Father Anonymous Celebrates the Man Behind Paul Revere’s Famous Ride

For one brief, shining moment he was the best of us. Dr. Joseph Warren of Boston, revolutionary commander. He dispatched Paul Revere on his historic ride, setting off the war of the Revolution, only to fall himself two months later at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Warren’s death in combat opened the door to the appointment of George Washington of Virginia as commander of the Continental Army. The rest, as they say, is history. Yet, for most of a lifetime, Professor Robert Blecker has pondered the less-remembered moments of Dr. Warren, an inflection in the course of empire, and worried that our memory of him was receding while the challenges he struggled with became the challenges we struggle with 250 years on.

“You can’t help but notice profound parallels between 1775 and our world today,” says Blecker. “You can’t help but wonder: Is America condemned to learn from history—yet still repeat it?”

Teaching that history is Blecker’s thing. A professor, now retired, of Constitutional Law at New York Law School, he has channeled 40 years of thinking about our republic into a new play, Father Anonymous, that seeks to revive Joseph Warren’s story for audiences at the AMT Theater on West 45th Street, opening Friday, June 13.

“I wrote this from a sustained, felt need to help bring back to American consciousness a true patriot and hero who deserves to be remembered and celebrated,” said Blecker.

“The messages in this play, hopefully, are eternal,” Blecker said. “There are heroes worth celebrating, principles worth fighting and dying for. There are commitments and covenants we make with those who sacrificed for liberty in the past, and a felt obligation we should have to pass on to future generations, unborn, the blessings we received.

“Great leaders are rare who can keep a balance between idealism and effective practicality,” he said. “When we find them, we should follow them, and when they sacrifice themselves for the common good, we should remember, celebrate, and keep our promise, really their promise, to the future generations for whose sake they sacrificed. ”Balancing idealism and practicality is an important theme of the play, and a connection to the seeming imbalance of our present moment. For example, Blecker notes, misinformation, or as we know it now, fake news, plays a crucial role in the play. “In 2025, we've come again to distrust the media, which seems to give everything their own spin,” Blecker explained.

“The play opens with an idealistic young apprentice objecting to Sam Adams consciously spinning events to heighten and fabricate British atrocities, to keep the Americans angry and united. Throughout, it shows Dr. Joseph Warren trying to maintain a pragmatic idealism. It highlights and shows the importance of "spin" or plausible perception, when after the Boston Massacre, Paul Revere, at Sam Adams’s urging, produces the very famous—and false—engraving of passive innocent townsmen being methodically massacred by calm British soldiers. Really, the opposite was the case. Joseph yields, but only reluctantly. After Lexington and Concord, it became vitally important to determine who in fact fired the ‘shot heard round the world.’

Who started the war? Again, Joseph coordinates accounts, in the most favorable but honest light. ”The line between managing public opinion and manipulating it was hard to walk then, as it’s hard to walk now.“

Joseph has a proper regard for the truth, but once again is torn, caught between the idealism that commits itself only to presenting the truth, regardless of its effect, and the necessity, sometimes, to withhold, distort, perhaps lie, for the greater good. Fake news played a key role 2,500 years ago, 250 years ago, and continues today. Thus, the play emphasizes it.”

Blecker notes other parallels between Warren’s era and our own: declarations of emergency used to justify executive overreach. Oligarchy smuggled in under cover of the common good. Each side declaring itself the true supporter of the Constitution. His response is to stress “deep constitutional commitments that transcend today’s political divide,” Blecker said.

“America celebrates, or should, its 250th anniversary. In these times, more than ever, this bitterly divided nation needs a real political hero that transcends today's political divide. We need to be reminded of essential principles to which all true Americans adhere, regardless of divergent views on public policy. 

“A main message, perhaps the main message, is that it's possible, however difficult, to remain true to American ideals while remaining pragmatic and effective in a very nasty world.”

Father Anonymous will run through July 2. AMT is a company that opened after Covid and aspires, as its founders put it, “to create a regional theater right in the heart of Manhattan’s theater district.”

The play is directed by Joshua Koehn and produced by Michael Smilek, who has the added connection of being the vice president of the Jockey Hollow Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution. Jockey Hollow, in southern New Jersey, is where General Washington quartered some 10,000 Continental troops through the brutal winter of 1779-1780.

Blecker, the teacher, hopes his play is part of a larger revival of what used to be called civic education. “Caring about and learning from history has almost become quaint,” Becker mourns. “We do so at our peril.”

Father Anonymous, June 13 through July 2 at AMT Theater, 354 W. 45th St. Tickets available at www.amttheater.org.