Called to Serve Becomes the Play “The Draft”

During the Christmas festivities of 2011, the year CALLED To SERVE was published, one of its interview subjects, Tom Gardner, a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, gave a copy of the book as a Christmas gift to a British playwright friend, Peter Snoad, living in Jamaica Plain.  He then said, “I bet you can’t turn this into a play.”  Basing his comment on the great variety of voices and experiences that the book features, Tom was quite surprised to hear Peter, who, after glancing at the cover and some of the descriptors, proceeded to say, “I’d like to give it a try.” 

 What a try it turned out to be.  The play he wrote entitled, “The Draft” focused on the stories of 10 of the 33 people in the book – 8 men (two Black and 8 white) and two women.  It begins with a field trip to Vietnam mirroring the one Tom had taken with his Westfield State University students the preceding summer to learn about the history and culture of the country with which we had been at war.  It then proceeds to weave the stories of the 10 people together into a cohesive whole that made a deep impression. See Reviews HERE.