In 1890, Anton Chekhov embarked on one of the most puzzling episodes in his life---a grueling and dangerous trip across the breadth of Russia to visit the penal colony on Sakhalin Island off the coast of Siberia. During his three-month stay, he traveled around the island while conducting a census of the 10,000 prisoners and exiles on the island, recording their details on index cards. He also observed the colony’s other inhabitants: prison administrators, guards, and free settlers. Upon his return to Moscow he wrote Sakhalin Island, his only non-fiction work and certainly his least known. Chekhov’s account of his trip is an extraordinary document: an investigation of the brutal conditions under which the prisoners lived, it is also an unsparing examination of the corruption caused in “civilized” people by unlimited control over others’ lives. CHEKHOV ON SAKHALIN is a highly theatrical dramatization of Chekhov’s book, which creates the world of Sakhalin on a unit set through lighting and sound. The play requires a cast of six: one actor to play Chekhov and five others (four men and one woman) who play multiple roles, including officials, prisoners and their spouses and children, guards, wardens, and physicians.