Columbia Stages to Present A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY, 4/16-19

Columbia Stages will present A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY by Tony Kushner, directed by Scott Ebersold. A third-year MFA Director in Columbia University's School of the Arts, Ebersold has selected a complex and provocative play as his thesis production. A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY will be presented at The Connelly Theater, 220 East 4th Street, for five performances only, April 16 - 19, 2014.

Employing an epic structure expanded by Kushner's abundant theatricality, lyricism and gift for fantasy, A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY leaps into the darkest of dark nights like few others in history. Drawing a parallel between Nazi Germany and contemporary right-wing American politics, Kushner's text caused considerable controversy when it was first performed.

A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY follows Agnes Eggling and a bohemian group of friends as they gather in her cozy Berlin apartment to celebrate New Year's Eve, 1932 - the year the Nazis win parliamentary control and ultimately propel Hitler to power. At first they can't imagine anything will come of these political changes, but soon realize that the unthinkable is becoming the new normal. Interrupting this is Zillah Katz, a self-confessed paranoiac and left-wing crusader who scours the internet daily from her tiny modern-day New York apartment, demanding that we examine our own political landscape.

Tony Kushner's epic, fantastical and witty play, A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY challenges us to face the world's evils, both large and small, so we may stop the unthinkable from ever becoming normal again.