‘May 4th Voices’

The 67 shots that rang out at Kent State amid a May 4,1970 Vietnam War protest, killing four students and wounding nine, reverberate nearly 50 years later. Many historians see the shootings as the moment America turned, finally and forcefully, against the war. The radio play “May 4th Voices” features first-person narratives and reactions to events leading up to, during and after the tragic shooting. Author David Hassler, using the May 4th Oral History Project’s over 1,200 pages of transcripts, assembled accounts from townspeople, students, protesters, faculty, National Guardsmen, police and others to provide diverse viewpoints from those most intimately affected at Kent State and the surrounding community. Twenty professional actors, including Tina Fey, Jeff Richmond, Ron West, Steve Byrne and more, all with a connection to Kent either through their degrees, as faculty or other association, have come together under the direction of Joe Gunderman, national voice artist and WKSU’s senior producer, to bring these eyewitness accounts to life.