Featured image: Zuzana Kronerova, Hot Summer '68, GUnaGU Theatre, photograph by Ctibor Bachraty
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 (DIA). Jolanta Janiczak wrote the script after she visited Detroit and witnessed the ruins of the once powerful city. Rivera painted an epic series of 27 intricate panels embedded into walls of the DIA courtyard. Entering this space offers visitors a chance to glimpse into the robust industrial era that Rivera transposed in 1933, when Detroit still stood as an icon of a modern city.
Detroit. The History of a Hand (Poland). Playwright: Jolanta Janiczak. Director: Vernice Miller. Translated by: Beata Marczynska-Fedorowicz. Running time: 90 min.
Detroit. The History of a Hand, directed by Wiktor Rubin, premiered at the Polish Theater in Bydgoszcz in 2014.
The reading is followed by Q&A. It is free and open to the public. Suggested donation $10. Today, we ask you to help us support our Best Mini-Drama Student Contest program by purchasing a printed copy of one of the winning plays. You will contribute to the continuation of life-changing opportunities for creative talents. > Buy student plays
The event will be prerecorded and available online on the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation YouTube channel from Sunday, April 25, 1:00 p.m. RSVP is required to receive the Zoom link for the talk with the cast. RSVP online through Eventbrite.
JOLANTA JANICZAK is graduate of psychology at the Jagiellonian University and Lart Studio acting, playwright. She is an author of several plays. Since 2008, he has been working as a playwright with Wiktor Rubin, co-creating the original theater language. Their joint shows are present at all important festivals in Poland and abroad. At the 4th International Divine Comedy Festival in Krakow (2011), she received a distinction for the drama Joanna Szalona: Krolowa, which was also in the finals of the Gdynia Drama Award 2012. In 2013, her text Caryca Katarzyna was included in the finals of the Gdynia Drama Award. Winner of the Paszport Polityki 2013 and the scholarship program of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage "Young Poland" 2014, winner of the Gdynia Drama Award in 2016 for the drama Gorgonowa Case, and many awards and distinctions at national and international theater festivals. Her plays have been published many times in Poland and abroad, translated into Russian, German, Georgian, Portuguese, and Ukrainian, among others.
Vernice Miller is a performer, director, producer, activist. Her stage work includes directing Three Women (Break the Silence) by anthropologist Dr. Omotayo Jolaosho at the Market Theater Laboratory in Johannesburg before touring South Africa. In Slovenia and Poland, she performed and co-directed Nomansland for Seth Baumrin’s Subpoetics International. Miller directed the inaugural production of Bee Trapped Inside the Window by Saviana Stanescu, commissioned by Civic Ensemble in Ithaca, NY. For network television, she shadowed director Felix Alcala on the CBS series Madam Secretary throughout filming of season 6 episode 9 “Carpe Diem.” Miller has collaborated with jazz musician Wynton Marsalis on Eatonville, a Zora Neal Hurston project, and spent ten years working internationally with HBO comedienne Hazelle Goodman. She is currently an adjunct lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in NYC. In 1995 with Joann Maria Yarrow, they co-founded A Laboratory for Actor Training Experimental Theatre Company, to evolve work they began with Roberta Carreri at Eugenio Barba's Odin Teatre in Denmark. Miller is the recipient of the London New Play Festival's Best Actress Award for her solo performance of Medea: Now. Among others, she has trained with Ryszard Cieslak, Jacques Chwat, and Jerzy Grotowski of the Polish Laboratory Theater. Ms. Miller has been most influenced by her work with Roberta Carreri of the Odin Teatre, Denmark, and with Maggie Flannigan in New York City. (www.ALATetc.org)
BRIAN JENNINGS is a Connecticut based actor, director and teacher. As a member of Hartbeat Ensemble, he has developed roles in Flipside, Comply, and most recently, Sleepover Stories. He directed multiple productions of Ebeneeza: A Hartford Holiday Carol and worked with musician Samite Mulondo to develop his autobiographical solo show, Resilience. He directed the workshops and debut production of Talvin Wilks’ Jimmy and Lorraine: A Musing, as well as subsequent productions at the Ko Festival and Pillsbury House in Minneapolis. His adaptation, RAVE: The Bacchae of Euripides - Remixed was performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He performed on multiple tours with the National Theater of the Deaf as a voicing actor and playwright. He has played the roles of Oberon, Malvolio and Macbeth as part of Artfarm’s Shakespeare in the Grove. He is the Head of the Theater Department at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, and serves on the faculty of the Hartt School’s Actor Training. He has worked as a teaching artist in Cape Verde and South Africa. He holds degrees from Princeton University and the National Theater Conservatory. He lives in Bolton, CT with his wife, Eileen.
