Tafero's exonerated wife, Sonia "Sunny" Jacobs (who will be played by Susan Sarandon), is the only female former death-row inmate featured in the play. (Blank and Jensen also included the stories of four wives and girlfriends of the exonerated.) Jacobs and Tafero were sentenced to death in Florida in 1976 for the murder of two policemen at a highway rest stop.

A third codefendant received a life sentence after pleading guilty and testifying against Jacobs and Tafero. He -- the state's star witness -- was the actual killer.

Largely because a filmmaker friend and the horror of Tafero's execution drew attention to her case, Jacobs' conviction was overturned on a federal writ of habeas corpus in 1992, and she was released following the discovery that the chief witness for the prosecution had given false testimony.

By the time she was released, her husband wasn't the only loss Jacobs had suffered: Both of her parents had been killed in a plane crash en route to visit her in jail. She addresses the audience with some of the most unsettling lines in "The Exonerated": "I'll just give you a moment to reflect: From 1976 to 1992, just remove that entire chunk from your life, and that's what happened."

Being sentenced to death for a crime one didn't commit is almost too hideous to imagine. "What we heard over and over again in our interviews was, 'I didn't know that this kind of thing could happen,' or 'I kind of knew from reading about it in the newspaper, but you don't really believe it until it touches your life,'" says Blank.

"One of the things we're trying to do is give people a way to connect with what this is, very directly, and in a way that's heartfelt and human and full -- without having to go through it themselves."

While those who favor the death penalty in this country are still in the majority, popular opinion is waning. A recent national Harris Poll found that support for the death penalty has dropped to 64 percent this year (from 71 percent in 1999 and 75 percent in 1997). It also revealed that 94 percent of Americans believe that some innocent people have been convicted of murder.

"If the system had been allowed to work how it normally works," Blank says, "with state-provided defense attorneys, etc., all of our subjects would be dead. Every single one."

The play, directed by Bob Balaban (who appeared in the recent film "Best in Show") premieres with three benefit performances (Oct. 30, Nov. 6, Nov. 9) at the Culture Project at 45 Bleecker Theater in New York. Half of the proceeds for these shows will go to the exonerated people whose stories appear within. The other half will go to organizations working to overturn wrongful convictions: the Center on Wrongful Convictions, the Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries (a New Jersey pro bono law organization).

It runs one hour and 15 minutes -- the time it would take for Bush to review five clemency appeals.

For tickets to benefit performances and information on the full run in the spring, contact the 45 Bleecker Theater box office, 212-529-4530.

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