April 7 - April 30, 2006

Director: Bridget Muehlberger

This is one of the best shows we’ve seen. It is highly recommended... you have got to go see this show. – showbizradio.net
listen to the review

Read the Gazette article about Coyote On a Fence

Excellent theater in every way. - Dave Cannon, Montgomery Sentinel  read the review (pdf format)

Note: the play contains racial themes, adult situations, and strong language.

Currently, there are 3,400 inmates on death rows in the United States. Since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated, 1,014 inmates have been executed. Two-thirds of the states (38) have the death penalty, including Maryland and Virginia and every Southern state where Coyote on a Fence is set. Virginia ranks second among states, after Texas, with the highest number of executions. By region, the South exceeds any part of the country with over 80 percent of inmates executed. Though 46 percent of death row inmates are White and 42 percent are African-American (African-Americans comprise less than 20 percent of the U.S. population), 80 percent of death penalty case victims were white. Since 1976, over 120 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. Coyote on a Fence doesn’t pull any punches and offers audiences a raw and unfiltered expose on the death penalty, racism, and the workings of the criminal justice system and the people locked in that populate it.

On death row in the Southern U.S., John Brennan (Andy Greenleaf) is an educated yet arrogant writer whose crime, killing a drug dealer, could be viewed as doing society a "favor." He edits the prison newspaper, The Death Row Advocate, campaigning against capital punishment and pens the prisoners' obituaries. New to the block is Bobby Alvin Reyburn (Darius Suziedelis), an unapologetic white-supremacist racist and anti-Semite, and an unrepentant murderer convicted of a heinous crime. He is the product of a broken home and abuse; he is brain-damaged and clearly delusional making him a candidate for an insanity plea. Brennan attempts to get Bobby to use the legal avenues open to him to postpone his own execution as long as possible. However, Bobby believes God ordered him to commit his crime and refuses to appeal his sentence. Sam Fried (Brendan Murray), a Jewish reporter from The New York Times has read The Death Row Advocate and has requested a series of interviews with Brennan. He challenges Brennan's insistence that capital punishment is murder. Wearied by close to twenty years as a prison guard, Shawna DuChamps (Audrey Cefaly) is as impatient with the "ya-hoos out there blowin' their horns" as the excuses of those she guards about what landed them in prison. Yet, beneath all her cussing and hard-as-nails talk, there's a remaining spark of compassion for people like Brennan, and a yearning for the reporters (and by extension, society) to view her as an ordinary, good person. The convergence of these volatile and strong-willed characters fuels the debate on the value of the death penalty and its place in society.

The production team includes Clare Flood (Assistant Director/Stage Manager), Jeff Flaherty (Assistant Stage Manager), Andy Greenleaf (Set Design/Master Carpenter), Don Slater (Lighting Designer), Kevin Garrett (Sound Designer), Amy Martin (Properties), Sharon Parsons (Corrections Consultant).

Silver Spring Stage’s 37th season continues with the seductive Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) (May 19-June 11), and thrilling Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (June 30-July 23). Silver Spring Stage is grateful for support from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, Maryland State Arts Council and Combined Federal Campaign.

Coyote on a Fence is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service Inc.

Silver Spring Stage is located in the Woodmoor Shopping Center, lower level (next to the CVS) at Colesville Road and University Boulevard. Ticket prices range from $11 to $15. Information is also available by calling (301) 593-6036.