The Last Cyclist in Minnesota
By Naomi Patz and Lisa Peschel
Written by Naomi Patz, and performed by actors and musicians of a local community theater, Švenk’s allegory, and the circumstances in which it was written, came to life again before audiences avidly interested in the history of Terezín, the fate of the prisoners, and the story of Karel Švenk and his fellow performers. In this article, Naomi Patz and Lisa Peschel tell about how a play based on the work of this brilliant playwright came to be performed halfway around the globe. |
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My Experience Translating Nava Shean's 'To Be an Actress'
By Michelle Fram Cohen
In 1997 I received a phone call from a woman named Leni who lives in the U.S., like me. She saw that I translated from Hebrew a collection of Holocaust memoirs under the title Our Town Bietzsch and wondered if I would be interested in translating the memoir of Nava Shean, whom she had known in Terezin during the Holocaust. I never heard about Nava Shean although I grew up in Israel, but I was interested in seeing the book. Leni gave me Nava Shean's address in Kiryat Yearim near Jerusalem. I wrot |
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From a Nazi camp to a Harvard stage
By Elise Kigner
Director Dr. Guila Clara Kessous and survivor Henry Newman. In 1943, Henry Newman was a prisoner at a labor camp in Budzyn, Poland. Knowing he had studied theater, the camp’s commandant asked the 21-year-old to stage a play with prisoners as the actors. There was one more thing: The play better make him laugh; Newman’s life depended on it. |
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Nephesh Theatre Presents the Hebrew Premiere of 'Hana's Suitcase'
By Tzlil Yachin
Nephesh Theatre presented a memorable evening for the Hebrew premiere of
"Hana's Suitcase" at Holon's Mediatheque Theatre April 14th 2010.
The play by Canadian Emil Sher is based upon the award winning book by
Karen Levine that became a best seller and has been translated into more
than 40 languages. |
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On-line Exhibition:And We Were Like Puppets on Strings
The Yellow star was a mark of shame the Jews had to wear on their clothes during the Nazi government so that they should be identified anywhere, anytime in Germany and in the conquered countries. |
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The beautiful and the noble Sobol's "Ghetto"
By Michael Handelsaltz
Since first being staged at the Haifa Municipal Theater in 1984, Joshua Sobol's play "Ghetto" has been produced 66 times (about half of those in Germany and Austria), in over 15 languages. It is unquestionably the most well-known Israeli play in the world. |
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Art Meets Life in A New Moscow Production
By John Freedman
This is not a review of, but a reaction to, Mindaugas Karbauskis’ production of “A Stalemate Lasts But a Moment,” which opened last week at the National Youth Theater. I have never written an article about a production that I have not yet reviewed. But I have reason to this time. |
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Voices from The Shadows: Holocaust Memorial Day
The Holocaust (Shoah) fundamentally challenged the foundations of civilisation. The unprecedented character of the Holocaust will always hold universal meaning. After half a century, it remains an event close enough in time that survivors can still bear witness to the horrors that engulfed the Jewish people. The terrible suffering of the many millions of other victims of the Nazis has left an indelible scar across Europe as well. |
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Theatre in The German Concentration Camps
By Curt Daniel
THERE are so many contradictions in the organization of the Third Reich that it is only surprising at first thought to learn that theatres, both permitted and illicit, exist in the German Concentration Camps. The nature and extent of this theatre varies in direct relation to the conditions prevailing in a particular camp. Thus in Dachau, with its prison population of almost 10,000, where orderliness is the quintessence and Gründlichkeit is king, any licensed theatricals are out of the question. |
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Music of The Holocaust
By Sarah Nathan-Whyte
"Inhumanity, racism, terror, deprivation of rights and the will to destroy were constitutive elements of National Socialist Ideology."
