Adrien Brody, Tessa Thompson and the Truth Behind ‘The Fear of 13’ (opens in new tab)

In 2024, the playwright Lindsey Ferrentino took a former convict named Nick Yarris to a preview performance of her new work, “The Fear of 13” in London. The play dramatizes the 21 years that Yarris, portrayed onstage by Adrien Brody, spent on death row in Pennsylvania for a murder he did not commit. Seeing his grueling prison ordeal unfolding before him in the theater, Yarris, now 64, was “audibly reacting louder than anyone else,” Ferrentino recalled. “Everyone nearby just sort of reached ou...