Metro Monthly

By John Patrick Gatta
Metro Monthly Staff Writer

Both the director and producer of “Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising” hope that next month’s performance at the New York International Fringe Festival will spur renewed interest in the circumstances surrounding the 1993 incident.

Based on the 11-day prisoner revolt in the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, the play uses court testimony and interviews to weave a behind-the-scenes account of that period from April 11 to 21, 1993. Besides the deaths of one guard and nine inmates, five prisoners were later sentenced to death while many others received additional sentences. The producers of “Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising” (www.lucasvilletheplay.com) hope to educate audiences to some of the perceived injustices that resonate to the present day.

“I thought it was a good teaching tool, and I wanted to be a part of something where people learn from it and are moved by a play,” said director Brandon Martin. “You never get to be a part of plays that move people to do something about something.”

He mentions that despite the depth found in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” “After its over, you go back to living your life and you don’t think about, ‘I wonder what Hamlet is doing right now’ because he is a fictional character. I thought that was a very interesting part [of “Lucasville”] because these are people who are, right now, on death row. They’re breathing, living entities. It’s real.”

In Staughton Lynd’s 2004 account, “Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising,” he defends the Lucasville Five who remain on death row by pointing out discrepancies in testimony and prosecutorial misconduct that worked in favor of the state.

The prisoners contend that the uprising occurred following a lengthy period of overcrowding, unchecked violence by guards and inmates and willful ignorance of religious practices.

The 78-year-old Lynd has spent much of his life battling against authority. As a history professor at Spellman College, he taught author Alice Walker and worked in the Civil Rights Movement. He moved on to Yale University where he took part in protesting the Vietnam War. After receiving his law degree, a move to the Mahoning Valley found him dealing with the rights of steelworkers. Finally, he has fought for the rights of prisoners.

Due to triple heart bypass surgery that took place just as “Lucasville” began rehearsals at the end of June, Lynd was unable to comment for this story.

His wife, Alice, who has also worked as an activist, explained in an e-mail that the path to presenting the literary case for the Lucasville Five came as a result of Youngstown being the location for a maximum-security prison.

“When Ohio decided to build its supermaximum security in Youngstown, I organized a forum on ‘What is a supermax prison?’ I wanted someone who had been in solitary confinement for a period of years or a family member of such a person to speak. I found both. The family member was the sister of George Skatzes [one of the Lucasville 5]. The forum took place in April 1996, only a few weeks after George was sentenced to death. George was the negotiator for the prisoners who made the radio address during the Lucasville disturbance in 1993.

“I then contacted the attorney who had been appointed to represent George on appeal. She said what was needed was someone to work on a post-conviction petition. So, in 1996, I began working on that. As I did so, Staughton and I became more and more involved and, to some extent before, but to a much greater extent after the Ohio State Penitentiary was opened. We got to know all of the Lucasville Five and many of the other men who were convicted of riot-related offenses. We interviewed witnesses in a number of Ohio prisons. Staughton read the transcripts of a considerable number of the trials. We have a vast collection of documents. His impressions emerged from extensive investigation using his skills both as an historian and as a lawyer.”

Dr. Ray Beiersdorfer describes working with the author as a “real inspiration.” Besides his position as professor of geology at Youngstown State University, Beiersdorfer is the play’s producer for its 8 p.m. performance on Aug. 1 at YSU’s Spotlight Arena Theatre and at the New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC) next month.

Based on an arts festival in Scotland, FringeNYC (www.fringenyc.org) is the largest multi-arts festival in North America. More than 200 companies from all over the world perform for 16 days in more than 20 venues.

“The Fringe is looking for edgy types of entertainment, both in the types of content as well as in the manner in which it is presented,” said Beiersdorfer.

The cast for “Lucasville” is billed as the Ohio Supermaximum Players, a reference to the local correctional facility, which currently houses four of the Lucasville Five.

The connections to transform his book into a play began two years after publication. Lynd met with Gary L. Anderson, who portrayed lawyer Clarence Darrow in a Youngstown production. After reading Lynd’s docudrama, “Big George” and then “Lucasville,” the two collaborated on transforming the non-fiction work.

Then Lynd attended a production of “The Exonerated” at the Oakland Center for the Arts. Its subject matter dealt with five innocent men on death row whose convictions were reversed. During a scheduled address after the performance, he mentioned the situation with the Lucasville Five.

“I never really thought about the death penalty until “The Exonerated,” said Martin. “It made think about the fact that even if five percent of the people are innocent and those five percent die, that’s still not a good thing to just execute people. Unless you can be 100 percent sure that this person has done the crime then you shouldn’t even take that power into your hands.

“Also, as a Christian, I believe in forgiveness. I don’t think anyone has to die to be punished for what they’ve done. Spending the rest of your life in prison is a good enough punishment.”

The cast from “The Exonerated,” which included Martin and Beiersdorfer, was recruited. It performed a reader’s theater version in seven Ohio cities. A performance in southern Ohio found prison guards from Lucasville in the audience. A Toledo staging was attended by Saadiqah Amatullah Hasan, wife of L5’s Siddique Abdullah Hassan. Julie Bowers, sister of L5’s George W. Skatzes, not only went to the Columbus presentation but she will play herself as part of “Lucasville.”

Not wanting to see the momentum dissipate, Alice Lynd came up with the idea of encouraging other universities to read the play around the uprising’s 15th anniversary. Beiersdorfer suggested that Martin direct a full-scale production of “Lucasville” for his senior theater project at YSU. Following revisions, it took place on April 29, 2008. More revisions followed for the current production.

Both director and producer believe that a presentation at FringeNYC could bring about renewed interest in the situation.
“It gets their message across to another area who might not have known about it. And it will highlight the injustice that has been placed on these five people,” said Martin.

Beiersdorfer added, “Reading Staughton’s book and being involved in this original production, these men are going to either die in prison or get killed by our government in our name, and they don’t deserve that. I’m hoping that telling the story in New York City that it’s going to then bring a spotlight on what’s happening in Ohio and Governor Strickland will, hopefully, open an investigation into this.”