and sometimes their lives, to both sides of the conflict.

Jews and slavery:One of the biggest political and moral questions facing the new immigrants was that of slavery. Lacking any kind of national, unified Jewish leadership, congregations and individuals espoused a great diversity of positions, which ran the gamut from outspoken abolitionism to the defense of the slave system. • The leading rabbis of the era were deeply divided on the issue. Many, especially among the more recent immigrants, maintained that political discussions had no role in religious practice. Others took to the pulpit to preach on abolition and secession.

• Many Northern Jews, even those who opposed the practice of slavery, upheld the South’s right to regulate its own affairs. The handful of outspoken abolitionists among the rabbis was balanced by other Northern Jews who argued based on biblical precedent that slavery was part of God’s plan for humankind. • Most Southern Jews, like their gentile neighbors, supported (or at least did not actively oppose) the institution of slavery. A small minority of Southern Jews participated in the slave system as owners, traders, and auctioneers.

Persecution and the struggle for recognition:Like other largely immigrant populations, Jews became frequent targets of prejudice, serving as scapegoats for the mounting frustration caused by simmering social tension during the buildup to war. Against the backdrop of a national conflict fueled by competing notions of autonomy and freedom, American Jews fought their own series of battles for justice. • In the first years of the war, the laws governing the Union’s armies required that all military chaplains must be “regularly ordained ministers of some Christian denomination.” After petitioners brought the matter to President Lincoln attention, Congress amended the regulations to allow for non-Christian chaplains. • The most blatant example of anti-Semitism in the Civil War was Ulysses S. Grant’s General Order No. 11 in December 1862. In a misguided attempt to target the cotton speculators following his army, he ordered the expulsion of “Jews as a class” from his military department. • In one of the few instances of strict enforcement of Grant’s edict, the approximately 30 Jewish families in Paducah, Kentucky were given 24 hours to vacate the city. A group of Jewish merchants from Paducah drew the public’s attention to the gross injustice of the order, organizing protests in many nearby cities, including Louisville. • When Abraham Lincoln learned of the incident, he took immediate action to reverse Grant’s edict, and General Order No. 11 was nullified less than three weeks after it was issued Grant renounced the order during his 1868 presidential campaign but stopped short of issuing a full apology.

AMERICAN JEWS INTHE CIVIL WAR

Modern Seder plate

Traditional Seder Plate

—Kathryn Zukaitis

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BEYOND THE SEDER:The Whipping Man explores the experience of slavery through the fictional eyes of Simon and John, slaves in the wealthy De Leon household in Richmond, Virginia. Louis Hughes chronicled his own, real-life experience of slavery, and the challenges of eking out a new life after the war, in his autobiography, Thirty Years a Slave. Though his experience differs from Simon’s and John’s in many of its particulars—Hughes spent most of his life as a slave on a Mississippi cotton plantation, and was Christian, not Jewish—many of his reflections dialogue with Matthew Lopez’s play in striking ways. Excerpted below are Hughes’ thoughts on the practice of hiring out the whipping of slaves; the pain of being forcibly separated from one’s family; and the hypocrisies inherent to the institution of slavery—all subjects examined in The Whipping Man.

from “Slave Whipping As A Business”

“Whipping was done at these markets, or trader's yards, all the time. People who lived in the city of Richmond would send their slaves here for punishment. When any one wanted a slave whipped he would send a note to that effect with the servant to the trader. Any petty offense on the part of a slave was sufficient to subject the offender to this brutal treatment. Owners who affected culture and refinement preferred to send a servant to the yard for punishment to inflicting it themselves. It saved them trouble, they said, and possibly a slight wear and tear of feeling. For this service the owner was charged a certain sum for each slave, and the earnings of the traders from this source formed a very large part of the profits of his business.”

