Original Play By: Karel Švenk
Written and Co-Produced By: Naomi Patz
Directed By: Edward Einhorn
Original Score By: Stephen Feigenbaum
Director of Photography: Alexander Jorgensen
Performed In English
The Last Cyclist, an award-winning film by Naomi Patz and directed by Edward Einhorn, is based on a dark comedy written in the Terezín Ghetto in 1944 by camp inmate Karel Švenk but banned on the night of its dress rehearsal for fear of SS reprisals. The play the actors are rehearsing in the film pits bike riders (Jews) against lunatics (Nazis), as did the absurdist original – a silly story with a deeply serious message. The power of The Last Cyclist allows audiences to bear witness, as if we too are attending that fateful dress rehearsal in the concentration camp, so while we are amused and intrigued, we are also terrified of the murderous immorality of the lunatics – not only in that time, but also in ours.
Cast: Craig Anderson, Lynn Berg, Kirsten Hopkins, Timur Kocak, Ambrose Martos, Jenny Lee Mitchell, Eric Emil Oleson, Patrick Pizzolorusso, Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld, Clay Westman, Judy Blazer, Marina Dessena
Set and Props: Tom Lee; Costume: Ramona Ponce; Lighting: Jeffrey Nash; Sound: Richard Baldomero; Sound Editing: Daryl Bornstein; Hair and Makeup: Melissa Roth; Assistant Director: Amile Wilson; Line Producer: Jenny Lee Mitchell; Stage Manager: Blake Kile; Marketing and Media: Beck Lee; Graphic Design: Lianne Ritchie; Opening and Closing Credits and Animation: Tom Lee; Artwork Opening Title Sequence and Cyclist Logo: Mark Podwal; Music Commissioned by the Terezin Music Foundation, Director: Mark Ludwig
Followed by 20 minute documentary on the film and history of Karel Švenk.
Part of Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival honoring Václav Havel, produced by the Václav Havel Center and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association.
About
Naomi Patz is the playwright and coproducer, with her husband, Rabbi Norman Patz, of The Last Cyclist, the film version of her 2009 play based on a cabaret of the same name originally written in Terezín in 1944. Over the past few years, The Last Cyclist has been screened by film festivals across the US, in Prague, and in Israel. The Chain Festival in New York City gave Patz its “Signature Award for Original Ideas” and awarded the cast “Best Ensemble Performance.” The 2020 Melech Film Festival in Israel also awarded the film “Best Cast Performance” with the following description, “An incredible ensemble performance – this cast made us laugh, cry and everything in between!” The film was screened by the Czech Embassy in Washington, D.C. for International Holocaust Memorial Day in 2022.
Patz’s original play version of The Last Cyclist has been performed since 2009 around the United States, in England and in Mexico City. In May 2023 it was mounted at the Brundibar Festival in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the U.K. An excerpted version of the play, performed by high school students in Przmyzl, won first prize in a national competition in Poland last year. Her play has been on the syllabus of courses in genocide and the performing arts at four universities in the U.S.
The Last Cyclist in Context, a short documentary giving the backstory of the film is being readied for distribution.
Naomi has written seven books as well as numerous essays on Jewish themes, including monographs on two pre-World War II Czech Jewish communities (Dvür Králové and Jihlava). In 2021, she served as lead editor of a book of essays entitled Married to the Rabbi.
Her most recent publications are a chapter called “Terezín and ‘The Last Cyclist,’” in an online textbook called Remembrance, Respect and Resilience, published by Penn State University, and an essay on “The Last Cyclist: Recovered, Reconstructed and Reimagined,” in Women, Theater, and the Holocaust Resource Handbook, 5th edition, a project of Remember the Women Institute, both in 2023.
Naomi holds a BA in English literature from Barnard College, an MA in English from Old Dominion University and an MA from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, which awarded her an honorary doctorate in Jewish Religious Education in 2004. She and Rabbi Patz are the proud parents of two daughters and four granddaughters.
Norman Patz, co-producer of The Last Cyclist, is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Sholom of West Essex in Cedar Grove, NJ,(1969-2006), and Temple Beth Shalom of Puerto Rico in San Juan, PR, (2007-2023). He is President Emeritus of the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews, Inc. (2000-2013), and past National Chair of the Rabbinic Cabinet of the United Jewish Appeal. While he has been extensively involved in aspects of fundraising in his professional and volunteer positions, this is his maiden voyage as a film producer. The Last Cyclist is the result of his and Naomi’s intensive engagement with the Czech Jewish experience.