Those words by German musicologist Friedrich Geiger sum up some of the obstacles experienced by concentration camp prisoners in the struggle to maintain some form of civilised existence under the Nazi system in which the desire to humiliate also played a strong role. And yet, despite the degradation and deprivation all the inmates experienced, the will to live, |
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Kurt Gerron: Prisoner of Paradise
By Karen Alkalay-Gut
The bare facts are these - he was born in Berlin, got wounded in WWI, and gave up on his plan to be a doctor for the stage. He made silent films and appeared in cabarets in Berlin and was a pretty big star by 1933 when he was forced to leave. Instead of going to Hollywood, he went to Paris then Prague and then Amsterdam, where he was picked up by the Nazis. From there he was sent to Westerbrook and Theriesenstat, where he directed the film "Hitler Builds a City for the Jews." Sent to Auschwitz, |
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Wrestling with the demons of war around her
By Megan Tench
"Deep inside me is a bottomless well. That is where God resides," wrote Esther (Etty) Hillesum sometime between 1941 and 1943, before she was taken to Auschwitz. "Sometimes I can reach it, but more often rocks and grit are covering the well, and then God is buried. Then he has to be excavated again." |
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Cat and Mouse at B2, Belgrade Theatre, Coventry
By Terry Grimley
Staged by independent company Imagineer Productions, Julia Smith’s new show connects a young generation with the central tragedy of the 20th century with her customary theatrical flair. |
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Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project
Few had heard of Irena Sendlerowa in 1999; now, after 245 presentations of Life in a Jar, a website with huge usage and worldwide media attention, Irena is known to the world. How did this beautiful story develop? |
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The Emperor of Atlantis in Terezin
By Jacobo Kaufmann
The Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto was established by the Nazis in October 1941 at the garnison-city and fortress of the same name, about 60 Kms. north of Prague, which the Austrian emperor Joseph II had built towards the end of the 18th. century on Czech territory, in honour of his mother, the empress Maria Theresa. |
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How Rwanda and 9/11 moved me to write for Leonard Bernstein
By Lawrence Joffe
Holocaust survivor Samuel Pisar was nagged by the American composer to write a text to his work, Kaddish. He tells us why he finally agreed to do it. |
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A musical about Jews persecuted by the Nazis is opening soon at the West End
By Bruce Dessau
A few questions: can an unknown new musical with no big stars be a hit? Can an unknown new musical with no big stars be a hit as the West End in London copes with the recession? And, perhaps most importantly, can an unknown new musical – set in the Warsaw ghetto in 1942 – with no big stars be a hit as the West End copes with the recession? |
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Fringe show felt like 'torture'
By Angie Brown
I can't remember the last time I cried, well certainly not from sheer terror.
But, after going to see The Factory, I have joined a list of people, men included, who have been broken down to blubbering, weeping wrecks during the Fringe performance. |
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The Factory brings home the horror of Auschwitz to Edinburgh Festival
By Laura Barnett
In a dank, airless room beneath Edinburgh's Pleasance Courtyard, I am waiting to die. Beside me, a naked woman is whispering her boyfriend's name. A naked man is crying out that he is scared. Another naked man is standing tall, singing the Hatikva, a Jewish prayer. |
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Collaboration and Taking Sides at Minerva Theatre
By Warren Pegg
In 1931, the German composer Richard Strauss formed a crea-tive partnership with a Jewish writer named Stephan Zweig. Two years later, the Nazis came to power and introduced a series of anti-Semitic laws. They soon began to pressurise Strauss into abandoning his Jewish collaborator. These events form the basis of Ronald Harwood's new play Collaboration, which will receive its world premiere at Chichester tonight |
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ARC revives composers banned by Third Reich
By Colin Eatock
A Toronto ensemble tours Europe with a program called Music in Exile, featuring work the Nazis labelled 'degenerate' |
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Lucy DeVito portrays Anne Frank
By Misha Berson
It is the kind of role that can bring big rewards but also perils.
