Since the end of last year, Nick Anstey has slowly been hatching an idea that will first see the light of day Thursday at Fisher Theater.

Anstey, senior in performing arts, is the director of the ISU Theatre Second Stage production “A Piece of My Heart,” a play by Shirley Lauro involving female veterans of the Vietnam War.

“A Piece of My Heart” is based on a book about 26 different women’s accounts of the Vietnam War, both during and after their service. The characters in the play are an amalgamation of the 26 women, making each of the play’s scenes based on true stories.

In order to become the director of the Second Stage production, Anstey had to pitch his idea to the theater department in the hopes they would choose his idea for the spring show.

The Second Stage Theater Production is different from normal ISU Theatre productions, because it is student run and faculty advised.

Traditionally Second Stage productions are more risqu‚ and different from the rest of the plays throughout the year, and this year is no exception. “A Piece of My Heart” tackles a sensitive subject, Anstey says, and does not try to be uplifting or apologetic.

“It’s much darker overall,” Anstey says. “The play serves more to educate than to entertain, though I think it has much entertainment value. It has a kind of dark beauty.”

The main characters in the play are six women who experience Vietnam in the first act, and then return home to live through the trauma and aftereffects in the second. Their positions include three military nurses, a Red Cross nurse, a Women’s Army Corp Officer and a USO (United Service Organizations) entertainer.

The play is presented with some parts as monologues, and some parts live action, where actors and actresses play different roles regularly. The stage is simple; it is set against a dark background amidst minimal lighting.

“A Piece of My Heart” presents a different play than students may be used to seeing, Anstey says.

“Its very different from anything else they’ll see. It gives them a nice diversion from finals,” he says. “It helps them remember that war does not only affect men, but women, too, just as drastically. It lets you see it from the other side, from the women who held the hands of soldiers as they died, took their last requests and sometimes saved them, sometimes didn’t. These women deserve their due.”

Most of the characters are dressed in camouflage throughout, and this fast-moving play is accentuated by quick transitions of scenes and a variety of action. The play strives to emulate a diverse amount of experiences females were subjected to after their service in Vietnam.

Jennifer Bertling, freshman in journalism and mass communication who plays Martha, says her experience in the play gave her much knowledge on the realism and severity of women’s situation in and after Vietnam.

“I learned what these women and men went through and what they dealt with when they came back,” Bertling says. “And even though these people fighting were only 18 to 20 years old, they were put into a situation where they must be mature adults and make life and death decisions everyday.”

Breon Ansley, senior in performing arts, says female nurses in the war deserve more recognition, and this play emulates the bravery and importance they brought to the war.

“The nurses had a big impact on soldiers. People outside the war do not realize this impact like the soldiers do,” Ansley says. “The nurses go through almost as much as soldiers do, having the pressure of trying to save a soldier’s life. That’s a big role, and they play a big part. I commend the nurses a lot.”

The cast has been meeting four to five nights each week since spring break, and has been putting in long nights, despite the ever-present darkness of finals looming ahead.

“A Piece of My Heart” is a good chance for ISU students to show their appreciation for the theater program and an opportunity to learn something, as well, Bertling says.

“Students should come and support ISU theater. We’ve been working hard and putting in a lot of late, late nights,” Bertling says. “Everyone who sees this will go away feeling they got something out of it.”

Students should come to reassure the costs and prices of freedom and liberty, says Anstey

“I would advise people to come to know freedom is not always free and the price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” he says. “It is not only men that pay the price on the field of battle.”

“A Piece of My Heart” will be presented at Fisher Theater on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 p.m.