Coop: Mary Swander’s new play tours the Midwest

Rip Russell in Coop.

“Riveting. Inventive. Coop is a play in the best sense of the word, an artful mix of both seriousness and fun.”
                                                                      — Cheryl Allen, The News, Kalona IA, Sept. 11, 2025

Swander Woman Productions recently presented opening performances of Coop, in Iowa and Ireland. Coop is Mary Swander’s new play, starring Rip Russell. See the schedule.

Upcoming Performances

Past Performances

The play is produced by Swander Woman Productions, a theatre company that creates and tours dramatic performances based on food, farming, and the wider rural environment.

Mary Swander’s new play Coop is historical fiction, an enactment of true stories of Amish, Mennonite, and other conscientious objectors during WWI and WWII. The core story is taken from the oral history of a young Amish farmer draftee who boarded a train with other C.O.s—Mennonites, Quakers, Church of the Brethren, and Seventh Day Adventists–during World War II. This group of C.O.s, told they were bound to fight forest fires in Colorado, were interned instead in a chicken coop. There, they remained under guard for the rest of the war.

We are all aware of the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, but few dramas have brought the story of Amish/Mennonite and other conscientious objectors to the world stage. Many C.O.s were treated with decency and respect during these war years, but others suffered humiliation, torture, and even death at the hands of both townspeople and the military. The Amish/Mennonite population was targeted for its fluency in the German language and their staunch refusal to kill others in war. They were thought to be naïve about the war effort, given their isolation on their farms in the rural United States.

The play, masterfully performed by Rip Russell, is a one-person performance staged on a table with everyday objects representing the characters in the show. Object theatre. Russell pantomimes the action to a narration filled with music, sound effects and excerpts from old news reels. Come and watch traffic cones, dusters, balloons, and clothespins come to life, creating this gripping drama of the challenges German-speaking conscientious objectors endured. A quartet of Kalona Mennonites provides recorded a cappella hymns in the Anabaptist tradition, as part of the production..

Mary Swander spent ten years researching the material for this play. First, she schooled herself in the values and beliefs of the peace churches. Then she reviewed the historical backgrounds of the World Wars. Next, she tracked down the available written oral histories of Amish/Mennonite conscientious objectors. Then, once her Kalona Mennonite neighbors heard about her project, they began coming into her studio with more stories, photos, and historical material from their families. A local woman told Swander the true story of her conscientious objector grandfather during WWI. He was waterboarded at Camp Dodge near Des Moines, then he wrote a letter to the Secretary of War Newton Baker, who appeared at the camp to stop the torture.

Other Kalona residents brought books that their churches had compiled about their members’ experiences during wars. They brought pamphlets detailing C.O. status, and how to resist participation in war efforts. They brought materials documenting their alternative service in hospitals, on farms, and in nursing homes. In December 2024, Swander performed a preview of the show at Hillcrest School (formerly Iowa Mennonite School), and many more people stepped forward with family stories and conscientious objector memories.

“Mary Swander’s Coop brings us deep inside the heart and mind of an Amish conscientious objector. We witness firsthand his courage in the face of lawless mistreatment — and the miracle of his forgiveness.” 
       —Linda Egenes, author of Visits with the Amish: Impressions of the Plain Life

“I am so glad I was finally able to catch up with one of the Coop performances. Wonderful concept, richly connected history, and a powerful understanding of another under-shared chapter in American history.”
—John Busbee: President/Producer, The Culture Buzz

“Mary Swander’s object theater production of Coop threw the spotlight on the harsh response of American society to CO status in WWII. Welded into that story was the Amish youth’s crisis of faith and love towards unyielding oppression. Audience responses in the after-play discussion ranged from incredulity to remembrance of experiences with the military draft by COs as attendees unwound their own recalls of WWI and II alternative service by Iowa draftees. Audience response revealed familiarity with present day mistreatment of minority groups and the need for advocacy/ compassion in today’s social environment.”
—Glenn Baughman, Des Moines Mennonite Church

 

Designer Noah Richardson grew up in New York where he worked in IT. He learned the craft of fine furniture-making from his father. He and his wife moved to Kalona, Iowa, where he is converting an old church into an arts center.

The star of Coop is Rip Russell. With a degree in theatre from the University of Iowa, Rip Russell is a well-known Iowa actor, having appeared on almost every stage in the eastern Iowa region, including ICCT, TCR, Riverside Theatre, and City Circle. Previously, he starred in several Swander dramas: Driving the Body Back, Vang, and Squatters on Red Earth. He is also a visual artist with exhibits of his paintings throughout the area.

Mary Swander has published scores of books, receiving many national awards for her writing, the latest the Anon Was a Woman Environmental Award for Squatters on Red Earth. She is the former Poet Laureate of Iowa and is included in the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame. Mary Swander has performed her dramas from coast to coast in venues that include farmers’ barns, New York University, The USDA, The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and The Mayo Clinic. Her touring productions are Squatters on Red Earth; The Girls on the Roof; Vang, a play about recent immigrant farmers; Map of my Kingdom, a play about farmland transition; Farm-to-Fork Tales, a storytelling performance; and now Coop, the story of an Amish conscientious objector.

The performances are open to the public.

The play runs for one hour with a talk-back discussion following the performance.

With support from a grant from The State Historical Society, Inc of Iowa, SWP is now scheduling a tour of Coop, in all venues, large and small. For more information, please contact Janine Calsbeek, SWP Touring Director, touringswp@gmail.com, 712.707.2910; 712.441.6094.

• With the help of some household objects, ‘Coop’ captures the dark, true story of an Amish conscientious objector from Iowa during WWII. Little Village, Jan 14, 2026.

• “Coop:” An inventive, thought-provoking drama. The News, Kalona IA, Sept 11, 2025.

• Mary Swander’s New Play: “Coop,” the Poignant Tale of an Amish Conscientious Objector, The Iowa Source. 

• “Coop,” Talk of Iowa from Iowa Public Radio features Mary Swander and Charity Nebbe.  (Start at minute 31:40)

• Mary Swander’s “Coop.” An interview with Mary Swander and Rip Russell by KICI Radio, Green Room IC 

• KCCK: Culture Crawl 1110: “Traffic cone and feather duster-themed play”

“Coop brings to light these sad, obscured atrocities with a fascinating combination of the absurd, the surreal and the tragic, with brief moments of grace thrown in for good measure. The canny choice of using object theatre to tell the story of an objector, and having that objector double as the dispassionate Hand of God moving the objects to their objective fate over their objections, is a subtle but effective one. ” 
       —Kevin Richard Schafer, Little Village