The role: Anne Frank in the "The Diary of Anne Frank," at Intiman Theatre. And the actress at hand, marveling over the pretty design a Seattle barista has swirled into her latte, is the sweetly charming but very focused Lucy DeVito. One requirement of an adult playing Frank, the renowned Dutch Jewish diarist who hid in an Amsterdam attic with her family to evade the Nazis, has already been met by the 25-year-old DeVito. |
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The Seven Beggars, now a one-person show
By Peter Filichia
When Larry Hyman was dancing in three disastrous Broadway musicals, he had no idea that he'd soon be reinventing himself. He shakes his head at the thought. "And after that third one opened to terrible reviews, one dancer said to me, 'Don't worry. There'll be other shows.' And I thought, 'No, there won't.'" |
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This Rose still in bloom: Lally Cadeau tackles role of Jewish refugee
By Richard Ouzounian
Lally Cadeau looks out the window of the room where she's rehearsing and asks a question that's been on her mind a lot lately. "We all have our demons and goblins and profound griefs, but how do we deal with them?" She's not necessarily thinking about her own life, but that of the woman she's playing in Martin Sherman's Rose, which opens Tuesday night at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts' Jane Mallett Theatre as the first production of the new Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company. |
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Donald Byrd's new dance: The Theatre of Needless Talents
By Spider Kedelsky
In recent dances he has addressed 9/11, domestic violence, the costs of war, and the vagaries of artistic fame. In his newest work, “The Theatre of Needless Talents,” Donald Byrd, artistic director of Seattle’s Spectrum Dance Theater, and one of our most fearless choreographers, has taken on the daunting task of addressing the Holocaust. He has succeeded admirably, creating an important new work that is among the finest of his career. |
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The Court - Jesters in Jerusalem
Four concentration camp inmates are chosen to serve as the court jesters of the camp commander, and survive thanks to their theatrical prowess. They are: The Judge Cohen, Adam Van, the juggler, Max Himmelfarb, the astrologer, and Leo Rosenberg the acrobat dwarf. The play takes place during the Holocaust, but the drama harks back in time to pre-war Europe, and forward to the world of the surrvivors in Jerusalem after the war. The relations between the jesters are depicted with agonizing sensitivi |
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Some offended by musical play telling story of Anne Frank
By Shelley Emling
The musicals theater has tried to tackle serious subjects in the past. Look at “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Les Miserables,” and even “Cabaret.” But for some, there may be one story that’s too horrific to tell through song. |
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Swedish play at Cal Rep examines one woman's extraordinary life
By Shirle Gottlieb
If you want to add drama to your Valentine's Day activities, consider "Sabina Spielrein," a collaboration between California Repertory Company and the Swiss company Kulturvermittlung. But you have to act fast. This true-life tragedy will be at the Cal State Long Beach campus for three nights only, tonight through Saturday.
Based on the biographical novel by Karsten Alnaes, then adapted for stage by Liv Nylund, "Sabina" has been performed throughout Europe to rave reviews over the past 1 1/2 yea |
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Combating Racism, Anti-semitism, Bigotry at the new Sandler Center for the Performing Arts [ 20.11.07 ]
On November 20, 2007, 40 students from Montreal, Canada will raise their voices at the new Sandler Center for the Performing Arts to sensitize thousands of their peers to the extremes of prejudice, racism and religious bigotry. |
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The Suit Maker Who Sounded the Alarm About Nazis
By Andy Webster
If you’ve always found puppets only slightly more appealing than, say, clowns, “Fabrik: The Legend of M. Rabinowitz” may well change your mind. This modest yet powerfully affecting production capitalizes on the range of the art form and takes it to impressive heights. |
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Spanish company to produce Anne Frank musical
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, considered the most widely read book on the Holocaust, is being turned into a Spanish musical. Anne Frank, 13, her family and four others hid in a secret area in the Amsterdam office of her father, Otto Frank, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War. |
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Revisiting the Past : Max Ehrlich Theater of Despair
In the autumn of 1932, Max Ehrlich is at the high point of his career: He is one of Germany’s most beloved comics, masters of ceremony and cabaret stars. His creative accomplishments include leading roles in Max Reinhardt productions, the Haller-Revuen, and other important cabaret as well as stage groups. Also to his credit: forty-two movies, ten of which he directed personally; eight records, including chansons, operetta, comedy sketches and character imitations; not forgetting his best selling |