Edward Einhorn is a playwright, director, translator, librettist, theater journalist, and novelist. He is the Artistic Director of both Untitled Theater Company No.61 and the Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival. In 2006, he curated the Václav Havel Festival, which included all of Havel’s work, at multiple theaters throughout New York City, with Havel in attendance. Since then some of his work includes Cabaret in Captivity, songs and sketches from Terezin, written during the Holocaust performed at multiple venues in New York, London, ans Washington DC; The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, which received at Critics Pick from The New York Times chief reviewer Jesse Green, performed in at HERE in New York and Off-West End at The Jermyn Street Theatre in London; The Pig, or Václav Havel’s Hunt for a Pig, adapted from the work by Václav Havel and Vladimír Morávek, which played at The New Ohio and 3LD Theatres in New York and received a New York Times and Village Voice Critics Pick; The Velvet Oratorio, an opera-theater production following Havel’s character Vaněk through the Velvet Revolution, which played at Lincoln Center’s Walter Bruno Theatre and Bohemian National Hall; and directing The Last Cyclist, a play by Karel Švenk written in Terezin, which performed at La MaMa and was also shown on PBS affiliate WNET as part of their Theater Close Up series.
Cast
Craig Anderson is excited to be a part of bringing Any Spot with Marks Left Behind to the stage. He is a longtime actor with Untitled Theater company No. 61 whose work with director Edward Einhorn includes The Shylock and the Shakespearians, Doctors Jane and Alexander, The Resistible Rise of J.R. Brinkley, The Iron Heel, The Velvet Oratorio, and the stage and screen versions of The Last Cyclist. His other New York credits include Stephano in Dysfunctional Theater’s onsite production of The Tempest on Governors Island and Judge Brack in Love Creek’s production of Hedda Gabler.
Lynn Berg (Ota, Opportunist, Big Shot, Voice Over) is a St. Louis based actor and artist who was active in New York’s Indy theatre scene for twenty years. He is co-creator of the internationally acclaimed, NYIT Award-winning Bouffon Glass Menajoree. Lynn’s film work includes “The Clean Up,” (Best Short, Provincetown International Film Fest) “Plant” (Nashville Film Fest), “At the End of the Cul-de-sac” and “Captain Hagen’s Bed and Breakfast” (Amazon).
Judy Blazer (Older Jana Šedová voice over) has had an extensive career in leading roles on Broadway, at the New York City Opera, on television, and in concert with all the major Symphony Orchestras in the United States. She performed with Michael Tilson Thomas for 7 years in his Piece "The Thomashefskys", playing his grandmother and star of the Yiddish Theater, Besse Thomashefsky. She now resides in Lancashire, England.
Kirsten Hopkins (Zuzana, Lunatic 2) is a New York City-based actor. She mostly does theater, though you may see her pop up now and then as some quirky character in an independent film or local commercial! Stage credits include: The Last Cyclist by Naomi Patz, Seussical (Gertrude McFuzz), Leap of Faith (Marla), Light Up the Sky (Irene), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hermia), The Pirates of Penzance, Red Ranger Came Calling, This Land: Woody Guthrie, and An Actor’s Carol. Kirsten has developed two plays of her own with The PlayGround Experiment (Florence the Firefly and Honeybees), which you can read on NewPlayExchange.org. Florence the Firefly is in development to become a short animated film/audio drama. More info about Kirsten at www.kirstenhopkins.com.
