Theatre in the Theresienstadt Ghetto: Newly Discovered Works

An invitation to a staging of newly discovered works by prisoners in the World War II Jewish ghetto at Theresienstadt (in Czech, Terezín). Featuring students from University College London and the University of York in association with the Bloomsbury Theatre and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

The Theresienstadt Ghetto was a site of great suffering and deprivation. It was also the site of a vibrant cultural life including music, visual art, poetry and theatrical performance. During interviews with Dr. Lisa Peschel in 2004-08, survivors of the ghetto directed her to private collections and small archives where she found scripts ranging from cabarets and puppet plays to verse dramas. These have recently been published in her anthology Performing Captivity, Performing Escape:  Cabarets and Plays from the Terezín/Theresienstadt Ghetto.

This rare staging features both comic and tragic works. After a historical introduction by Dr. Peschel (University of York) and Professor Michael Berkowitz (UCL), Part I, Laugh with Us, presents comic scenes and songs from the Theresienstadt cabarets. In Part II, The Smoke of Home, this one-act historical allegory set in the Thirty Years' War poses the question:  if we survive, will we be able to return to the home we knew?

Performances are Saturday, 7th February at 19:30 and Sunday, 8th February at 15:00. Tickets are £14 full price, £8 concessions. Group booking is available for schools, colleges and universities.  To order, follow the Bloomsbury website link: http://www.thebloomsbury.com/event/run/14151   For more information contact Assistant Producer Daisy on: daisy.theresienstadt@gmail.com

Download the programme here