Mary Swander’s new play Coop is historic fiction, an enactment of true stories of Amish,
Mennonite, and other conscientious objectors during WWI and WWII. The core story is taken
from the oral history of a young Amish farmer draftee who boarded a train with other C.O.s—
Mennonites, Quakers, Church of the Brethren, and Seventh Day Adventists--during World War
II. This group of C.O.s, told they were bound to fight forest fires in Colorado, were interned
instead in a chicken coop. There, they remained under guard for the rest of the war. Discussion following the production.