Timur Kocak (Tomáš, Head Physician, Lunatic 3, Other Cyclist, Voice Over) trained at the Poor School in London. He has most recently appeared in Shotspeare and in a one-man stage adaptation of A Christmas Carol. New York and regional credits include: The Last Cyclist, Waiting For Godot, Coriolanus (title role), Logomaniacs, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet (title role), As You Like It, The Three Musketeers, King John, Romeo and Juliet, and Henry V. UK: Hot Stuff (West End), Romeo and Juliet (UK Tour), The Exhibitionists (Edinburgh Festival and European tour), Airbase and 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (RSC Fringe), Forsaking All Others, As You Like It and Henry V. Film: most recently, The Last Cyclist. Television: Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order Organized Crime, The Blacklist, and as a villain on NBC's Chuck. timurkocak.com
Ambrose Martos (Leo, Lunatic 1) is an actor, clown, and host. He recently toured Florida with the sexy circus Mr. Swindle’s Traveling Peculiarium and was the main comedic performer in Circus Flora’s show The Case of the Innkeeper’s Cask. Other highlights include: Cirque du Soleil’s Quidam and Joya, Slava’s Snowshow, the Umbilical Brothers’ Speedmouse and Cirque Musica. He appeared in the film Across the Universe, and in the streaming series Gotham and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. He hosts and performs at the Slipper Room and House of Yes in New York as his alter-ego, Manchego, and starred in the groundbreaking La Soirée's award-winning run. He graduated from the Ringling Bros. Clown College and works as a hospital clown with Healthy Humor’s Red Nose Docs. ambrosemartos.com
Jenny Lee Mitchell (Elena, Ma’am, Mrs. Maničkova) was born in New York City and studied at the Experimental Theater Wing at NYU. She spent many years performing in musical theater all across Europe. Credits include: 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 and When Clowns Play Hamlet at LaMama, Chuck Mee’s Fire Island and Vaclav Havel’s Hunt for a Pig at 3 Legged Dog, Sleeping Beauty and Dick Rivington with the Panto Project at Abrons Arts. Europe/Regional: Dance of the Vampires, Jekyll and Hyde, Falsettos, Hair, Wonderland and The Rocky Horror Show. Jenny wrote and produced the German/English solo show Love Und Greed with features political songs of the Weimar Republic 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. Jenny studied voice with Barbara Maier Gustern and was nominated for a MAC award. (Manhattan Association of Cabarets)
Eric E. Oleson (Jiri/Hitler/Rat) is an actor and director who has appeared on the series Damages. He performed in director Edward Einhorn's first staging of The Last Cyclist, having performed for his theater company, UTC#61, since 2009. Productions for UTC#61 include Scenes from a Misunderstanding, Rudolf II, The Velvet Oratorio, The Lathe of Heaven, Iphigenia in Aulis, and, most recently, The Shylock and the Shakespeareans. In NYC, he has also worked with the Guerrilla Shakespeare Project (Tragedy of Arthur), Hunger & Thirst Collective (Lathem Prince), and Metropolitan Playhouse (The Poor of New York). Regionally, he has acted at Cortland Rep (Spider's Web and Gross Indecency), Cider Mill Playhouse (Bach in Leipzig), Sacred Fools (The Visit), Arena Stage (Our Town), and the Shakespeare Theatre in D.C. (Coriolanus). He is a member of SAG-AFTRA. www.olesoneric.com
Patrick Pizzolorusso (Karel Švenk, Bořivoj Abeles) is a writer, voice actor, and classically trained stage actor who has worked in every corner of Manhattan. From under St. Marks to a Parking Lot in the lower east side. He is currently in Los Angeles where he just finished filming a sci-fi short he wrote and produced. It's currently in the editing phase and will be headed to the festival circuit. He plays the titular character in the award-winning The Last Cyclist. LA: Pageant Play and All In The Timing (Bucket List Theatre) NY: Off-Broadway, Wait Until Dark, Talk Radio, and It's A Wonderful Life (Chain Theatre); The Last Cyclist (West End Theatre); Romeo And Juliet and Macbeth (American Globe/John Basil); Madame Tellier's Establishment (Theater for the New City), Welcome to Eternity (Fringe 2011), The Award winning Fringe show Getting Even with Shakespeare (Player’s Theater). He has also lent his voice to several pieces for the award-winning audio drama production company, Aural Stage/Uber Duo. @pactorpizz www.patrickpizzolorusso.com
Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld (Jana Šedova, Mánička, Red) is an actor best known for voicing Strawberry Shortcake, Polly Pocket, and various characters on Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Gundam, and Winx Club. She can also be seen performing theatre in New York City (most recently in Cabaret In Captivity, featuring songs and sketches written in Terezin), and on-screen in her web series Crumbly Kitchen. More info: alysonleighrosenfeld.com, Instagram/TikTok: @alysonleighrosenfeld.