On the reunion of Hughes’ wife and her mother—from whom she had been separated in slavery—after the war

“I worked on, hoping to go further north, feeling somehow that it would be better for us there; when, one day I ran across a man who knew my wife's mother. He said to me: ‘Why, your wife's mother went back up the river to Cincinnati. I knew her well and the people to whom she belonged.’ This information made us eager to take steps to find her. My wife was naturally anxious to follow the clue thus obtained, in hopes of finding her mother, whom she had not seen since the separation at Memphis years before… We felt it was almost impossible that

EXCERPTS FROM THIRTY YEARS A SLAVE: FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM

we should see any one that we ever knew; but the man had spoken so earnestly and positively regarding my mother-in-law that we were not without hope... When we reached the place to which we had been directed, my wife not only found her mother but one of her sisters. The meeting was a joyful one to us all. No mortal who has not experienced it can imagine the feeling of those who meet again after long years of enforced separation and hardship and utter ignorance of one another's condition and place of habitation… This meeting again of mother and daughters, after years of separation and many vicissitudes, was an occasion of the profoundest joy, although all were almost wholly destitute of the necessaries of life.”

from “A Word For My Old Master”

“It is, perhaps, but justice to say of my old master that he was in some respects kinder and more humane than many other slaveholders. He fed well, and all had enough to wear, such as it was…which could not truthfully be said of the clothing of the slaves of other planters… But while my master showed these virtues, similar to those which a provident farmer would show in the care of his dumb brutes, he lacked in that humane feeling which should have kept him from buying and selling human beings and parting kindred—which should have made it impossible for him to have permitted the lashing,

beating and lacerating of his slaves, much more the hiring of an irresponsible brute, by the year, to perform this barbarous service for him. The McGees were charitable—as they interpreted the word—were always ready to contribute to educational and missionary funds, while denying, under the severest penalties, all education to those most needing it… Possessing absolute power over the bodies and souls of their slaves, and grown rich from their unrequited toil, they became possessed by the demon of avarice and pride, and lost sight of the most vital of the Christly qualities.”

More first-person narratives from Civil War-era America can be found online at Documenting the American South, a digital archive created by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—visit Docsouth.unc.edu. —Sarah Lunnie

BEARING WITNESS

Cumberland Landing, Va. Group of 'contrabands' at Foller's house, 1862

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INTERVIEW WITH THE COMPOSER: CHRIS MILLER

Actors Theatre had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Miller, the composer of the musical underscore for The Whipping Man. We learned a little more about his background, his thoughts about the play and what inspires him as a musician and composer. Actors: What inspired you to pursue a career in composing music?

Chris Miller: Music has always run in my family. I grew up studying piano, voice and guitar. It seemed natural to me to want to write. My father is a singer and a guitarist. My mother is a pianist and a singer as well, and my brother is a music therapist. So it all made sense for me to be a writer.

Actors: What is the process of writing incidental music for a story? Do you create it all yourself or do you use other sources as well?

Chris Miller: You try to keep it small and self-contained. I’ll try to play and record all the instruments myself or have one other person that helps me out, because usually with a play, it’s not as expansive as a musical or a film. I’ll sit with a director and

we’ll talk about what is needed for the play. I’ll listen to the play and watch it on its feet with notes about where the music would work. I then go back home and write some material and give it to the director for feedback. Once I get a “thumbs up” I’ll go back, flesh it out and record it.

Actors: What genre of music will underscore The Whipping Man?

Chris Miller: The trick of the show is giving it an atmosphere, a very specific time and place. I have a feeling it’s going to be a single viola that is overdubbed many, many times to create a sort of canvas of time and place. It will be more atmospheric than either traditional folk music or traditional Jewish music.

Actors: How is music going to aid or enhance the story in The Whipping Man?

Chris Miller: It is definitely going to help with giving it a specific time and place and a foundation for the drama. A lot of times music tells the audience where they are and what is about to happen. Not like musical wallpaper, but more like preparing the audience for what they are about to see, or emotionally moving from one place to the next smoothly.

Actors: What challenges have you encountered writing music for this show?

Chris Miller: I think the big challenge is not being overly specific about going the direction of traditionally Jewish or “folky” music, but still holding fast and true to that story and its setting. The challenge will be finding the correct atmosphere, so the audience isn’t told what to feel, but we’re still giving them clues and emotional entry points.