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The Diary of Anne Frank : The story of all European Jewish people
By Mark Collins
The original version of the stage play about Frank, the 13-year-old Jewish girl, and seven others, including her family, who hid from the Nazis for two years in the attic of an Amsterdam building, was written in 1955 and played on Broadway for nearly two years. In essence, it introduced the horrors of the Holocaust into the American consciousness. |
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Not another Holocaust drama in Toronto
By Richard Ouzounian
Anyone harbouring doubts as to whether one-act play wonder Hannah Moscovitch (The Russian Play, Essay) could go the distance can lay them to rest after the triumphant debut of East of Berlin at the Tarragon Theatre last night. |
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How The Nazis Conned The World : Used A Children's Opera To Deceive International Observers
By Bob Simon
How did the Nazis manage to kill six million Jews and keep so much of the world in the dark? Part of the answer can be found when looking at the history of a concentration camp called Theresienstadt, in what was Czechoslovakia. Near the end of the war, the Nazis used the camp to con the world. |
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The Terezin Experience : Defiant Requiem by Verdi at Terezin May 21, 2006
By J. Timothy Sprehe
Defiant Requiem -- Verdi at Terezin is a concert drama written by Murry Sidlin, symphonic conductor and Dean of the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at Catholic University of America |
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Edinburgh Festival: Exquisite ensemble finds hope in the darkest of stories
By Mark Brown
In 1938 and 1939, Jewish communities in Germany and Nazi-occupied central Europe organised a mass evacuation of children known as the Kindertransport. In all, 9,500 children were sent to safety in Britain. Many, if not most, returned home after the war to find that their entire families had been exterminated in the Holocaust. |
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Mauthausen World Premiere at Haifa University's Theatre Department
Mauthausen is an extraordinary narrative in what is known as "Holocaust Literature," first because it was written by a non-Jew – Iakovos Kambanellis, who is considered the greatest dramatist of contemporary Greece - and secondly because it deals with the conflicts of the liberated inmates, the concentration camp survivors. |
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Recovering a Musical Heritage: The Music Suppressed by the Third Reich
By James Conlon
After 1945, those who performed, wrote or taught classical music worked in a culture scarred by omissions. These were not of their making but were part of the legacy of the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. With its racist ideology and systematic suppression—particularly (although not exclusively) of Jewish musicians, artists and writers—the Third Reich silenced two generations of composers and, with them, an entire musical heritage. Many, who perished in concentration camps and others, whos |
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Shulem recalls the liberation from slavery in Egypt ,remembering the Holocaust
By Peter Slymovics
Theatre Company Jerusalem's "SHULEM*, written by Gabriella Lev, is nothing less than a tour-de force. Lev and her co- creators, Serge Ouaknine, Ayellet Stoller, Avishai Fish and Gershon Weisserfirer depict and examine the indelible mark the Shoah has made on our personal and universal consciousness by portraying how the mystifying muddle of memory is transmitted to the next generation and the elusiveness of certainty. The manner in which music, movement, text, visions and languages are interwove |
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Putting God on the stand
By Raphael Kohan
Here’s a theoretical – or perhaps theological – question: If God were called to the witness stand, would He first have to raise His right hand and swear upon the Bible to tell the whole truth? While it’s unlikely you’ll see God popping up as a surprise witness in Judge Judy’s courtroom, the divine will be called into question twice next week during Guila Clara Kessous’ reproduction of Elie Wiesel’s 1979 play, “A Trial of God.” |
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In a Jewish ghetto, a universal tale
By Louise Kennedy
We walk through the doors of the small black-box Studio 210, upstairs from the elegant main stage of the Boston University Theatre on Huntington Avenue, and we find ourselves in a hazy, dark nightclub called the Astoria Cafe. A mournful recorded clarinet plays '30s jazz as the lights go down. As they come up again, live musicians -- on piano, cello, another clarinet -- start to play. We don't know it yet, but the musicians are trapped here, as surely as if they were in prison or in hell. What we |
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Addressing American Complicity
By Gabrielle Birkner
In the opening scene of "The Accomplices," the inaugural play of Bernard Weinraub, a former entertainment reporter for the New York Times, a Holocaust-era Jewish activist named Peter Bergson begs an American immigration officer to stamp his passport. "You have the greatest country in the world. With the greatest President," Bergson, a member of the clandestine Jewish army in British Mandate Palestine, says. "You have the most powerful Jews here in New York." |
