The play chronicles Henry David Thoreau’s startling renunciation of “non-violent, civil disobedience” in order to support the radical abolitionist, John Brown, and his subsequent struggle to rediscover his faith in the healing power of Nature.

In the spring of 1857 John Brown slipped into Concord Massachusetts to raise support for his militia in Kansas. A secret meeting, arranged by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Franklin Sanborn, took place in the home of their close friend, Henry Thoreau. Brown had recently been accused of the cold blooded murder of five pro-slavery men. Thoreau, who had grown impatient that there would ever be a peaceful end to slavery, set his non-violent convictions aside to support Brown. Following Brown’s capture at Harper’s Ferry Virginia in 1858, Thoreau barnstormed New England lecture halls, pleading for his acquittal and even comparing the abolitionist to Jesus. When civil war broke out in the spring of 1861, Brown’s former supporters were widely excoriated. Thoreau, himself, lay dying of consumption, and his life-legacy as a man of peace had fallen into question. Redemption was still possible, but he would have to reach it through the love of his friends and family coupled with an abiding faith in Nature.