Clay Westman (Pavel, violinist, Rich, Mr. Hippo) is a stage and voiceover actor who feels honored to have had the chance to bring life to the character of Pavel, the work of Karel Švenk, and the passion of the Jews of Terezin. Clay is a graduate of Muhlenberg College and continues to share underrepresented stories through his work on the shadow puppet production Song of the North, created by Hamid Rahmanian.
Creatives and Crew
Stephen Feigenbaum is a composer, songwriter, and singer who works in a variety of disciplines. Many of his projects are driven by a passion for turning mainstream audiences into fans of classical music.
As a singer, Stephen has been featured by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and profiled in The New Yorker and Variety and has toured nationally and internationally opening for artists including 070 Shake and Polyphia. He has also collaborated on releases with artists including John Legend, Lil Nas X, Travis Scott, Shawn Mendes, Selena Gomez and Teyana Taylor. Stephen's Off-Broadway folk-rock musical “Independents” was named a New York Times Critic's Pick and one of the Huffington Post's ten best plays of 2012. Stephen also did music preparation for the score to the Oscar-winning movie The Revenant and worked extensively as a composer on Metro Boomin's soundtrack for Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (2023).
Stephen's classical music has been performed and recorded by the Cincinnati Pops, Albany Symphony Orchestra, contemporary classical pianists Lisa Moore and Vicky Chow, and the string quartet Ethel in venues including Boston's Symphony Hall and New York's Alice Tully Hall. Stephen has won two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards and a 2013 Charles Ives award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A native of Winchester, Massachusetts, Stephen holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in music composition from Yale, where he studied with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang and Tony-award winning composer Jeanine Tesori.
Alexander Jorgensen is a New York City based filmmaker originally from Montreal, Quebec. He directed the documentaries Truther or: I Am Not a Conspiracy Theorist (2019 - Amazon Prime) and the forthcoming Tendies (2024).
Tom Lee is a puppet artist, designer and director based in Chicago. He began his career at La MaMa Experimental Theater in New York. His work explores the synthesis of manipulated objects, miniatures and figures with the language of film and animation. Mr. Lee grew up in Hawai’i and studied traditional puppetry in Japan. He is a student of Japanese master puppeteer Koryū Nishikawa V with whom he created Shank’s Mare (2015) and Akutagawa (2023). His original work has toured the U.S., Japan, France, Bulgaria and Indonesia. Mr. Lee’s puppetry performances include War Horse (Broadway), Florencia en el Amazonas & Madama Butterfly (Metropolitan Opera) and The Queen of Spades (Lyric Opera Chicago). He is the recipient of multiple Jim Henson Foundation grant awards for his original puppetry work and is co-director of the Chicago Puppet Studio and Chicago Puppet Lab. Tom teaches puppetry design and performance nationally and internationally. www.tomleeprojects.com
Ramona Ponce began designing for theater at the Ridiculous Theatrical Company back in the 90’s. She now has long-standing relationships with numerous theater, dance and opera companies in and around New York City, including Opera On Tap, Trinity Church Liturgical Dance, The Hotel Savant, TWEED Theaterworks, and Untitled Theater Company #61, as well as performance and cabaret artists. Her work has netted nominations for the Hewes Design and the Innovative Theater Awards. She has created specialty needlework for fashion designers like Chris March (Project Runway) and Thierry Mugler, and assembles sewn elements for fine artists, including Fiona Foley's HHH at the Brooklyn Museum. She designs special occasion wear for both women and men, and styles visual elements for a variety of applications, which has included making skeletons run, jump, and ride bicycles. She never met a rhinestone she couldn't love.
Jeffrey Nash (Lighting Designer) has been designing the lighting for theater, opera, and dance since 1980. He has designed over a dozen productions for Edward Einhorn's UTC 61, beginning with Cat's Cradle in 2008. He feels very privileged to have been a part of this project.
Daryl Bornstein is an independent Audio Producer, Sound Designer, and Sound Engineer for Televised Special Events, Recordings, and Live Performances. Clients have included The Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, The Boston Symphony and Boston Pops, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Mostly Mozart Festival, Great Performances on PBS, and Live From Lincoln Center.
While specializing in Classical Music, Jazz, and Theatre, he has worked on projects ranging from the first NFL HD broadcast to the infamous and ill fated Michael Jackson TV Special and the Rolling Stones “Shine A Light” film both shot at New York’s legendary Beacon Theatre; from the Opening Ceremonies of the Nagano Olympics to the 911 Memorial Service at Yankee Stadium. And just because everyone needs to do it once, he spent four days babysitting MTV VJs in a delay tower twenty feet above the unwashed multitude at Woodstock ‘94.
