Songs and sketches from Terezin from the anthology of rediscovered scripts, Performing Captivity, Performing Escape: Cabarets and Plays from the Terezin/Theresienstadt Ghetto, published in 2014 (Czech- and German-language edition 2008) 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. Performed in English, Czech, German, and Hebrew.
This performance commemorates Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is part of the Remembrance Readings program of National Jewish Theater Foundation—Holocaust Theater International Initiative.
Conceived by: Edward Einhorn. Developed and directed by: Edward Einhorn and Jenny Lee Mitchell. Performed by: Craig Anderson, Seth Gilman, Jenny Lee Mitchell, Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld, Katarina Vizina. Musical direction and piano accompaniment: Maria Dessena. Violin: Tiffaney Lane.
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, Leo Strauss, Myra Strauss-Gruhenberg, Karel Svenk, Victor Ullmann, and Ilse Weber.
The performance will be followed by a discussion with Ukranian performer Anna Zinenko about performing during times of war and hardship.
Free and open to the public. Suggested donation $25. RSVP is required.
About
Edward Einhorn is a playwright, director, translator, librettist, and novelist. Recent work includes The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein (The Jermyn Street Theatre, London), Alma Baya (A.R.T./New York), Doctors Jane and Alexander (HERE), The Resistible Rise of J. R. Brinkley (Apple podcasts), City of Glass (The New Ohio), The Pig, or Václav Havel's Hunt for a Pig (3 Legged Dog), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (3 Legged Dog and Sacred Fools, Los Angeles). Directed the filmed version of The Last Cyclist, to be shown on WNET television. His graphic novel version of Iphigenia in Aulis will be released by Image Comic in May.
Jenny Lee Mitchell was born in NYC and after studying at the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU, she spent 20 years performing throughout Europe in musical theater. There she also studied clown with David Shiner. Europe/Regional: Dance of the Vampires, Jekyll and Hyde, Falsettos, Wonderland, Hair, Cabaret, Orpheus in the Underworld. Off Bway: Outside Inn at 59East59, Sleep No More. NY Theater: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at the Gallery Players, Much Ado About Nothing directed by The Ridiculous Theater’s Everett Quinton, Iphigenia in Aulis, dir: Edward Einhorn, and When Clowns Play Hamlet, dir: Ozie Rodriguez both at LaMama, Vaclav Havel’s Hunt for a Pig, dir: Edward Einhorn, at 3 Legged Dog. Chuck Mee’s Fire Island. Jenny conceived and produced her solo show entitled Love Und Greed, featuring political/protest songs from Weimar Germany with some of her own translations. Love und Greed was called "Smart and theater savvy" by the NYTimes. Jenny’s alter ego is Muffy Styler, a jazz singer and variety show/burlesque emcee at The Slipper Room and jazz singer at Bathtub Gin Speakeasy and Shearwater Classic Schooner vintage sails. Jenny studied voice with Barbara Maier Gustern. She dedicates this performance to her.
Performers
Craig Anderson is pleased to be joining Untitled Theater Company No. 61 for its tenth year of Cabaret in Captivity. He has performed in the show since its inaugural production. Recent work with Edward Einhorn includes Doctors Jane and Alexander, The Resistible Rise of J.R. Brinkley, The Iron Heel, and the stage and screen versions of The Last Cyclist, recently featured on PBS THIRTEEN’s Theater Close-Up. He also played Stephano in Dysfunctional Theater’s onsite production of The Tempest on Governors Island, Judge Brack in Love Creek’s production of Hedda Gabler, and Edward Hopper in a new one-act play, From the Williamsburg Bridge, at the Chain Theatre.
Seth Gilman is active in new and early music. He is proud to have premiered many works by living composers, both established and emerging. Recent performances have included concerts with Opera on Tap New Brew, and premieres of Natalie Elizabeth Weiss's, Borderland, of Larry Lipkis's, Simonetta, with the American Chamber Opera Company, and of chamber works by Zhihua Hu and Masatora Goya at Random Access Music's Queens New Music Festival. In addition to performing, Seth has curated for New Brew and Spectrum, the latter in which ensembles explored performance of new music on historical instruments, and early music according to principles of contemporary performance practice.
Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld is an actor best known for voicing Nurse Joy, Bonnie & Sophocles on Pokémon, Strawberry Shortcake on Strawberry Shortcake; Polly Pocket on Polly Pocket; Rio Kastle, Queen, Grace & Gloria Tyler on Yu-Gi-Oh!; LunaMaria Hawke in Gundam Seed Destiny; Hansel in Secret Magic Control Agency; Joy LeFrog on Regal Academy; and Musa on Winx Club. She can also be seen performing theatre in New York City (most recently in the critically-acclaimed Once Upon A Mattress), and on-screen in her web series Crumbly Kitchen.
Katarina Vizina, native of Bratislava, Slovakia, holds an MA in Musical Theater from the Czech Republic and an MFA in Acting from Brooklyn College where she received the Fellowship for Outstanding Contribution to Theater. Katarina has been part of the traditional as well as the avant-garde New York theater scene since 2002. She has performed in plays, musicals, one woman shows, cabarets, sketch comedy, radio shows, movies, and countless voiceover spots. She sings and performs in English, Slovak, Czech, German, and Russian (you can talk her into Yiddish). When not performing, Katarina is the general to her three handsome sons, personal stylist to her lovely little princess and a tsarina to their father.
Multi-instrumentalist Maria Dessena has served as music director for various theater productions, rock ensembles and cabaret shows, with a specialization in European cabaret. She frequently collaborates with New York theater groups Untitled Theater Company #61 (Velvet Oratorio; Cabaret in Captivity; The Pig; Money Lab) and The Brick Theater (Mass; Ich Liebe Jesus; Lord Oxford Presents the American Revolution) and has performed music at a variety of NYC venues including Pangea, House of Yes, Merkin Concert Hall, The Greenspace at WNYC, Highline Ballroom and le Poisson Rouge. By day, Maria composes original scores and sound design at High 5 Games.
Tiffaney Lane is a New York City based musician, actor and writer. Classically trained at the Juilliard School and the Yale School of Music, she has performed in a wide variety of genres as a soloist and ensemble player throughout the US, Europe and Asia.
Anna Zinenko has years of experience as a performer and dancer since childhood in a wide variety of professional venues. She understands firsthand how effective the fluency of body language can be as a communication tool. As a student of languages and literatures at Kyiv National University of Taras Shevchenko, Anna dove deep into the practice of poetry. Her time in New York has further deepened her focus on different forms of communication as an essential skill for understanding cultural diversity. While continuing her studies in Communications at Baruch College and abroad in Madrid, Anna was inspired to found the nonprofit Locus29, a platform that unites people of diverse languages and cultural backgrounds through the medium of film and theatre. She is also involved in the New York theater scene both as a producer and as an actor.
The program is organized by the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation, with support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association.
The event is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. The program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.