SAN ANTONIO • Students at Providence and Central Catholic high schools had a unique opportunity to “walk the talk” regarding the death penalty, by bringing to life onstage the play Dead Man Walking, Dec. 1-3, for its San Antonio premiere. Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, author of the best-selling book Dead Man Walking: An Eye Witness Account of the Death Penalty in the U.S. (on which the play by Tim Robbins is based), made a San Antonio speaking appearance in conjunction with the performance.
    Sister Helen began counseling death row inmate Patrick Sonnier at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, La., in 1981, eventually being present at his execution.

    She went on to accompany several more condemned prisoners to their deaths, becoming an ardent advocate for the abolition of the death penalty in the process. “As followers of Jesus, we believe that we must love and forgive even our enemies, that we must never return hatred for hatred, that we must never act out of feelings of revenge,” she says.

    Robbins also wrote the screenplay for and directed the Academy Award-winning film version of Sister Helen’s book in 1996. The condemned man in the film and play, Matthew Poncelet, is a composite of Sonnier and another death row prisoner, Robert Lee Willie, to whom Sister Helen became spiritual adviser. The book’s title, Dead Man Walking, comes from the chilling words called out by the guards as they give notice they are escorting the condemned to execution.

    Providence obtained permission to do the play through the Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project, which stipulates integrating the play into the school curricula through two additional disciplines or departments. Sister Maureen Fenlon, OP, director of the project, attended the Providence/Central Catholic production and led several of the after-show discussion sessions.

    At Providence, the book version was required summer reading for all seniors, leading to papers and projects related to it throughout the year in their English classes, while juniors studied restorative and retributive justice in their Catholic social teachings classes. Sophomores read copies of the book purchased for their classrooms in their social studies classes. The school’s chapter of Amnesty International undertook a campus-wide campaign against the death penalty during this same period.

    Capital punishment is not a new topic at the school, as Providence hosted in 2005 the Journey of Hope, which brings together family members of both victims and death row inmates, as well as exonerated inmates, all speaking out against the death penalty. Following their presentation, the students discussed in their theology classes the topics raised. The school’s Amnesty chapter has organized groups to demonstrate with the Texas Coalition Against the Death Penalty and initiates campus-wide activities yearly that focus on the issue.

    In November Joan Cheever, author of Back From the Dead: One Woman’s Search for the Men who Walked Off America’s Death Row, led a panel that included the play’s cast and its director, Barbara Helen Baker, in discussing the death penalty before the students of Providence and Central. Cheever’s book profiles the lives of 589 inmates released from death row in 1972 and given a second chance at life, following the abolition of the death penalty in the United States that year. Baker arranged for the students involved in the play to make a visit to the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville during the rehearsal period as part of their preparation.

    Portraying the condemned murderer in the local production was Andres Campion of Central Catholic, while Providence student, Adrian Bates, took on the role of Sister Helen. The students have been asked to present the play at the Texas Educational Theater Conference in January, where they will also present a workshop on producing the play.

    The four San Antonio performances were attended by approximately 600 people, with Sister Helen herself coming in to speak to the combined student bodies of 900, as well as speaking separately to a public audience the evening of Dec. 4. She also spent an hour in discussion with just the cast and crew.

    “This play,” said Providence principal Anne Bristol, “has had a profound impact on the cast, crew and those who watched it.”