RAYMOND JOHANNES KRAFT is a New York City based actor, writer and theater maker. He is a John Jay College of Criminal Justice Alumni where he graduated with Honors, Cum Laude. It was his time there where he found his passion for the arts. His past credits include; Ray Donovan (Nurse), Madame Secretary (Axe Thrower) Jitney (Doub), Execution of Saint Luke (Luke Klawster), The New York Renaissance Faire (Various), Mischief Night (Ford), The Bullet (Gangster) & KISS (Loren).
ERIN LOCKETT is originally from Oakland, CA and is currently based in New Jersey. She is a recent graduate from Ithaca College’s Acting program and has recently appeared in The Hangar Theater’s reading of The Inferior Sex as Gwen and in HeartBeat Ensemble's production of Bee Trapped Inside the Window as Mia.
ANNA PODOLAK received her bachelor’s degree in Theatre Performance from Fordham University. She has performed on many stages in the US and Europe. She has appeared in various films and TV productions. She also does voice-overs and has recorded numerous commercials and industrials. Her latest credits include a new Amazon series “The Hunters”. www.annapodolak.com
KELVIN TEJADA is a soon-to-be graduate of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He majors in Sociology, and minors in Theatre Arts. In 2018 the AKD Honor Society, and Sociology Department of John Jay bestowed upon him 2 awards for his academic rigor, administrative work, and professional experience in social research. He hopes to do more work in theater, and film after graduation.
JOANN YARROW is a professional director and producer with over 30 years of experience. She is the Director of Community Engagement and Education at Syracuse Stage, a coach with the Lau Lapides Company, and Executive Director of Live Animation Studios and Distinctive Voices, LLC. Joann was the Artistic Director of Teatro Prometeo, where she directed and produced over 80 productions in Spanish, translated, adapted and commissioned new works that have toured nationally and internationally, as well as hosted annual international theatre festivals in multilingual communities. She has trained with Double Edge Theatre, Odin Teatret, co-founded A Laboratory for Actor Training with Vernice Miller, and worked with Hal Prince on several Broadway productions. Joann is a member of the Latinx Theater Commons and the Lincoln Center’s Director’s Lab West in Los Angeles, where she has participated for the last 20 years. Joann is a featured director in the book “The art and practice of directing in Latin America: Central America and United States.” Her adaptation and translation of Oliver Mayer’s play, Blade to the Heat (Filo al fuego) is published in the Tramoya Anthology, 2014, and she is currently working on contributing to a new book for Yale University on Latinx Theatre Training to be published by Rutledge in 2021.
This reading is produced by Tomek Smolarski and supported by the Polish Cultural Institute New York and Teatr Polski in Bydgoszcz.
ABOUT THE 2021 SPRING WEEKEND: CONCERNING HUMAN IDENTITY
The 2021 Spring Weekend: Concerning Human Identity is organized by the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation (VHLF) and Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA) in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York and Consulate General of Slovakia in New York. Spring Weekend is part of the annual Rehearsal for Truth Theater Festival honoring the playwright and human rights activist Vaclav Havel. It showcases contemporary European plays through stage readings performed and directed by New York City–based actors and directors.
The 2021 program has been conceived in consultation with Attila Szabo, Deputy Director, Hungarian Theatre Museum and Institute; Vladislava Fekete, Director, Theatre Institute in Bratislava; Zuzana Ulicianska, Chair of the Slovak Center – International Association of Theatre Critics; Tomek Smolarski, Performing Arts Programming, Polish Cultural Institute New York; and Martina Peckova-Cerna, Head of International Cooperation Department, Arts and Theatre Institute in Prague.
The program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and Council Member Ben Kallos. Promotion partners include the Czech Center New York, GOH Productions/Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre, and PACE.V4 (Performing Arts Central Europe).