About the Play

Johnny Has Gone for a Solider brings to life a story that might remind you of Romeo and Juliet, or the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, but is completely true to where we are now. In the fall of 2005, Dan and Sarah meet at the community college of their small New England town. Within days, he learns his National Guard unit is deployed to Iraq.

Not content to say good-bye, he persuades Sarah to marry him before he leaves. Their passion is so strong, the lovers become "present" to other in their letters, despite the distance and the war.

While Dan's mother and Sarah are counting the days till his return, he is assigned to prison duty in Baghdad. There he faces off with an Iraqi who opens his eyes to the civilization around him-its splendor and its devastation-and to the timelessness of his love for Sarah. In gradually learning the identity of this mysterious man, Dan discovers what it means really to have courage. As the play advances to an ending both surprising and inevitable, our own eyes are opened to what war does to families and communities on both sides.

Asked what drew him to the subject, di Canzio says it was heartbreak and frustration over the war in Iraq. He drew some of his material from stories he heard on the news: that of a very young woman who barely spent time with her new spouse before he was deployed; or of an old Iraqi man in Baghdad whose whole family-children and grandchildren-died when a "smart-bomb" targeting the building next door also brought down their house as they slept.

"I heard the young woman's story in 2006 and was deeply moved," di Canzio says. "About the same time I first heard the old Appalachian song of the title. It was as if her story and the song 'rhymed' across centuries. I started thinking about a play. The next summer, I heard the story of the smart bomb told by the young American officer who had guided it from a computer in the Pentagon. Only when he came to Iraq did he see what he had done in reality, not on a screen. He also met the man whose family had died. He told his radio interviewer that he decided then not to reenlist.

"That's when I started writing, putting my own emotions and imagination to work on what I was hearing and weaving it all together. In two months I had a draft. Ben [Lloyd] called me as soon as he read it and said, 'I want to direct this.' We mounted a staged reading in 2008 at Haverford College, where I was teaching. The audience-about 250-really liked it.

"I was particularly happy that the reading was funded by the college's Center for Peace & Global Citizenship. The timing also proved to be uncanny. Two days after the show, on the college green, a Quaker organization installed a memorial exhibition of the boots of Pennsylvanians who had died serving in Iraq. The crowds who view it were reverent and silent."

Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier has attracted an extraordinary creative team: actors, designers, musicians. meet them here.

Johnny Has Gone for a Solider was showcased in the Playground at the Adrienne, near Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square. The entire creative team was delighted to work with this elegant black box, intimate yet versatile enough to present a story spanning continents. Director and playwright were grateful to Amaryllis Theatre Company for welcoming Johnny into their home.

Playground at the Adrienne

2030 Sansom Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104