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The music that couldn't be silenced
By Noam Ben-Zeev
Anyone who browses through the posters, tickets and invitations to events and exhibitions held in the Terezin (Theresienstadt) Ghetto in 1941 and 1942 could imagine the tremendous cultural richness concentrated there. The papers announce the performance of Puccini's "Tosca" by the ghetto opera house; a soccer game featuring a Czech All-Stars goalie; the musical "Carousel," performed by the Ghetto Swingers and accompanied by Martin Roman, who played with Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet before b |
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Ordinary hero : a dramatic depiction of life in Nazi Germany
By Kathy Shwiff
"The Good German," a dramatic depiction of life in Nazi Germany near the end of World War II, is having its New Jersey premiere at Playwrights Theatre in Madison. The play about a university professor whose wife persuades him to harbor a stranger, who turns out be to Jewish, was written by David Wiltse, a playwright, screenwriter and author. |
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Affecting premiere of 'Sophie's Choice' Rich music, stellar cast highlight story about Holocaust
By Tim Smith
Documentation of the Holocaust has never been in doubt, except, of course, among a worrisome fringe that now includes at least one head of state. Comprehension of the Holocaust is another matter entirely. |
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Timely Address Unknown Launches RTR's Sixth Season
With war raging in the Middle East, heartwrenching violence in Seattle, WA and anti-Semitism center stage in Hollywood, on September 15, Readers Theatre Repertory opens its sixth season with Address Unknown, from a novel by Portlander Katherine Kressman Taylor starring Tobias Andersen and Michael Mendelson, and directed by Mary McDonald-Lewis. |
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Giving a voice to the silenced
By Alex Galbinski
An international operatic theatre project, which gives voice to the words of children whose own voices were silenced in the Holocaust, premiered in London last weekend and will be performed in Nuremberg and Prague this week. The world premiere tour of Hear Our Voice is using the arts to increase awareness of the dangers of prejudice and Holocaust. It gives a voice to children like Hanus Hachenburg, who was 13 when he was deported to Terezín. Whilst in the ghetto, he produced a wealth of extraord |
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The Unlucky Man in The Yellow Cap
At times, the Nazis used this so-called “model ghetto” for propaganda purposes. In June 1944, after a frenzied period of superficial improvements, they turned parts of the camp into a fake town and agreed to let the International Red Cross inspect it. The presence of uniformed Jewish ghetto police was intended to convey the impression that the camp was governed by Jews. |
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Charlotte Salomon : The Least-known Modern Artist
By David Kaufmann
Charlotte Salomon, who was murdered by the SS in 1943, is perhaps the most moving of modern artists. She is also one of the least known, in large part because her work is so hard to present and even harder to place. Her magnum opus, titled "Life? Or Theater?" consists of almost 800 gouaches on paper. Together they constitute a narrative, and nearly all are inscribed with text (some on transparent overlays; others directly on the painting). As if that were not enough, "Life? Or Theater?" is studd |
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Charlotte Salomon's Life? or Theater? : A theatrical vision in picture, word and music.
By Gideon Ofrat
The year was 1959. The exact date is no longer known. In Amsterdam, an old man carried three red boxes through the gate into the Stedelijk Museum. Inside them were many hundreds of identically-sized gouaches, 25 by 32.5 cm. On that day, Dr. Albert Salomon had little reason to imagine that his daughter’s paintings would so excite museum director Willem Sandberg; or that within two years Ad Petersen would curate an exhibition at the museum (or more exactly at the Fodor Museum which was then an Ams |
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Re-imagining Anne Frank
By Richard Bammer
It has been said that Anne Frank, who wrote a famous diary during the Holocaust, is the best-known figure other than Hitler to emerge from World War II. Excerpts from her diary, the musings of a young girl on the brink of womanhood before being sent to the Bergen-Belsen death camp, formed the core of Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett's play that opened in 1955 at the Cort Theatre in New York City. |
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The amazing story of Szabtay BLIACHER actor at The Vilna Ghetto yiddish Theatre
By Celia Male
I had never heard of Szabtay BLIACHER before Thursday April 6th 2006. That is the day I visited Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to deposit my Pages of Testimony [POT].I entered the impressive new building - stopped to look at a few minutes of film on the screen on the backdrop wall and started on the long, long, sombre journey through the displays. |
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The Rat Laughs :A Chamber Opera at The Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv.
