Cast: 10 to 18m., 2 to 3w., 2 boys, extras as desired. Focusing on the theatricality and humanity of Lincoln's second year in the White House (1862), The Heavens Are Hung in Black is a fevered, emotional epic about a U.S. president who read the Book of Job and the plays of Shakespeare, had the saddest face ever painted, openly wept in public, and led this country in a war that we're still fighting today. We see everything through Lincoln's eyes and his haunted dreams: his treatment by his friends and enemies; his relationship with his troubled wife; their grief over the death of their young son; and Lincoln's moving and very public agony over the bloody losses of a war that seems to have no end. Commissioned by and premiered at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Unit set. Approximate running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.