This episode of 1865 is part of the series that debuted on Stitcher Premium in late 2018.

Since then, we've rewritten and re-recorded many portions of the show,

including a brand new finale. These new episodes are debuting weekly, with the first two available

June 18th 2019. As a patron of 1865, you can binge the entire series, including this episode,

as it originally debuted now, and can enjoy the new episodes,

and free before they're released to the general public. Thank you for your support.

Hello and welcome to Inside the Episode 1865. I'm Rob McCollum, one of the producers on this project.

So excited to finally have this year and a half long process of getting this podcast up and

to you. Finished and over the line, and now our first episode has been released. I hope that you

listen to it. I hope you enjoyed it. I would say listen to it first. There are spoilers coming,

but the whole purpose of this inside the episode is to look into this very complex story,

find out how it was brought to the microphones and the way that it was, where the actual

history lies, where the artistic license was taken. So there was no one better to talk about

that than the two writers who joined me today, Eric Archila and Steve Walters. You guys have

been working on this for a very, very long time, much before even the podcast began. So, Eric,

I will start with you. Tell us where you guys first began working on this idea.

Thanks, Rob. This actually started in 2003 at Baylor University. Steve and I were in the

theater department together in a theater history class. And there was an assignment to write a paper

on a period of theater history. And we were assigned the 18th or 19th century and not a whole lot

happened there. It was all a minstrel shows and Vodville and Melodrama. And so we looked on the list

weren't really crazy about any of those things. But Steve saw John Wilkes Booth, the Booth family

on there because they were very prominent theatrical family. And we decided to write a play together

...