Actors: This production of The Whipping Man will include a great deal of rain onstage. What are your thoughts on this?

Chris Miller: I love it. And I hope that once the sound designer and I start working together we can come up with an organic, seamless combination of what’s happening in the music and what’s happening in the soundscape, because the rain is totally the atmosphere of the play. The question is, how much music do I put on top of the rain and then how much do I let it be what it is? I’m very excited that someone is creating that soundscape and making as much a character as the music will be.

Chris earned his undergraduate degree in piano performance from Elon University in North Carolina and an M.F.A. in musical theatre writing from New York University in 2001.

—Gabriel Garcia

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INTERVIEW WITH THE COMPOSER: CHRIS MILLERPRESHOW QUESTIONS • Slavery and freedom are major themes of The Whipping Man. What does freedom mean to you? What would it be like if your freedom was taken away? What would you be willing to do to restore your freedom? • It was common for slave owners to teach religion to their slaves in the 1800s. In The Whipping Man, Judaism is practiced by everyone in the DeLeon household. How do you think having a shared religion affected the relationships between slave owner and slave?• The characters in The Whipping Man honor the Passover holiday by organizing a Seder, which serves as a symbolic celebration of freedom. How do you celebrate freedom in your life?

POSTSHOW QUESTIONS • What did you think of the overall design of the show? Consider each element: set, costumes, lighting, sound, props. How did they inform your understanding of the play? What themes did the design help suggest or establish?• At the end of the play, each character must choose what to do with their new sense of freedom. What kinds of choices do you think each man will make? Why? Who might be the best equipped to survive? • Why did both John and Caleb resort to lying to the other characters? Was their lying justified? Why or why not? How would you behave in their set of circumstances?

NARRATIVE Write a journal entry from the perspective of a recently freed slave. What does freedom mean to you? What do you wish to do with your freedom? What are your fears? What are your dreams?

INFORMATIVE Research the Passover Seder and explain the significance behind the language, the food and each step of this annual Jewish celebration.

COMMUNICATION PORTFOLIO

BOOKS:

African American Faces of the Civil War: An Album by Ronald S. CoddingtonCivil War Curiosities : Strange Stories, Oddities, Events, and Coincidences by Webb GarrisonThe Jewish Confederates by Robert N. RosenRace and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory by David W. BlightRichmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital by Nelson LankfordThe Untold Civil War: Exploring the Human Side of War by James RobertsonThis Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin FaustWhen General Grant Expelled the Jews by Jonathan D. Sarna

DISCUSSION STARTERS

ARGUMENTATIVE Review and consider the challenges recently freed slaves would have encountered after the Civil War. Select one challenge and explain why you think this challenge would be the largest, most substantial obstacle facing recently freed slaves. Offer evidence and examples to support why your argument is the strongest.

FURTHER RESEARCHFILM:

American Experience: Death & The Civil War, director Ric BurnsGettysburg, director Ronald F. MaxwellGlory, director Edward ZwickLincoln, director Stephen SpielbergThe Civil War: A Film by Ken BurnsThe Last Days of the Civil War (History Channel)

ONLINE:Find these topics by searching the following:• The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship• AmericanSlaveNarratives:AnOnlineAnthology• DocumentingtheAmericanSouth

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GLOSSARYTHE CIVIL WARAbolitionist: A person who opposed slavery and fought to abolish it.

Amputation: The removal of an injured or diseased body part, often through surgery.

Appomattox Court House: The last battle of the Civil War; where General Robert E. Lee surrendered to the Union Army.

Chimborazo: One of the largest Confederate hospitals during the Civil War.

Confederacy: The government set up by the Southern states that seceded from the United State of America. Citizens of these states were known as Confederates, Rebels, or Rebs.

Deserter: A soldier who abandons his duty without permission; punishment was death.

Pardon/Paroled Papers: These papers would forgive those who lost the war from all crimes and would exempt them from prosecution.

