Where entertainment and history intersect unforgettably.

Book by Jack Kyrieleison
Story by Jack Kyrieleison & Ron Holgate
Traditional Music Arranged by Michael O'Flaherty

A group of traveling players weaves the immortal words and songs of the Civil War into a musical epic of the fight to save the Union, fusing 26 songs from the era with excerpts from personal letters and diaries.

REUNION: A Musical Epic in Miniature is a 2-act musical incorporating period songs, stories and images in a unique stage narrative of the struggle to preserve the Union in the American Civil War. Since its premiere at Goodspeed Opera House, REUNION has been produced commercially Off-Broadway, at Ford's Theatre, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum, and theatres nationwide.

On April 14, 1890, 25 years to the day after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the curtain opens on Harry Hawk, actor-manager of a band of wandering actors that has clearly seen better days. He welcomes us to his “musical epic in miniature—the story of the late War to Save the Union, woven from the very words of those engaged in that heroic struggle!”

What follows are two hours The New York Times called “a small packed theater of war, a series of strategic encounters of history, minstrelsy and melodrama; of music as entertainment, catharsis and patriotic gore; of a small band of players and a vast national enterprise.” In styles ranging from the most intimate storytelling to the extravagant excesses of Victorian theatre, vaudeville and the minstrel show, Hawk’s versatile actor-singers share the journeys of Union men and women swept up in the tide of war, with the aid of the “magic lantern” projecting powerful photographs and images behind the actors.

Fused with their stories are 26 songs from the fertile beginnings of the American popular song. Like the eyewitnesses, they range from the familiar to the forgotten. Scattered among well-known standards like “Beautiful Dreamer” and “Marching Through Georgia” are seemingly unforgettable songs that nevertheless have been forgotten—such as the surprisingly angry anti-war ballad “All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight” and the haunting “Wake Nicodemus.” The authentic voice of the American spiritual is heard throughout, embodied in such songs as “Steal Away” and “Wasn’t That a Wide River.”

The words are adapted from testimony of more than 75 eyewitnesses to the American Iliad—statesmen, political hacks, generals, reporters, nurses, slaves, spies, bureaucrats, officers, foot soldiers, writers, preachers, actors, abolitionists. They make up as rich a cast of humbugs and heroes as any nation could ever claim. And although he is never seen, the towering figure of Lincoln presides over the story as he did over the Union itself, from his meteoric entry onto the national stage to the final moments when we relive the awful events of Good Friday, 1865. And Harry Hawk brings his own tragic perspective to the performance, as the only one who can share how it felt to be standing alone on the stage of Ford’s Theatre when his friend John Wilkes Booth fired the fatal shot.

Originally written for a cast of 6 versatile actor-singers, REUNION is now available from Samuel French, Inc. in the original version or adapted for a cast of up to 24 or more, as successfully produced at the New York State Theatre Institute. Its ease of production, flexible casting requirements, proven box office appeal and school partnering potential make REUNION an ideal choice for regional, educational and community theatres, especially during the 2011-2015 nationwide observation of the Civil War's 150th anniversary.

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