Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle), reprising the role she created for the U.S premiere at the Manhattan Theatre Club and for which she won an Ovation award in the L.A. premiere, and Susan Sullivan (Dharma and Greg, Castle) head the cast when Jeanie Hackett directs Kindertransport by Diane Samuelsfor L.A. Theatre Works. All performances will be recorded live in front of an audience (without sets or costumes) to air on L.A. Theatre Works' syndicated radio theater series, which broadcasts weekly on public radio stations nationwide and can be streamed on demand at www.latw.org.
2013/14 marks the 75th anniversary of the "Kindertransport" (Children's Transport), the rescue operation that brought thousands of refugee Jewish children to Great Britain from Nazi Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia between 1938 and 1940. Most of these children never saw their parents again. Inspired by true-life accounts from surviving "Kinder," Samuels' play tells the poignant fictional story of seven-year-old Eva Schlesinger who, in early 1939, was put aboard a train with other Jewish children and evacuated from Nazi Germany. Torn between her Jewish-German heritage and her desire to wipe the Kindertransport experience from her memory, Eva strives to become "English" like the British woman who adopts her. The audience witnesses the kaleidoscope of emotions encountered by Eva at four different points in her life as she remains burdened by a painful past, her own fears, and the secrecy that threatens her relationship with her daughter.
"
Diane Samuels' play is heartbreaking, but at the same time it celebrates human-kind's greatest triumph of good over evil," says Hackett. "I'm thrilled that we're recording it for all time in this 75th anniversary year, and with such a stellar group of actors - that we are again remembering what must never be forgotten."
Also in the L.A. Theatre Works cast are Ovation award winner
Hugo Armstrong (Waiting for Godot),
Shannon Lee Clair (currently in The Antaeus Company's acclaimed production of The Crucible) and
Angela Paton (Harvey on Broadway).
Kindertransport was first produced by London's Soho Theatre Company in 1993. In 1994,
Jane Kaczmarek starred as "Helga" (the role she will play for L.A. Theatre Works) in the U.S. premiere at the Manhattan Theatre Club, and Kaczmarek received an Ovation award when she again took on the role for the Los Angeles premiere at the
Tiffany Theatre. Since then, Kindertransport has been translated into many languages and performed all over the world, and it is the winner of the Verity Bargate and Meyer-Whitworth Awards. In the U.K. Kindertransport is now studied for A and A/S Level and is a set text for English Literature GCSE examination syllabuses. To coincide with the 75th anniversary of the child rescue transportations to Britain, Kindertransport will be given a major revival and national UK tour in 2013/14, and the playwright is currently writing a special author's guide to accompany the play in Nick Hern's "Stage to Page" series, to be published early 2014.
Diane Samuels has been writing extensively as a playwright and author since the early 1990s. Recent radio work includes Tiger Wings, an original drama based on pilot
Joan Allen's solo flight from England to Singapore in 1948, broadcast in 2012 as a five-part serial for Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4. There was a staged reading of her American political spy drama The Arrest of Rosa Gold at the Jewish Museum, London, 2013. As a Pearson Creative Research Fellow 2004/5 at the British Library, she completed research into magic, and her booklet "A Writer's Magic Notebook" was published in 2006. Diane has written the book for new musical, The A-Z of Mrs. P, music/lyrics by Gwyneth Herbert, to be performed at the Southwark Playhouse, London, 2014. She has also written book and lyrics for Persephone (A Love Story) with composer
Maurice chernick. Her play Swine is to be given a staged reading at the Jewish Museum in late 2013.
L.A. Theatre Works is the leading radio theater company in the United States, committed to using innovative technologies to preserve and promote significant works of dramatic literature and bringing live theater into the homes of millions. The company's public radio series, featuring stage plays performed by America's top actors augmented by interviews with the artists and others, can be heard in over 100 markets nationwide and on SiriusXM Book Radio; can be streamed on demand at www.latw.org; and are available worldwide through Amazon and iTunes. L.A. Theatre Works audio plays are available at over 11,000 libraries throughout the U.S., and recordings and teaching materials are used by over 2,000 middle and high schools across the country.
Performances of Kindertransport take place tonight, June 20 @ 8 pm; Friday, June 21 @ 8 pm; Saturday, June 22 @ 3 pm & 8 pm; and Sunday,Jund 23 @ 4 pm. The James Bridges Theater is located in Melnitz Hall on the campus of the UCLA School of Theater, Film, Television at 235 Charles E. Young Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095 (enter UCLA from Hilgard just south of Sunset Blvd. and park in Lot 3 on the lower level). Tickets are $49; student tickets are $15 at the door, subject to availability. To purchase tickets, call L.A. Theatre Works at 310-827-0889 or got to
www.latw.org.
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