The
Whipping Man
BY MATTHEW LOPEZ
DIRECTED 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 suggestions
regarding our play guides, please contact
Steven Rahe, Director of Education, at
502-584-1265 ext. 3045.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3
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 Education
Steven Rahe, Director of Education
Jacob Stoebel, Associate Director of Education
Jane B. Jones, Education Associate
Liz Fentress, Resident Teaching Artist
Keith McGill, Resident Teaching Artist
Gabriel Garcia, Education/Teaching Artist Intern
LeShawn 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.
2
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
CHARACTERS
Caleb
Caleb 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.
Simon
Simon is a former slave of the De Leon family and a devout
Jew. His wife and daughter also served the DeLeon family.
John
John 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
3
Fallen Confererate capitol, Richmond, Va., April 1865
SYNOPSIS
SETTING
ABOUT
MATTHEW LOPEZ
ABOUT
MEREDITH MCDONOUGH
4
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
5
“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?
6
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
7
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
8
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
9
INTERVIEW WITH THE COMPOSER: CHRIS MILLER
PRESHOW 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.
Coddington
Civil War Curiosities : Strange Stories, Oddities, Events, and
Coincidences by Webb Garrison
The Jewish Confederates by Robert N. Rosen
Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory by David W.
Blight
Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital by
Nelson Lankford
The Untold Civil War: Exploring the Human Side of War by James
Robertson
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by
Drew Gilpin Faust
When 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 RESEARCH
FILM:
American Experience: Death & The Civil War, director Ric
Burns
Gettysburg, director Ronald F. Maxwell
Glory, director Edward Zwick
Lincoln, director Stephen Spielberg
The Civil War: A Film by Ken Burns
The 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
• American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology
• Documenting the American South
10
GLOSSARY
THE CIVIL WAR
Abolitionist
: 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.
11
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 Festival
Winning 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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11 Oct 2012.
shabbat_shalom/article/64276/>.
WORKS CITED
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