Drew Barker, MA Candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies, wins in NEH Contest

Drew Barker was named a winner of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) creative writing contest, Emancipation Nation, based on Civil War-era documents relating to slavery

Drew Barker was named a winner of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) creative writing contest, Emancipation Nation, based on Civil War-era documents relating to slavery and Emancipation. The contest asked students from around the country to submit a piece of original creative writing that reinterpreted or responded to historic documents contained in two NEH-supported online databases: The Freedmen and Southern Society Project and Visualizing Emancipation. Drew submitted his original one-act play, Freedom's Fortress, a play based on testimony by the Superintendent of Contrabands at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, before the American Freedman’s Inquiry Commission in 1863, and envisions a conversation between Union officials discussing the thousands of fugitive and freed slaves who traveled from the South to join the Union army.  

NEH has posted an interview with Drew and a PDF of his script.

Congratulations Drew!