By Nava Semel & Ella Milch-Sheriff
The Rat Laughs, is an original opera in Hebrew based on my book, published three years ago to rave reviews. The music was written by Ella Milch-Sheriff. This novel dealing with the horrors of the Holocaust and the influence of this harrowing chapter of human history was highly praised for its courage in employing original and unconventional literary devices. |
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THEATRE IN THE GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS
By Curt Daniel
The whole underlying idea of the theatrical activity of the Concentration Camps was obviously temporary release from the terrible reality of that life. In the case of the political prisoners, whose influence was great, there was the added factor of maintaining morale. The healthiest release was in the form of satire, making fun of certain parts of camp life.
(This article was originally published in Theatre Arts pp. 801-807.November 1941,New York, before the final horrors of the Holocaust had |
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Claudia Stevens finds harmony in hell:An Evening with Madame F
By Rob Martin
“An Evening with Madame F” tells the story of Holocaust survivor Fanja Fenelson, who, as a youth, performed in the women’s orchestra at Auschwitz. Steven’s takes on the persona of the elderly “Madame F,” reflecting sensitively on her experiences in the concentration camp. “Madame F” features an interdisciplinary and experimental approach to theater. It incorporates musical and theatrical elements to help audience members interact with the performance in a uniquely intimate way. |
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Philadelphia Orchestra Performs Music Composed at Terezin
Bringing these disparate voices together sends a difficult but valuable message. Music is born from a social fabric and is affected by it, but only up to a point. If Strauss' gentle Oboe Concerto and Haas' propulsive Study for Strings were played side by side anonymously, we might not easily tell which of them was composed at Terezin. Perhaps the most radical gesture against Hitler's musical policy, "with its calamitous racial annotations, would be this: let the music play on, and print no names |
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Marin Ireland Stars as Sabina in Primary Stages Revival Off-Broadway
By Ernio Hernandez
Sabina follows the titular Russian-Jewish woman who is responsible for bringing psychology legends and rivals Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud together. Sabina Spielrein was at the center of the psychological and sexual triangle explored in the work. Marin Ireland (Far Away) stars in the title role opposite Victor Slezak (The Graduate) as Jung and Peter Strauss (Chinese Friends) as Freud. Adam Stein (Don Juan — Old Globe Theatre) also appears as Binswager. |
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Primo traces a spare tale of atrocity
By Matt Wolf
Stillness doesn't come much more highly charged than it is in ''Primo,'' the actor Antony Sher's distillation of the 1947 memoir, ''If This Is A Man,'' by the thinker and Holocaust writer Primo Levi. Sher also appears in the solo play, making his first appearance in a doorway at the rear of the set from which he steps into the light. But don't be deceived: Richard Wilson's production, at the National Theatre's Cottesloe, is mostly concerned with darkness and with tracing a tale of atrocity that |
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Anti-Nazi satire reborn in play
By Colin Maclean
Located in an old warehouse in northwest Edmonton, two of the city's most engaging and creative theatre directors are pushing their enthusiastic but still unsure performers into uncharted waters. Edmonton Opera's Brian Deedrick and Workshop West's Ron Jenkins have joined their companies to present an evening over which the shade of one of the most terrible stories of the 20th century hovers. The two directors are so enthused about the project that the words spill out of them. The work, called Th |
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Diane Samuels' Kindertransport at Echo Theatre -Dallas Bath House Cultural Center
By Mark Lowry
DALLAS It's tricky to write a play that time-jumps as frequently as Diane Samuels' Kindertransport. It's even trickier for directors, actors and designers. But with Echo Theatre's production of the play, it's an all-around success. The title refers to a rescue mission in which Jewish children were shipped by train from Nazi Germany to Britain by their parents, many of whom were later killed in the Holocaust. |
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Lyric Theater Director Clara McCarthy vists the Holocaust Memorial Museum for its anniversary.
