December 11, 2015 Watertown, NY – WPBS is pleased to bring our broadcast community, the premiere of MERCY STREET. This screening will be held at the WPBS-DT Studio, located at 1056 Arsenal Street, Watertown, NY, on Thursday, January 14th, 2016 from 6pm – 7:30pm. This hour-long screening will be followed by refreshments and is free and open to the public. MERCY STREET will premiere on WPBS, January 17th at 10pm.
Based on real events, MERCY STREET takes viewers beyond the battlefield and into the lives of Americans on the Civil War home front as they face the unprecedented challenges of one of the most turbulent times in our nation’s history.
Set in Virginia in the spring of 1862, MERCY STREET follows the lives of two volunteer nurses on opposite sides of the conflict; MARY PHINNEY, (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a staunch New England abolitionist, and EMMA GREEN, (Hannah James), a naive young Confederate belle. The two collide at Mansion House, the Green family’s luxury hotel that has been taken over and transformed into a Union Army Hospital in Alexandria, a border town between North and South and the longest-occupied Confederate city of the war. Ruled under martial law, Alexandria is now the melting pot of the region, filled with soldiers, civilians, female volunteers, doctors, wounded fighting men from both sides, runaway slaves, prostitutes, speculators and spies.
The intersection of North and South within the confines of a small occupied town creates a rich world that is chaotic, conflicted, corrupt, dynamic and even hopeful — a cauldron within which these characters strive, fight, love, laugh, betray, sacrifice and, at times, act like scoundrels. This series is not about battles and glory, it’s about the drama and unexpected humor of everyday life behind the front lines. It’s a fresh twist on an iconic story, one that resonates with larger themes we still struggle with today.
About WPBS-TV
WPBS-TV is a non-profit public television station serving approximately 650,000 households throughout Northern New York and Eastern Ontario. WPBS-TV’s mission is to educate, entertain and inform our two-nation audience through superior local and national content and media engagement in order to enhance the lives of those it serves. More information about WPBS is available at www.wpbstv.org, or by following WPBS on Twitter and Facebook. Download our mobile app at Google Play or the ITunes App Store.
