New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director William Russo have announced that they will present three staged readings of Caryl Churchill's short play Seven Jewish Children, Wednesday, March 25 through Friday, March 27 at 7pm, at NYTW, 79 East 4th Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery. Each reading will be followed by a moderated discussion, with several notable authorities (from both the Israeli/Jewish and Palestinian communities) attending each performance to illuminate the dialogue. After the discussion, there will be a second reading of the ten-minute play.
Admission to the readings is free of charge. NYTW Members will get a priority booking period, and if any tickets remain, they will be open for reservation by the general public on Monday, March 23rd by emailing tickets@nytw.org. Tickets will be confirmed by return email, and if a return confirmation is not received, the ticket order has not been processed.
Seven Jewish Children was written by Churchill as a direct response to the recent events in Gaza. The play features seven scenes of Jewish parents, grandparents, and relatives attempting to explain to children how they should feel and react to the sometimes violent and confusing world around them. The play's sparse poetics touch on the major political events of the last half-century that have most affected the Jewish people, from the Holocaust, to the founding of Israel, to the Intifada, and the recent violence in Gaza.
Sam Gold will direct the reading, with casting to be announced shortly. The moderators will be Laura Flanders (Wednesday, March 25),
Tony Kushner and Alisa Solomon (Thursday, March 26), and
Mark Crispin Miller (Friday, March 27).
The Royal Court Theatre produced Seven Jewish Children in a thirteen-show run in February.
Washington D.C.'s Theater J will present readings on March 26 and March 28 at the Washington, D.C. JCC.
A statement from NYTW reads:
"As there has been a great deal of public discussion expressed about the play based either on reading it, or merely hearsay, it is our intent to put the play where it belongs-on a stage and in the mouths of actors-so our community can encounter the play firsthand and in a conducive environment for thoughtful and respectful discussion and consideration.
At the heart of NYTW's mission is the desire to present work that provokes, inspires, and challenges.
Caryl Churchill, one of the world's greatest living playwrights, has always been an artist whose work has done just that, and her short play Seven Jewish Children is no exception. We have produced Caryl's plays over the last eighteen years and she has played an indelible part in creating NYTW. Our audience has followed her wherever her fertile imagination has led us-and the journey we have taken with her has been, at times, joyful and affirming, at others, terrifying and bleak. What remains constant in her work is the unblinking eye she casts on the human soul, cataloguing its every waking thought and desire. In Seven Jewish Children, she addresses a deeply complicated and ancient conflict in a way that we hope the theater can uniquely address by engendering a dialogue on the most pressing issues facing society. We aim to present this work in a format that invites and encourages public discourse about the myriad of issues surrounding it."
Caryl Churchill's plays that have been produced at New York Theatre Workshop are Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, Mad Forest, Traps, Owners, Far Away, and A Number. Her other plays include Cloud Nine, Top Girls, Fen, Serious Money, The Skriker, Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?, and Three More Sleepless Nights.
New York Theatre Workshop, now celebrating its 26th season, is a leading voice in the world of Off-Broadway and within the theatre community in New York and around the world. NYTW has emerged as a premiere incubator of important new theatre, honoring its mission to explore perspectives on our collective history and respond to the events and institutions that shape our lives. In addition, NYTW is known for its innovative adaptations of classic repertory. Each season, from its home in New York's East Village neighborhood, NYTW presents three to five new productions, over 80 readings, and numerous workshop productions, for over 45,000 audience members. Over the past 26 years, NYTW has developed and produced over 100 new, fully staged works, including
Jonathan Larson's Rent,
Tony Kushner's Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul,
Doug Wright's Quills,
Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde,
Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told and Valhalla, and
Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, Far Away, and A Number. The 2002 remounting of
Martha Clarke's seminal work Vienna: Lusthaus and subsequent American tour was one of the longest-running productions in NYTW's history. NYTW supports artists in all stages of their careers by maintaining a series of workshop programs including work-in-progress readings, summer residencies, and minority artist fellowships. In 1991, NYTW received an OBIE Award for Sustained Achievement and in 2000 was designated to be part of the Leading National Theatres Program by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
For more information about New York Theatre Workshop, please visit
www.nytw.org.