By Joel Eskovitz
Clara McCarthy has found a certain sense of community here among the only people who can truly understand her past. In what is expected to be the last full-scale reunion of an aging generation, 2,000 Holocaust survivors have come this weekend to take part in the 10th anniversary of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. |
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Brian Silberman's play Manifest turns conventional treatment of the Holocaust on its head
By Teresa Annas
Manifest'' is a two-hour theater piece comprising 36 short scenes performed by eight actors who take on more than 30 roles. A three-piece Klezmer band is on stage, playing throughout the show. The setting is a Nazi concentration camp, three weeks before liberation in 1945. Each scene has a title, announced by an actor who then places the title card on an easel, which emphasizes the vaudeville feeling. One is called ``Six Million Variations on the Punchline,'' featuring comics in a camp nightclub |
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Sendak and Kushner Let Humor Get Through
By Mel Gussow
Maurice Sendak and Tony Kushner are friends and collaborators.
Together they created "Brundibar," a picture book based on the opera
performed in the 1940's by children in the Theresienstadt concentration
camp, and they have designed and translated a new version of the opera. And
both have cameo roles in Mike Nichols's mini-series of Mr. Kushner's play
"Angels in America." |
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Golgotha- Holocaust monodrama by Dr. Shmuel Refael at Tzavta Theatre Tel Aviv
By Shmuel Refael
“Golgotha” the monodrama revolves around the character of Albert Salavado, a traditional Jew and Holocaust survivor from Thessalonica, who in the winter of 1943, was sent with his wife and two daughters to the Aushwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Albert has been through the worst and most terrible of all experiences: at Auschwitz-Birkenau, when forced to serve as Zondercommando (those assigned to work at the ovens) he had witnessed the cremation of his own adored wife Rozika. |
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Come to the Thereisenstadt cabaret
By Noam Ben Ze'ev
"Gradually, and partly due to the well-developed Yiddish culture of the Czech Jews, an extensive artistic life began to blossom. There were also cabaret performances in the ghettos of Warsaw, Lodz and Krakow. The paradox is that the Germans did not object to it; it is well-known that the sadistic commander of the Vilna Ghetto, a young fellow who loved jazz, would arrange for jazz sessions with the Jewish prisoners while at the same time having their friends executed. In Terezin, on the other han |
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I Can Cry! a powerful Holocaust memory on European tour.
Miri Ben-Shalom, a daughter of Holocaust survivors, was born and raised in Israel. In 1973 she moved to New York where she married and raised her own family. Only after both her parents passed away, was she able to deal with her own feelings about the Holocaust. Though her parents never shared their memories with her, and she never wanted to hear them, the Holocaust was always part of their life. As a first step Miri traveled to Poland to visit her parents’ former homes. Upon her return she star |
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Jewish Cultural Centres in Nazi Germany
By K. K. Duewell
We want to give bread to Jewish artists and performers, thereby enabling them by physical and spiritual support to work as artists again, we want to give to the masters of the word the opportunity to speak to us. Jewish artists should show their work. For ourselves, however, we are preparing a path that we need now more than ever before: to elevate ourselves by enjoying artistic creations in a time that depresses us so deeply . . . We have no wish to restrict our activities to Jewish art, but th |
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Michael Halperin's " Mela " at Yad Vashem.
MELA, a one-character play by Michael Halperin inspired by the true story of Mela Roslan, will have a concert reading on Tuesday, August 10 in Jerusalem at the 2004 Education Conference sponsored by the Institute for Holocaust Studies in commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of Yad Vashem. Stacie Chaiken will appear as Mela. Ms Chaiken is on the faculty of the University of Southern California School of Theatre, Los Angeles and currently teaches at the University of Tel Aviv. |
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