
EXCITING UPDATE
We are now a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit arts service organization!
You can make a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE contribution on our Fractured Atlas page.
Here's your opportunity to help bring Dr. Mary Walker's amazing and positive role model story to theaters, schools, colleges/universities, libraries, Civil War Groups, Historians, etc.
We are excited to put your tax deductible donation to good use!
Click the donate button below to donate today!
INDEPENDENCE: The True Story of Dr. Mary Walker is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas,a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of INDEPENDENCE: The True Story of Dr. Mary Walker must be made payable to Fractured Atlas only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.


One day Lloyd J. Schwartz (Writer/Director) read a one page article on Dr. Mary Walker, Civil War surgeon and the only woman to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Yet he had never heard of her. Normally adverse to one-person plays, Schwartz couldn’t shake the idea that Dr. Walker’s life was dramatic, intense, pertinent and could captivate an audience.
INDEPENDENCE had its world premiere fittingly in Seneca Falls, New York (the birthplace of the women’s movement), as part of the 100th Anniversary Celebration of women getting the right to vote in New York.
Dr. Mary Walker
THE ONLY WOMAN TO BE AWARDED OUR COUNTRY’S HIGHEST HONOR: THE CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR


KATHIE BARNES (Performer — Dr. Mary Walker) has enjoyed a wide variety of roles in film, television and even digital having been a series regular in Warner Brothers first online series DECEPTION. Other favorite roles include a semi-regular role on ABC’s “All My Children”, Laura in “The Guiding Light” and Nona in the film “Jimmi”. She previously worked with author/director Lloyd Schwartz on two of her favorite theatrical roles, “What Are We Going to Say to Her?” and the poignant “Poems for Mary.”
Playwright: Lloyd J. Schwartz
Though a prolific writer/producer in TV and Film (Brady Bunch, Gilligan’s Island, Alice, Baywatch), Lloyd is proudest of his accomplishments in theatre. He has had 34 plays produced, and has garnered 16 Valley Theatre League awards.
In 2017, in Seneca Falls, New York, Lloyd directed the world premiere of “Independence,” a play he has written about Dr. Mary Walker, an important figure in the women’s movement. This presentation was part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of women getting the right to vote in New York. “Independence” had a production at Princeton University, and will soon be playing on a college circuit.
