Count

By Lynden Harris

Directed by Kathryn Hunter-Williams

stories from America’s death rows


Experience a day-in-the-life on death row as six men unpack their personal inheritances of violence and loss with unexpected love and humor, determined to live fully despite the stark monotony of prison. A co-production with Hidden Voices.

Based on years of conversations with men sentenced to die in prison, Count invites us right into the stark otherworld of death row, a world that is both incredibly dissimilar and sometimes disturbingly similar to our own. During the course of the play, six men seek to discover what truly constitutes a life well-lived. As we join their lively, difficult, and ultimately affirming search for what ancient philosophers called “the good life,” we are challenged and transformed by the recognition that we are all struggling for the same things.

AGE RECOMMENDATION

Due to language and intensity of themes, we recommend this play to audiences 14 and older.

Talkback Panelists

(click to expand)

Opening Night—CIVIL LITIGATION, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND EDUCATION

  • Michael J. Gerhardt, Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at UNC Law School
  • Representative Chaz Beasley, N.C. House of Representatives
  • Representative Graig Meyer, N.C. House of Representatives
  • Erika K. Wilson, Reef C. Ivey II Term Professor of Law, Associate Professor of Law at UNC Law School
Thursday—DOCUMENTARY WORK AND ITS PROCESS

  • Wesley Hogan, Director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University
  • Rachel F. Seidman, Director of the Southern Oral History Program at UNC Chapel Hill
Friday—MITIGATION

  • Frank Baumgartner, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at UNC Chapel Hill
  • Jim Johnson, William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC Chapel Hill
  • Candis Watts Smith, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Adjunct Professor of African and African American Diaspora Studies at UNC Chapel Hill
Saturday—FAITH AND INCARCERATION

  • Barb Baranski, Prison Project Coordinator for Kadampa Center Prison Project
  • Imam/Chaplain Oliver Mohammed, Islamic Chaplain at the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, N.C. and Resident Imam of As Salaam Islamic Center of Raleigh
Sunday Matinee—SIT DOWN WITH THE CREATORS

  • Kathryn Hunter Williams, Director, Associate Director of Hidden Voices, Company Member PlayMakers Repertory Company, Faculty UNC Department of Dramatic Art
  • Lynden Harris, Playwright, Founder and Director of Hidden Voices
  • Cast (upon availability)
Sunday Evening—RESTORATIVE JUSTICE

  • Jon Powell, Director Juvenile Justice Mediation Project and Law Professor at Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law at Campbell University
  • Scott Bass, Director of Victim Services for North Carolina Victim Assistance Network (NCVAN)

Reviews

REVIEWS

Count Dispels the Anesthetic of Distance from Death Row
By Byron Woods
Indy Week
August 31, 2017

Count‘s Six Highly Skilled Actors Create a Chillingly Real Death-Row Pod at PRC
By Chuck Galle
Triangle Arts & Entertainment
August 24, 2017

Lynden Harris’ Count Is an Engaging New Play, Set on a Maximum Security Prison’s Death Row
By Pamela Vesper and Kurt Benrud
Triangle Arts & Entertainment
August 24, 2017

NEWS

On Aug. 23-27, Lynden Harris’ Count Will Depict a Day in the Life of Six Men on Death Row
By Robert W. McDowell
Triangle Arts & Entertainment
August 23, 2017

Men on Death Row With Their Truths in “Count”
By Laura Pellicer & Frank Stasio
WUNC 91.5
August 10, 2017

Serving Life: ReVisioning Justice
By Hidden Voices
Hidden Voices
May 15, 2017

Hidden Voices’ None of the Above lays hands on a social dilemma of our time
By Byron Woods
Indy Week
September 18, 2013

For five years, Hidden Voices has used theater to help marginalized communities be heard
By Byron Woods
Indy Week
July 11, 2007