A presentation of On the Row, a staged reading of the stories of Arkansans on death row, will be held from 7-8:30 p.m. Thursday at Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, 1000 N. Mississippi St. in Little Rock.
The performance is the product of the Prison Story Project, which was founded by Kathy McGregor in 2012.
From May to October 2016, members of the Prison Story Project were given what McGregor called "unprecedented" access to the men on death row at Arkansas' Varner Unit.
Over the series of months, the inmates met with McGregor and volunteers for the project once a month in person to explore ways to share their stories, and follow-up contacts were conducted by mail. Of the 34 men on death row at the time, 11 were willing to share their stories for the project.
The performances created from those visits and the communications that followed were presented to the death row inmates on Oct. 8, 2016, and included the stories of Jack Jones and Kenneth Williams, who were executed in April.
On the Row's presentation Thursday at Saint Mark's is the first in the state outside of Northwest Arkansas, but it has also been performed for audiences in Colorado, North Carolina, Indiana and West Virginia.
Religion on 02/03/2018