Boston Play Gives Equal Stage Time to Fugitive and Victim's Daughter

A new play opening this month at Central Square Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, stages the story of Katherine Ann Power, a onetime fugitive wanted for 23 years, alongside the account of Clare Schroeder, the daughter of the police officer Power's getaway-driving role helped get killed in 1970, according to The Guardian.

What Is "The Getaway Driver" About?

The production, titled The Getaway Driver, casts Rebecca Gibel as Katherine and Rachael Warren as Clare, the Guardian reports, structuring the play around both women's perspectives on the same 1970 crime rather than centering the narrative on Power alone. The play opens October 29 at Central Square Theater in Cambridge.

Who Is Katherine Ann Power?

Power, now 77, lives in Concord, Massachusetts, where she works as a real estate agent, the Guardian reports. She arrived at Brandeis University in 1967 as a Catholic former Girl Scout from Denver, Colorado, hoping to become a science teacher, according to the outlet. Power spent 23 years evading the FBI, from 1970 until she surrendered in 1993 — the longest any woman has remained a fugitive in American history, per the Guardian's reporting. She told the outlet that clients sometimes recognize her during real estate closings: "When we are wrapping up some of the house purchase documents, some people say to me: 'Oh I know your whole story, by the way.'"

What Happened in 1970?

Power was involved in a 1970 crime tied to an activist group during the anti-Vietnam War student movement in which a police officer was killed, the Guardian reports. The outlet notes that Power became a household name afterward, variously cast as what the piece describes as a "bogeyman" of where a college education and liberal politics might lead, or, in a 1994 New Yorker characterization cited by the Guardian, "the warrior who represented the moral outrage of a generation."

Who Is Clare Schroeder, and Why Does Her Voice Matter?

Schroeder is the daughter of the officer killed in the 1970 incident, according to the Guardian. The outlet describes her as a "lesser heard voice" in the decades of coverage that followed Power's case, and the play's creators built the production to give Schroeder's account standing equal to Power's rather than treating her as a secondary figure in someone else's fugitive story.

How Does the Play Connect to Today's Campus Politics?

The Guardian frames the production's timing against what it calls repeated clashes between institutions, students and academics in the current period, and quotes Julie Reuben, a professor who studies student protest at Harvard Graduate School of Education, discussing the climate on campuses during the era Power entered Brandeis in 1967.

Key Dates

• 1967: Power enrolls at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
• 1970: An officer is killed; Power becomes a fugitive.
• 1993: Power surrenders to authorities after 23 years on the run — the longest fugitive period recorded for a woman in the United States, per the Guardian.
• October 29, 2026: The Getaway Driver opens at Central Square Theater in Cambridge.

The Guardian's report does not specify the play's running length, ticket prices, or whether Schroeder herself was consulted during development, and HTT News could not independently verify those details.