About the Play:

Twelve Angry Women is a full-length drama adapted for the stage by Sherman Sergel from the Emmy award-winning television play by Reginald Rose. Following the closing arguments in a murder trial, the 12 members of a jury must decide the fate of an inner-city teen. The stakes are high in this tense courtroom drama as the young man is just one vote away from a verdict of Guilty. A lone dissenter forces all the jurors to face their own preconceptions and prejudices as they debate the evidence and search for the truth.

Twelve Angry Women (also called Twelve Angry Jurors) is the ultimate jury-room drama about the slender thread that separates acquittal and conviction. A 19-year-old boy has just stood trial for the fatal stabbing of his father. "He doesn't stand a chance," mutters the guard as the 12 jurors are taken into the bleak jury room. It looks like an open-and-shut case – until the lone holdout, Juror No. 8, says she has "a reasonable doubt" about the defendant's guilt. She wants to talk about the case and begins opening the others' eyes to the facts. "This is a remarkable thing about democracy," says the foreign-born juror, "that we are notified by mail to come down to this place – and decide on the guilt or innocence of a man; of a man we have not known before. We have nothing to gain or lose by our verdict. We should not make it a personal thing." But personal it does become, with each juror revealing their own character as the various testimonies are re-examined, the murder is re-enacted and a new murder threat is born before their eyes! Tempers get short, arguments grow heated, and the jurors become 12 angry people. The jurors' final verdict and how they reach it – in tense scenes that will electrify your audience and keep them on the edge of their seats. An American dramatic classic that sheds new light on every era in which it is performed, Twelve Angry Men speaks to the power one person can have when they speak with conviction.

Twelve Angry Men was originally written by Reginald Rose and broadcast in 1954 as an episode of the "Studio One" CBS TV series. He later wrote the screenplay for and co-produced the 1957 movie with actor Henry Fonda, who played Juror No. 8. It was adapted for the stage in 1955 by Sherman L. Sergel from the television script. Since then the play has been performed on Broadway by the Roundabout Theatre Company at the American Airlines Theatre in 2004, where it ran ran for 32 weeks, and was nominated for three Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Play. It is regularly performed in regional, high school, college, and community theatres.

Cast: 12 female, 1 any gender, and 2 offstage voices (or combined for a mixed cast)

What people say:

"12 Angry Men explores enduring themes: the abuse as well as the power of persuasion; the fragility of certainty; and group dynamics in a democracy." — The Denver Post

"...you really need to see this gem of a show … plays out in taut, edge-of-your seat real time…." — Broadway World

"...surprises, moves, and even makes you laugh…." — D.C. Theatre Scene

About the Playwright:

Reginald Rose (1920-2002) was one of the outstanding television playwrights to emerge from the "Golden Age" of television drama anthology series. He wrote numerous teleplays for the live drama anthologies in the 1950s and 1960s, including 12 Angry Men. He also created, supervised, and wrote many episodes of the successful television series The Defenders (1961-1965), a weekly courtroom drama based on one of his Studio One episodes. He won three Emmy awards for television and was nominated for an Oscar for the feature-length film of Twelve Angry Men. 

Sherman L. Sergel is best known for his adaptation of Reginald Rose's classic television play Twelve Angry Men.