CABARET IN CAPTIVITY
Conceived by Edward Einhorn
Developed and directed by Edward Einhorn and Jenny Lee Mitchell
This year’s presentation will be at
Torn Page Salon, 435 W. 22nd Street
Saturday, April 26 at 7pm
Sunday, April 27 at 3pm
$25 recommended donation
Songs and sketches written in Terezín/Theresienstadt, from Lisa Peschel's anthology Performing Captivity, Performing Escape and other sources.
Full of satire, bitter humor, and hope, these pieces demonstrate how art became a vital survival technique for the inmates
Original work written by Armin Berg, Robert Dauber, Sergei Dreznin, Grigory Flidlider, Hans Hofer, Vitezslav “Pidla” Horpatzky, Jaroslav Jezek, Gideon Klein, Frantisek Kowanitz, Josef Lustig, Felix Porges, Frida Rosenthal, Erwin Schulhoff, Leo Strauss, Myra Strauss-Gruhenberg, Karel Svenk, Victor Ullmann, and Ilse Weber
With: Craig Anderson, Mel DeLancey, Seth Gilman, Jenny Lee Mitchell, and Katarina Vizina
Musical direction and piano accompaniment: Maria Dessena
Violin: Lara Lewison
Part of Remembrance Readings program of National Jewish Theater Foundation—Holocaust Theater International Initiative
Running time: 60 minutes
Terezin was the final stop for more than 30,000 Central and Western European Jews, most from Czechoslovakia, Austria and Germany who perished within its walls. For thousands more it was only a way station on the journey to the slave-labor and death camps. Yet it was also a place where many prisoners became intensely aware of the meaning and power or art. During those years in Terezin/Theresienstadt, a vigorous cultural life emerged. Not all prisoners participated in the cultural life and only a small fraction of the works produced there has survived.
The show has been performed at Pangea, The Center for Jewish History, The Bohemian National Hall, York Theatre, Triad Theatre, Torn Page, New Yiddish Rep, the Czech Embassy in Washington, DC, and The William Goodenough House in London, England.
Performers in previous iterations have been: Lynn Berg, Tiffany Lane, Jeremy Lawrence, Eric Oleson, Patrick Pizzolorusso, Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld, Johnna Wu, and Barbara Maier Gustern.