Daryl earned a BA in Music from Dartmouth College, survived four years as Road Manager for Lou Reed, and was fortunate to have served as Personal Assistant to Leonard Bernstein.
Melissa Roth has been a working makeup artist and actor in stage and film for over 20 years. Past projects include short and feature films spanning genres from comedy, to period pieces, to horror. Imdb.me/MelissaRoth
Amile Wilson is a producer, director, & choreographer with credits in Europe, Asia, Africa, NY and LA. Originally from Jackson, MS, Amile studied theatre at Belhaven University then attended Hollins University for graduate work. He completed additional academic studies at Georgetown University and professional training at The Kennedy Center, TALK Dance, and Push Physical Theatre. Amile has served on faculty at Millsaps College and Jackson State University and has been a guest artist at universities throughout the world. He is an Independent Spirit Awards nominee and is a member of the Directors Guild of America and Stage Directors continues to work around the country in film, theatre, and dance. Some of his favorite projects have included directing King Lear at Mississippi Shakespeare Festival, various projects for the New Plays series at Mill Mountain Theatre, and Assistant Director for The Last Cyclist. Amile owns Hapax Creative, a media/design firm and he and his wife Kathryn Wilson have two daughters Charlotte (3y) and Dorothy (9mo).
Beck Lee, dubbed the "St. Jude of entertainment publicists" by the Huffington Post, is known in the entertainment business for championing worthy, off-beat and often challenging work. With Media Blitz, LLC he represents New Yiddish Rep (“Waiting for Godot” and “Death of a Salesman” in Yiddish, and “God of Vengeance”), Spiderwoman Theater Company, the Origin 1st Irish Theatre Festival, Pangea, and the Ukrainian blockbuster film “Dovbush.” Past clients have included the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, Barrow Street Theatre; the Metropolitan Room, and NY Shakespeare Exchange.
Mark Podwal is an acclaimed artist whose works have been exhibited and published worldwide. Initially known for his drawings for The New York Times Op-Ed page, most of Podwal’s books – his own as well as those he illustrated for others including such luminaries as Elie Wiesel and Harold Bloom – focus on Jewish history, tradition, and legend. His art is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Israel Museum, the Jewish Museums in Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Stockholm, and New York, among many other venues. Author Cynthia Ozick has given Podwal the Hebrew name Baal Kav Emet, or “Master of the True Line.” In 1990, the French Ministry of Culture named Podwal an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters; in 2011 he received the Foundation for Jewish Culture Achievement Award; and in 2019 the Czech Foreign Ministry awarded Podwal the Gratias Agit Prize.
Mark Ludwig has blended his musical career since 1986 with social causes having a particular emphasis on issues of intolerance. For his global outreach efforts, he was nominated by US Ambassador William Cabaniss to be a UNESCO Artist-for-PEACE and Goodwill Ambassador.
Acknowledged internationally as a leading scholar and champion of Holocaust music, Mr. Ludwig performs and lectures worldwide on this repertoire and its history. He is the founding director of the Terezín Music Foundation (TMF), a non-profit organization dedicated to documenting, preserving and advancing the resilience of the human spirit as expressed in the music and the arts created by victims of the Holocaust (www.terezinmusic.org). Founded in 1990, TMF fosters and sponsors the commission of chamber music compositions by young emerging composers. Stephen Feigenbaum was commissioned by TMF to compose the score for The Last Cyclist, thanks to a grant from dear friends of Norman and Naomi Patz.
A Fulbright scholar of the Terezín composers, Mr. Ludwig has authored essays, CD liner and program notes and a national Holocaust curriculum for mid to senior high school level students. In 2022, Steidl Verlag published Mr. Ludwig’s OUR WILL TO LIVE, a trove of writing, art and music. A bountiful new record of Terezín’s cultural outpouring, it is accompanied by 200+ rarely seen works by imprisoned artists and vintage recordings by survivors, Yo-Yo Ma and Boston Symphony members.
Mr. Ludwig, a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra viola section from 1982 until his retirement in 2018, is a member of the Hawthorne String Quartet.
ABOUT THE 2024 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.