In January 2007, I went to Chicago with several actors to research a play about Chicago cops that I had been hired to direct. The weekend consisted of several “ride-a-longs” with various policemen as they went about their day. One of the policemen I had the pleasure of meeting was an Iraq War veteran who’d returned home from fighting overseas the previous year. He lost his best friend in Iraq and returned home completely lost, his “future taken away from [him].” The only logical choice was for him to join the police force. He didn’t seem too happy about his new occupation, but it was something to occupy his time. Over the next few hours, he did most of the talking. It was obvious that he was in a great deal of pain, and there was no way that I could help him. Then I realized that I was helping him – I was listening.

That night, instead of getting a good night’s sleep for my early morning flight, I stayed awake and wrote a one-act play called Happy New Year - an intense drama about two Iraq veterans reuniting in a Veteran’s hospital on New Year’s Eve to contemplate their futures. After reading it, I pushed it aside. It was the most honest and yet most devastating thing that I’d ever written, and I was terrified of it.

With the encouragement of actor/producer Michael Cuomo, I continued work on the play. Several months later, Happy New Year premiered Off-Broadway as the centerpiece to The War At Home – a festival of new plays that explored the impact of the Iraq War on the American psyche. Critics raved, “Happy New Year, perhaps the evening’s most unsettling piece, unveils with searing lucidity war’s ugly residue.” Both pro-war and anti-war groups alike applauded the piece for its intimate portrayal of two soldiers trying to regain some semblance of a normal life. It was at the urging of a couple of mothers of Iraq vets that I adapted the play into a short film. That short film,
currently touring the festival circuit, is now being expanded into a feature.

Over the last few months, Michael and I have interviewed dozens of veterans from various wars – Iraq, Afghanistan, Desert Storm, Vietnam and WWII – their families, as well as various military and VA personnel. As painful as these stories were to hear, we realized how therapeutic the experience was for them and for us. These interviews, along with the additional research we’ve done, serve as the backbone to ensuring as much accuracy as possible in the upcoming feature film.

K. Lorrel Manning