Emancipation: The liberation of a certain group from the power, dominance or enslavement of another.

Ether: A highly volatile liquid first used as an anesthetic in 1846.

Frederick Douglass: Born into slavery, he escaped and became a great abolitionist, even advising Abraham Lincoln.

Gangrene: The death of tissue in any part of the body causing extreme pain and even death.

Hardtack: A cracker made from flour and water that became a staple for soldiers.

Nat Turner: A slave who led a slave rebellion in 1831 in Virginia; he remains an enigmatic figure even today.

Petersburg: The site of intense battles over several months. The fall of Petersburg to the Union allowed the Union to take Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy.

President Jefferson Davis: President of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Tourniquet: A constricting device used to temporarily stop blood flow in a particular area of the body; often used during amputations to stop too much blood loss.

Union: The Northern states during the Civil War; citizens were known as the Federals or Feds, Yankees or Yanks.

THE JEWISH FAITH

Kosher: Food items or practices that conform to the Jewish dietary or ceremonial laws.

Leviticus: The third book of the Torah that contains laws on sacrifice, priesthood, and cleanliness.

Minyan: An assembly of at least ten Jewish adults required to fulfill religious obligations such as prayer.

Moses: The prophet who led the Hebrews out of Egypt, as described in Exodus.

Passover (Pesach in Hebrew): A Jewish holiday lasting eight days that commemorates the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt.

Rabbi: A religious teacher and leader of the Jewish faith.

Shabbat: The Jewish Sabbath, celebrated from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday.

“Shabbat Shalom”: A greeting given on the Jewish Sabbath, wishing the other person a peaceful day.

Torah: The holy text of the Jewish faith; the entire text is on a large scroll and is read each week during Shabbat.

Zion: Referring to Mt. Zion, it is a name often used as a synonym for Jerusalem.

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GLOSSARY

THE SEDER MEAL

Seder, meaning “order”, is a meal in remembrance of the sig-nificance of God freeing the Jewish people from bondage. Four cups of wine are drunk throughout the Seder, while the washing of hands happens twice, once without a blessing and once with a blessing. The traditional Seder plate includes: Beitsah: a roasted egg signifying renewal; the egg is not eaten.

Charoset: a mixture of apples, nuts, cinnamon and wine, symbolizing the mortar used by the Jews to make bricks during their slavery. Karpas: a vegetable, sometimes parsley, dipped in salt water to symbolize tears shed during slavery.

Maror: bitter herbs symbolize the bitterness of slavery. Matzah: an unleavened bread made from flour and water, both the symbol of affliction and slavery

Zeroah: a shank bone representing the lamb that was sacri ficed the night of the Exodus from Egypt.

Richmond, Va. Ruined building in the burned district, April 1865

Fallen Richmond, 1865-photograph shows African Ameri-can refugees on barge with household belongings

Often sung in Hebrew by a child, the following questions are asked during a Seder meal:

Why is this night different from all other nights?

Why is it that on all other nights during the year we eat either bread or matzah, but on this night we eat only matzah?

Why is it that on all other nights we eat all kinds of vegetables, but on this night we eat bitter herbs?

Why is it on all other nights we do not dip even once, but on this night we dip twice?

Why is it that on all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, but on this night we eat in a reclining position?

Attention: Young Playwrights! Actors Theatre of Louisville is seeking submissions for our New Voices Ten-Minute Play Contest. Students grades 6-12 living in the Commonwealth of Kentucky or the (812) area code of southern Indiana are invited to submit their very best ten-minute play to New Voices, Actors Theatre of Louisville’s annual ten-minute play contest for young playwrights! Guidelines, tips, examples and submission details are outlined at ActorsTheatre.org/NewVoices. You may also email your questions to NewVoices@ActorsTheatre.org.

Deadline for submissions:October, 31 2013, Halloween Missed the deadline? Send us your play anyway! We’ll automatically enter it into next year’s contest.

New Voices Young Playwrights FestivalWinning plays will be fully produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville in April 2014 and will be published in our New Voices Anthology!

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WORKS CITED