Shelley Russell, a playwright and professor, derives much of her creative inspiration from Lake Superior and its surrounding region. The Northern Michigan University production opens this week, and coincides with the 25th anniversary of the tragedy. The title is based on the final words uttered by Capt. Ernest M. McSorley before the Fitzgerald disappeared beneath the surface.
Lake Superior is the largest body of freshwater in the nation.
Russell lives and works in Marquette, Mich., a stone s throw from the south shore. In her mind, she has spent the past year on an ore boat, immersed in thoughts of what transpired during the final hours of that ill-fated voyage. She said the play focuses more on the crew and the context in which the event occurred than on speculation as to why the Fitzgerald went down. There s an odd dialectic surrounding the incident, Russell said. On one hand, there s the argument that it was a matter of fate that the ship happened onto that storm.