A tender exploration of a relationship between a father and his son. Through a series of monologues offering advice to his son, a Czechoslovakian refugee of the 1968 Prague Spring inadvertently traces the consequences of this historical event on his life, values, and personal relationships.
Stage reading of a play about the famous Steiner Antiquarian Bookshop in Bratislava, Slovakia. It takes place during the anti-Jewish repressions in the early 1940s in the Nazi Slovak state when the antiquarian bookshop was subject to Aryanization, meaning expropriation.
Songs and sketches from Terezin from the anthology of rediscovered scripts, Performing Captivity, Performing Escape: Cabarets and Plays from the Terezin/Theresienstadt Ghetto, authored by Dr. Lisa Peschel. Full of satire, bitter humor, and hope, these pieces demonstrate how art became a vital survival technique for the inmates.
Stage reading of a play by Anna Saavedra written in honor of Olga Havlova – a Czech dissident, activist, and the first wife of Vaclav Havel. Set in the famous weekend lodge of Vaclav Havel, the play looks back onto Olga’s life - with a sense of irony of history and related absurdities.
A tragicomedy with an unhappy ending that can take place anywhere in the world. It shows the helplessness and loneliness of socially excluded people in cities where nature and public space are slowly disappearing.
A work of both real life and poetry: a story of a woman arrested and deported with her seven children to the Romanian wilderness under the communist regime of the 1950s. Andras Visky, author of Juliet, will introduce the work from Hungary via livestreaming.
A play about young people who live in a fake world of lifestyle magazines and TV shows. Overwhelmed by images of perfect happiness and true love, they can no longer actually recognize perfect happiness and true love.
Excerpts from four plays published in the anthology Exile Is My Home will be read on stage, followed by a discussion with the author, Domnica Radulescu. Among them will be the titular play, a sci-fi immigrant fairytale brilliantly combining absurdist comedy, irony, and suspense.
Kicking Down the Quilt deals with the spiritual condition of the contemporary, or hyper-contemporary —a society of today. The protagonists of this story have no specific gender, race, names, or age. They are democratically elected representatives of intimacy.
In a tiny rural town somewhere in South Africa, a mixed couple—Ruth is white and Samson is black—pitch their tent alongside the local gas station and store in the middle of the night. Their appearance rocks the town and splits it down the middle, with fear, racism, hatred, and violence at odds with kindness and healing.
Two winners of the Best Mini-Drama Student Contest, young aspiring playwrights, capture the devastating effects of our inability to communicate with one another. Both one-act plays offer fresh perspectives on alienation underscored by scathing commentary on systems designed to keep people compliant.
Detroit. The History of a Hand centers on the fulfillment and downfall of the American Dream. The play is based on Diego Rivera’s mural at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning play Cost of Living examines two separate relationships that develop from places of mutual need. The first is between John, a wealthy and handsome graduate student with cerebral palsy, and his caregiver, the overworked, under-qualified and nearly homeless Jess. The second relationship includes the quadriplegic Ani and her unemployed ex-husband, Eddie.
What does it mean to leave everything behind for a better future? In a desperate search for a new life, the poorest fall prey to unscrupulous exploitation. The American Emperor centers on the migration of Jews from the poorest region of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Galicia, during the late 19th century. It follows the story of impoverished siblings Mendel and Rifka Beck as the promise of a better life in America looms large.
A present-day mining town in Romanian Transylvania has experienced mass unemployment due to its mine closure. Deep poverty and despondency drive many men into alcoholism and suicide. Yet, life stubbornly creeps up. Is there somebody able to mend the fate of a community? The downtrodden, unemployed miner Ivan Vajda takes care of his ill father. Alongside his half-sister, Ilonka, his friend and his neighbors, Ivan copes in a world vastly different from what he had envisioned.
