The WalK | A Play in one act
THE UNTOLD TRUE STORY OF AMERICA’S FIRST MASS SHOOTING
The Walk is a one-act play dramatizing the life of World War II veteran Howard Unruh and events which led to his murder of thirteen people along River Road in Camden, New Jersey on September 6th, 1949, a tragedy widely recognized as America’s first mass shooting. Inspired by Dante’s Inferno, the minimalist play is set outside the gates of Hell hours after Unruh’s death at Trenton State Psychiatric Hospital in 2009 and imagines the mass-shooter’s journey to the underworld while the ghost of Virgil conjures memories from his troubled past, leading Unruh to finally recall that fateful morning sixty years earlier.
The Walk premeried as part of Rutgers University–Camden’s 2019 Student-Directed One-Act Play Festival from December 5th to 8th, packing the theater for each of its four showings. The production boasted a talented cast of Rutgers–Camden students, staring Anthony Diaz as Howard Unruh and Gordon Malkowksi as Virgil, and featuring James Dippold-Ferrel, Sophia Baratti, Will Von Leer, Riley Jablonski, Austin Ginsberg, and South Jersey theater veteran Susan Dewey as Howard’s mother, Frieda.
Ahead of the One-Act Festival, director Hunter Smith said of his intention in producing The Walk: “We’re looking to create a conversation. Unruh’s story has ties to so many themes we talk about today: PTSD, sexual/mental abuse, homosexuality, bullying, etc. This play asks the audience not to just look at the murderer, but to look at themselves.” Speaking of the tragic history behind the play, Matt Fulton added: “Howard Unruh was responsible for America’s first mass shooting, yet few people have heard of him or what he did. We know this scourge of gun violence so well, it’s sadly such an ingrained aspect of our culture right now, but we know so little about the man who did it, the events that led up to that morning, and the people whose lives he took. This play sheds light on all of those things.”
Photo by Sean Crowley. Design by Steve Mathis.
PROMOTIONAL POSTER FROM THE 2019 PRODUCTION