Samuel D. Hunter's Own Private Idaho

WALLACE, Idaho — Late in October, playwright Samuel D. Hunter crouched in a defunct silver mine in northern Idaho. A blue hard hat sat on his head, and 600 feet of quartz, zinc and lead clustered above him, held in place with an anxiety-baiting assortment of chicken wire and metal plates. The walls of the cavern, wreathed in flowstone, glittered in brown and gray. Prodded by the tour guide, Marty McNamee, a third-generation miner with a scraggly beard and a light-up helmet, Hunter approached ...