West Coast Jewish Theatre Begins At Greystone In April And May

The West Coast Jewish Theatre is partnering with the City of Beverly Hills to present staged readings in the Greystone Theatre at the historic Greystone Mansion of the following plays:

Sunday, April 6, 2025 at 2 p.m.

Rose Colored Glass by Susan Bigelow and Janice Goldberg.

Set in 1938 Chicago, Rose Colored Glass takes place in the back rooms of Lady O'Riley's pub and Rose Fleishman's delicatessen. Their disparate worlds, separated by much more than the alley between their kitchens, are about to collide. Peg O'Riley, the 13-year-old granddaughter of Lady, has grown determined that these two mistrustful women will become friends, but it is not until they become involved in the same cause that their friendship has a chance to bloom. In a series of stunning flashbacks, Peg, now older, remembers the moving story of how Lady and Rose formed a united front to fight American apathy in an attempt to bring Rose's nephew out of Europe before the war. Rose Colored Glass is a unique work- it explores the beginning of the Holocaust from an American perspective, showing two remarkable women as they struggle with American apathy, immigration laws, bureaucracy, and their own prejudices....all in the name of one boy's safe passage from Europe to America.

The cast includes Ann Hearn and Dana Weisman.

Thursday, May 15 at 6:30 p.m.

Lebensraum by Israel Horovitz.

This bold work of penetrating intelligence is based on the fanciful, explosive idea that a German Chancellor might, as an act of redemption, invite six million Jews to Germany and promise them citizenship and jobs. A resulting scenario unfolds that explores the effects of the policy on Jews and Gentiles, with widely varying outlooks: an out-of-work Jewish dock worker from Massachusetts who brings his Irish wife and his son to Bremerhaven to start a new life; a survivor of Auschwitz who returns to find the woman who betrayed his family to the Nazis; a young German smitten by a Jewish-American teenage girl; an unemployed German laborer; and scores of others. The logical progression of this artfully-drawn script raises the terrifying possibility that history may repeat itself.

Cast to be announced.

Greystone Mansion is located at 905 Loma Vista Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. There is ample free parking onsite.

West Coast Jewish Theatre Artistic Director is Howard Teichman. The readings are part of an ongoing series by West Coast Jewish Theatre on the subject of antisemitism.

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