New D.C. Walking Tour Traces Lincoln's Final Hours

June 20, 2008 — -- For all of you American history lovers and aspiring detectives out there: A new tour of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination site in Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., may be your cup of tea.

With a 1.4-mile walking tour between the theater, which is currently undergoing a $40-$50 million renovation, and the White House, tourists get a taste of the story behind Lincoln's murder. On the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot the president in the theater as he sat watching a performance. Lincoln struggled through the night but died the next morning in a nearby boarding house bedroom.

The tours, led by actor Kip Pierson, will begin today and continue through August. A guided trip costs $12 a person, or $10 each for groups of 20 or more. More information can be found at http://www.fordstheatre.org/.

"While giving the tours, I'm going to wear a period costume," Pierson said. "The actual character I am introduced as is Detective James McDevitt, who was there during the investigation after Lincoln's assassination. On the tour, we visit all of the spots that were pertinent on that evening of conspiracy."

McDevitt investigated the assassination with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington D.C.

In addition to playing the role of detective, Pierson will act out the parts of eight or nine other characters who were on the scene on the night of the assassination and in the days following.

"It's interactive," said Pierson. "While there, the audience gets official documents from the investigators and from the witnesses. And we go to each spot and we ask them for it. So I take on the role of those characters as well. The most gruesome character is Fanny Seward, who described the attack on her dad [Secretary of State William Seward]. It's almost like a horror novel. It's interesting to speak first-hand testimonies."

By playing the roles of multiple characters, Pierson hopes to give the audience a sense of the historical figures and what they saw.

To prepare for his guiding duties, Pierson had to learn a script. Time was short: He had only a stress-filled week and a half to memorize 40 pages of dialogue.

Although Pierson is the only tour guide for this new Washington D.C. must-see, he does not expect to call in sick once the tours begin.

"I've never except once in my entire career missed a show," he said. "The show must go on. You suck it up."

Pierson briefly dabbled in acting during high school, but did not begin to act seriously until he was 20 years old. He received a bachelor's degree in political theory and constitutional democracy from Michigan State University, and planned on becoming a lawyer. Instead, he moved to Washington just over five years ago and got a master's degree in classical acting from The Academy for Classical Acting (ACA). During Pierson's days at ACA, someone from Ford's Theatre attended one of his productions, and later cast him for their production of "A Christmas Carol."

Pierson's career at Ford's Theatre led him to his current role of tour guide for the walking tours of Lincoln's assassination.

"I'm a big fan of walking tours in general, but frankly I didn't know much about the assassination before I learned about it for my role," Pierson explained. "With walking tours, you learn so much about a place. Even locals will come and say, 'wow I didn't know that!' "

Pierson hopes that the tours will be a popular tourist destination for travelers around the D.C. area. Many of the scheduled tours are already completely booked.

The boarding house and the theater are now preserved as the Ford's Theatre National Historic Site, and the theater is considered a national park. After renovations, the interior will be updated with a lobby, an elevator and better acoustics and seats.

"We're lucky that while the theater is closed, we can still have an educational opportunity for tours," Pierson said.

Aside from his acting career, Pierson is an active environmentalist. On Wednesday he returned from a biking trip across the country. He and his team set a record and managed to get an impressive number of Americans to pledge to be carbon neutral.