Charged with high treason, Czech resistance leader Milada Horáková stands trial against the communist regime in one of the largest sham trials in Eastern Europe. An absurdist interpretation of the era’s ruthless propaganda machine, Show Trial satirizes Stalinist sham trials using real court transcripts translated into English for the first time. Show Trial exposes the farcical nature of authoritarian justice, proving that whoever controls history, creates it.
By Laura Zlatos
Directed by Tom Costello
Laura Zlatos (playwright) is a Slovak-American playwright and librettist. Her plays include The Blue Whale (Shawnee Playhouse; 2024 S.O.P.S. Dramatic Play Winner; 2022 Todd McNerney Playwriting Award; 2021 Marsha A. Croyle Award), The Even More Lamentable Tragedy of Lavinia (2020 Women are Funny Prize), Happily After Ever (59E59 Theaters; Edinburgh Fringe Festival; Bloomington Playwrights Project; 2017 Woodward/Newman Drama Award, The Advocate’s “Top 10 NY Theater of 2016,” Honorable Mention), Three Hours (HERE Arts Center), and the musical A Problem with the Pattersons (2023 CITSTS Emerging Writers Residency, Finalist; 2020 O’Neill Music Theatre Conference, Semifinalist – music/lyrics by Andre Catrini). Laura’s musical Reincarnation Blues will receive a workshop in April 2025 at the Other Palace in London, directed by Olivier-nominated Amy Hodge (music/lyrics by Coyle Girelli and Ben Thornewill). Laura was a playwriting fellow with Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company and a resident playwright with the Exquisite Corpse Company. She has developed work at the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat and the Orchard Project and was a finalist for the Princess Grace Award. MFA: Playwriting, Columbia University; MA: Performance Studies, NYU.
Tom Costello (director) was the Associate Director for the 2022 Broadway revival of American Buffalo. He has been a Drama League Directing Fellow at the Hangar (Olivia Dufault’s The Messenger and Christopher Parks' Aesop's Fables), an Associate Artist at the Flea Theater (NYT Critic’s Pick Smoke by Kim Davies), and is a member of Ensemble Studio Theater. Most recently, he directed and co-wrote Sarina Freda’s no no no please no god no, nevermind i’m fine, which went to the Edinburgh Fringe and HERE Arts Center in NYC. He is Artistic Director for Atlantic Acting School, where he also serves as a faculty member, and recently co-directed the Atlantic for Kids production of This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing by Finegan Kruckemeyer. Co-founder of The Debt Gala. He was an exchange student in Slovakia, attended the film school FAMU in Prague and holds a Slovak fluency certificate.
ABOUT THE 2025 REHEARSAL FOR TRUTH INTERNATIONAL THEATER FESTIVAL
Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival, honoring Václav Havel, is a showcase of contemporary European theater organized each year in New York City. Conceived in 2017 as a shared endeavor of the Václav Havel Center (VHC) and Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA), the festival honors the legacy of Czech playwright, dissident and political thinker Vaclav Havel.
Each edition of Rehearsal for Truth Theater Festival addresses current sociopolitical trends in Central and Eastern Europe, offering New York audiences a unique opportunity to witness the region’s theatrical zeitgeist.
The program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. The festival 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.