The Exonerated

A simple but powerfully chilling idea ripe with dramatic possibility: What would you do if you were sentenced to die for a crime you didn’t commit? Husband-and-wife writing team Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen (a 1988 Apple Valley High School grad) interviewed forty wrongfully convicted death-row prisoners and boiled their stories down to six. Exonerated’s pared-down approach—a script, a music stand, an actor wearing reading glasses—has netted enthusiastic praise in New York theater circles. This touring production, directed by Gosford Park actor Bob Balaban, includes Lynn Redgrave and Brian Dennehy, the latter of whom, perhaps ironically, is pro-death penalty. But then the point of the play isn’t to convince you of a point so much as simply to make you think. 805 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; (612) 339-7007; www.hennepintheatredistrict.com