A 35 minute, one-man show performed by Sean Bolger and directed by Eric Ziegenhagen, "An Interrogation Primer" is a harrowing account written by former military interrogator Mike Nowacki. Nowacki served in the US military until 2006, spending the last two years as an interrogator in Bahgdad. Reviewing its original run in November 2011 at The Side Project, Kerry Reid of the Chicago Tribune wrote: “Michael Nowacki's monologue only lasts 35 minutes, but though it is compact, it is far from tidy. The author, a former Army interrogator in Iraq, created the piece through the Warrior Writers program and as performed by the tightly coiled Sean Bolger under Eric Ziegenhagen's pinpoint direction, it's riveting…Bolger nails nearly every shift — from cynicism to rage to confusion to despair — woven into this insider's view of a man who did the dirty work required by his superiors while the rest of America went shopping in the war years.”
Director Eric Ziegenhagen: “The entire piece is written in the second person, which means that it gets around being either a first-person confession or a third-person piece of journalism. The piece has its own unique way of getting to the truth of the situation, without the sensationalism or voyeurism of a re-enactment.”
