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The Plays
The Assembled Parties
It’s Christmas 1980, and inside a sprawling Upper West Side apartment, Faye Bascov is about to throw an opulent Christmas dinner—a tradition for this secular, well-educated Jewish family. But any family gathering is an invitation for old resentments to boil over, as Faye’s sister-in-law Julie and the extended family have plenty to hash out. Flash-forward to 2000, and the apartment, now much shabbier, reflects how the family’s fortunes have changed, and the Bascovs now have to reckon with the legacy of their family discord.
Born Guilty
By: Peter Sichrovsky
Ari Roth's adaptation of Peter Sichrovsky's book of the same name, Born Guilty, is a moving and elegiac play about one man's journey into the hearts of children raised by Nazi parents. As Peter, a Jewish journalist, digs into the past, he faces psychological barriers that threaten to bury the truth forever. A Red Orchid Theatre co-production.
Broken Glass
By: Arthur Miller
Set in 1938 Brooklyn, this gripping psychological mystery begins when attractive, level-headed Sylvia Gellburg suddenly loses her ability to walk. The only clue lies in Sylvia’s obsession with news accounts from Germany. Though safe in Brooklyn, Sylvia is terrified by Nazi violence - or is it something closer to home?
Includes an interview with Dr. David D. Clarke about psychosomatic illnesses.
Denial
By: Peter Sagal
In Peter Sagal’s contest of intellect and wills, Abby Gersten, a tenacious civil liberties attorney, defends a right-wing Holocaust denier, arguing her case against a young, committed Jewish federal prosecutor. But Abby may have to sacrifice everything to prove that Truth and Justice do not always go hand in hand.
Exodus: The Shanghai Jews
By: Kate McAll
As Jews tried to escape Nazi Germany in the 1930s, they faced unthinkable roadblocks in obtaining exit visas. And while they were denied entry in one country after another, a bureaucratic oddity enabled some of them to flee to an unlikely destination: Shanghai, China.
In this LATW original commission, playwright Kate McAll used the survivors’ own words to create a narrative of people starting their lives over in a completely new land.
Funding for this presentation is provided in part by The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation, and The I. Michael Kasser Trust: Michael and Beth Kasser.
Special thanks to Prof. Steve Hochstadt for his generosity in sharing his research and recordings to help create this work.
Fate
A talkative New Yorker corrals a writer at a cocktail party and forces him to listen to the story of her life. A co-production with the National Jewish Theater.
Incident at Vichy
By: Arthur Miller
In Vichy, France, in 1942, nine men are detained under a shadowy pretext. As the tension builds, the men are questioned – are they the sort of people whom the new Nazi regime considers "inferior?"
Judgment at Nuremberg
By: Abby Mann
Abby Mann’s classic story about the Nuremberg trials, under which German leaders were found guilty of crimes against humanity in 1945 and 1946. Even today, the play remains a shattering indictment of the consequences of unchecked authority and the seductive power of group thought.
Includes an audience talkback with Judge Bruce Einhorn, who served at the Justice Department supervising litigation against Nazi war criminals and is currently a professor at Pepperdine University.
Kindertransport
By: Diane Samuels
Diane Samuels’ play about families, secrets and survival takes us to the days of the impending Holocaust. As conditions deteriorated in Germany in the 1930s, many tried in vain to escape. But thanks to a British humanitarian effort, about 10,000 Jewish children from Germany and neighboring countries were relocated to live with families in the United Kingdom, while their parents stayed behind. This passage to freedom became known as Kindertransport.
Includes a conversation with Kindertransport survivor, Hilda Fogelson.
The Magic Barrel
By: Bernard Malamud
From the author of The Natural comes a classic short story about a young rabbinical student and his fateful encounter with an enigmatic matchmaker. A co-production with the National Jewish Theater.
Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia
In this darkly comic, poignant, and at times surreal play, two couples in Tunisia — one Muslim and one Jewish — share a deep and complicated friendship before the German takeover of their country in World War II. Now under a brutal regime, they face the truth about their long-simmering feelings about friendship and romance as they struggle to save themselves from a Nazi commandant - named Grandma.
Sixteen Wounded
By: Eliam Kraiem
The fateful collision of a lonely Jewish baker and a passionate Palestinian sets a deepening friendship in motion as the two struggle with identity and loyalty to their beliefs—and to each other. An act of violence brought them together. Will another tear them apart?