Skip to Main Content
  • Apply
  • Events
  • Support CFA
  • Directory
  • Contact & Directions
Boston University College of Fine Arts

  • About
  • Academics
  • Admissions
  • News & More
  • About
    • A Message from the Dean
    • Strategic Priorities
    • Rankings & Achievements
    • Alumni & Friends
    • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
    • Accreditation
    • Venues & Facilities
    • Contact & Directions
  • Academics
    • Degrees & Programs
    • Explore Your Interests
    • School of Music
    • School of Theatre
    • School of Visual Arts
    • Study Abroad
    • Courses for the BU Community
    • Our Faculty
  • Admissions
    • Undergraduate
    • Graduate
    • Online Programs
    • Non-Degree
    • Events & Campus Visits
    • Admitted Students
    • BU Tanglewood Institute
    • Youth Programs
  • News & More
    • CFA Magazine
    • Calendar
    • BU Arts Central
    • Boston University Art Galleries
    • BU Arts Initiative
    • Research & Community Engagement
    • Featured Work
Search

Resources for:

  • Current Students
  • Faculty & Staff
  • Alumni
  • Apply
  • Events
  • Support CFA
  • Directory
  • Contact & Directions

BU Today feature: CFA Presents Searing Drama of Wrongfully Convicted Inmates

October 18, 2019
Twitter Facebook

 

This article was originally published on October 18, 2019. Video by Carlos Soler | Text by BU Today staff | Photos by Jackie Ricciardi

The searing 2002 drama The Exonerated is the story of six real-life men and women who were wrongfully sentenced to Death Row for crimes they did not commit. The play kicks off the College of Fine Arts School of Theatre 2019-2020 season

Based on interviews, letters, and court documents, the play was written by Jesscia Blank and Erik Jensen and was first presented in 2002 off Broadway, where it ran for over 600 performances. It moves between first-person monologues and scenes set in courtrooms and prisons. In his New York Times review, Ben Brantley described the play as “an artfully edited anthology of interviews on its own terms, thoroughly involving theater, while reminding you that real life has a way of coming up with resonant metaphors, grotesque ironies, and cruel coincidences that no dramatist would dare invent.”

The Exonerated went on to win a Drama Desk Award, a Lucille Lortel Award, and an Outer Critics Circle Award before being adapted into a film starring Oscar winner Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, and Brian Dennehy.

Blank and Jensen crisscrossed the country, interviewing 40 death row inmates who had been freed after DNA and other evidence proved their innocence. These six former inmates recount their interrogations and subsequent arrests and trials in spare, often heartbreaking detail and reflect on their often painful return to civilian life following their exoneration.

Read full article

 

  • Share this story

Share

BU Today feature: CFA Presents Searing Drama of Wrongfully Convicted Inmates

Share this:

  • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
Contact
855 Commonwealth Ave.
Boston, MA 02215

617-353-3350
Contact us
Footer image.
  • About
  • Academics
  • Admissions
  • News & More
© Boston University. All rights reserved. www.bu.edu
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin
  • Youtube
  • X
Boston University

© 2025 Trustees of Boston University | Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Boston University Masterplate
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
Back to Top