Sally McCoy at Barter Theatre

“Winner of Barter’s 2018 Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights.”

By Alice Stanley

In the midst of the first gruesomely violent event of the legendary Hatfield and McCoy feud, one woman does what she must to save her family. Sally McCoy tells a harrowing and deeply personal story which takes a hard look at how women’s stories and perspectives are too often excluded from our historical narratives. Set in August 1882, Sally’s three eldest sons are captured by the Hatfield clan. Sally defies her womanly place in the home and crosses miles of Appalachian wilderness in the dark of night to save her children from certain death at the vengeful hands of the Hatfields. After traveling all those miles alone, she arrives at the home of the Hatfield patriarch, “Devil” Anse Hatfield, and refuses to let anything stand in her way until she has seen the “Devil” face to face.