In the waiting room

by Anton Zuiker on August 21, 2025

Last night, we went as a family to see A Good Boy at Playmakers Repertory, the theatre on the UNC campus. A Good Boy is a music about three women and a man in a Midwest prison holding room as they wait with an overworked, surly guard to get word that they can see their loved ones, all prisoners on death row.

This story was written by Lynden Harris, the founder of Hidden Voices, an amazing organization with the mission “to challenge, strengthen, and connect our diverse communities through the transformative power of story.” A Good Boy draws from the real stories of inmates and their families.

After the show, a short Q&A featured the actors and two women, one the sister of a man executed in Arkansas, the other the mother of a man on death row for nearly 25 years before he was exonerated and released. Noel Nickle, executive director of The North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, moderated the discussion (probably the best moderation of a panel I’ve ever witnessed). Another man, sitting behind me, had the final comment of the discussion. He, too, had been wrongly convicted and then exonerated and released, after 14 years in prison.

A few important numbers:

121 people are currently on the North Carolina death row. Over the past decades, 12 innocent people have been exonerated and released from death row; 11 of those 12 are men of color.

A Good Boy was a powerful play and it was a charged night. I’ve always been opposed to the death penalty. Erin actually has visited with an inmate on North Carolina’s death row. We’ve read Helen Prejean and watched the movie version of Dead Man Walking.

The death penalty is immoral. It is wrong. It needs to be ended.

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