Hendrix Players to Present ‘Unity (1918)’

From left, Hendrix College students Landry Dosher, Danielle Carney, and Josie Krueger enact a scene from Unity (1918), which the Hendrix Players will present Nov. 6-9, 2019.

CONWAY, Ark. (October 23, 2019) — The Hendrix Players and the Hendrix College Department of Theatre Arts and Dance will present Unity (1918), a play by Kevin Kerr, Wednesday-Friday, Nov. 6-8 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, Nov. 9 at 2 p.m. All performances are free and open to the public, though reservations are recommended.

Intricately laced with dark humor and a heartfelt humane quality, Unity (1918) is a tale of desire and hope in a time of catastrophic illness. The play is set in Unity, a small town in the western part of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan known as a community full of businesses and families. In the fall of 1918, a world ravaged by four years of war faces a mysterious and deadly plague – the “Spanish Flu.” The illness strikes not only the young and the elderly, but also people in the prime of their lives, advancing rapidly toward mortality in its victims. It brings home with the returning soldiers the terror, the panic, the horror, and the sense of helplessness of the “Great War”: More people died of this epidemic than had been killed in battle throughout the armed conflict.

As fear of the illness begins to fill the town of Unity with paranoia, drastic measures are taken. The town is quarantined in an attempt to keep the illness out. Trains are forbidden to stop, no one can enter, and the borders are sealed. Mail from overseas, feared to be carrying the deadly virus, is gathered and burned. But when the disease descends upon the town despite these precautions, the citizens begin to turn on each other as they attempt to find a scapegoat for the crisis. 

To make reservations online, visit www.hendrix.edu/theatrearts or email hendrixplayers@hendrix.edu. To reserve tickets by phone, call the Cabe Theatre Box Office on weekday afternoons: 501-450-1343.

Associate Professor of Theatre Arts Antonio Horne directs the production. The cast and crew include:

Danielle Carney ’21 as Bea

Landry Dosher ’23 as Sissy

Josie Krueger ’23 as Mary

Hunter Brockinton ’22 as Hart

Ragan Price ’21 as Rose

Madd Shaddox ’20 as Doris

Laura Summerlin ’23 as Sunna

Tristam Williams Thompson ’22 as Stan

Cole McVay ’21 as Michael

Avery Kennedy ’21 as Glen

Alex Walter ’22 as Ensemble

Viraj Bandrapalli ’23 as Ensemble

Kolya Souvorin ’23 as Ensemble/Assistant Stage Manager

Sydney Boone ’23 as Ensemble/Assistant Stage Manager

About Hendrix College

A private liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas, Hendrix College consistently earns recognition as one of the country’s leading liberal arts institutions, and is featured in Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges. Its academic quality and rigor, innovation, and value have established Hendrix as a fixture in numerous college guides, lists, and rankings. Founded in 1876, Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. To learn more, visit www.hendrix.edu.