A Lesson Before Dying - Acting Edition

THE STORY: Jefferson, an innocent young man, is condemned to death in backwoods Louisiana in 1948. At the trial his lawyer, trying to save his life, called him no more a human being than a hog. In prison, he acts like one, insisting that he will be dragged like that hog to his death in the electric chair. His godmother asks a schoolteacher to teach him to die like a man. The teacher, Grant Wiggins, struggling to quit his poor parish school and leave the South, faces both Jefferson and himself as execution day arrives. Ernest J. Gaines' celebrated novel makes an engrossing, moving and finally devastating play for the stage.Romulus Linney is the author of 'A Lesson Before Dying - Acting Edition', published 2001 under ISBN 9780822217855 and ISBN 0822217856.