THE LAST CYCLIST to Make NYC Debut at West End Theatre, Today

A dark, anti-semetic joke alluding to cycling made the rounds in Europe between the First and Second World Wars and was the inspiration for a bitter absurdist cabaret called The Last Cyclist written in 1944 in the Terezín Concentration Camp by the young Czech playwright, Karel Švenk. This Chaplin-esque play was seen by many Terezín Ghetto inmates during rehearsals but it was banned by the ghetto's Council of Jewish Elders after its dress rehearsal. Švenk was sent to Auschwitz a few months later and his script was lost forever. Playwright Naomi Patz has reconstructed and reimaged Švenk's integral work and is bringing the The Last Cyclist to New York City audiences for the first time. Performances begin Saturday May 25 at the West End Theatre at Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew (263 W 86th St).

The Last Cyclist is a daring, gallows-humor, absurdist allegory that expands on the "Jews and the cyclists" theme, making cyclists the victims of the inmates of a mental asylum who escape and take over the outside world. They hound, oppress, exile or kill everyone who rides a bicycle and anyone who has ever had anything to do with cyclists for many generations back.

The Last Cyclist opens a window onto a little known aspect of what Miriam Novitch first termed "spiritual resistance" to the Nazis during the Holocaust and is an example of the extraordinary resilience displayed by concentration camp inmates. Despite the harrowing conditions under which they were forced to live and work, Jews in Terezín created a remarkable wealth of cultural offerings, including theatrical performances, concerts, recitals and thousands of lectures that gave solace and a boost in morale to this humiliated and disheartened group of highly educated, civilized and cultured urban people who, despite dire rumors, still hoped that they would soon be going home, and who certainly had no idea of the mass murder that awaited them.

Incredibly, Švenk's play is funny and was meant to be funny. The audiences at Terezín that attended the open rehearsals of The Last Cyclist laughed and today's audiences are meant to laugh too. But ours is uncomfortable laughter: first because we realize that the play is not a joke but a brave protest against totalitarianism; and, second, because we know the fate of the cast and the rest of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. The play, in a non-confrontational way, makes clear to today's audiences that it is the personal responsibility of every human being to fight intolerance, prejudice, bullying and racism.

The cast of The Last Cyclist includes Craig Anderson, Edmund Bagnell, Lynn Berg, V. Orion Delwaterman, Kristen Hopkins, Timor Kocak, Jenny Lee Mitchell, Eric Emil Oleson, Patrick Pizzolorusso, Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld and Czech star Zuzana Stivmova.

The Set Design is by Clifton Chadick, lighting by Christopher Weston and costumes by Carla Gant. Composer Stephen Feigenbaum is an award winning 24 year old musician and winner of the ASCAP Morton Gould Composer Award.

KAREL ŠVENK was a hero to the Jews in Terezín. Lovingly remembered for his improvisational skills, biting wit and expressive eyes, he reminded people of a cross between Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Before being sent to Terezín he was one of the pioneers of the avant-garde theater in Prague - an actor, director, writer and composer working as part of a troupe known as the Theater of Needless Talents. He was sent on the very first transport to Terezín, in November 1941. The finale of the first cabaret Švenk wrote in Terezín,The Lost Food Card, became known as the "Terezín March." With its hopes for a brighter future, it became the unofficial anthem of the camp, reprised in all of Švenk's later productions, on every other possible occasion and quoted in numerous survivor memoirs. Švenk was raised for the breadth of his material, his talent and his inventiveness; his six cabarets brought joy to his fellow inmates He was sent to Auschwitz in October, 1944 and died during a forced march a few weeks before the end of the war in Europe. He was 28 years old. Although The Last Cyclist was seen only in rehearsals, its daring send up of the Nazi regime makes it his best known and remembered work.

NAOMI PATZ (Playwright) reconstructed and reimagined The Last Cyclist from Karel Švenk's 1944 cabaret of the same name and Jana Šedová's 1961 adaptation. She has written one-act plays on Jewish themes, Purim spiels, creative Rosh Hashanah liturgies and "A Word to the Wise," a dramatization of Jewish folk tales set to music. With her husband, she translated The Third Cry, a fantasy play byYaakov Cahan. She is an author of nine books, including monographs on the destroyed Jewish communities of Dv?r Králové and Jihlava in the Czech Republic, and the prayer book Siddur Netivot Sholom. She edited The Forum, a quarterly journal on Israel-Diaspora relationships, and the Judaica Series for the UJA National Young Leadership Cabinet, as well as other books and journals. From 1987- 1994, she directed the North American Jewish Forum, the counterpart organization to the Israeli Forum, and from 1994-2001 was U.S. Director of Partnership 2000. A Barnard graduate, she holds master's degrees in English literature (Old Dominion University) and Jewish education (Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion) and was awarded an honorary doctorate by HUC-JIR.

Edward Einhorn (Director) is the Artistic Director of Untitled Theater Company #61. With the company, he curated the Václav Havel Festival, the Ionesco Festival, the NEUROfest, and the Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas, among other e vents. Other projects include: The Velvet Oratorio, an oratorio anniversary of the Velvet revolution, the 20th commemorating produced at Lincoln Center and The Bohemian National Hall (librettist); Rudolf II, a play about the Century Emperor in Prague produced at the Bohemian 16 National Hall (playwright); The Off-Broadway production of Fairy Tales of the Absurd (writer and director); Paul Wilson's (director); and new translation of Václav Havel's The Memo Havel's final work, The Pig, or Václav Havel's Hunt for a Pig, produced at 3LD Art & Technology Center (translator). He has recently served as the Executive Director of the Association of Jewish Theater and the General Manager of the National Jewish Theater. His most recent projects have been Iphigenia in Aulis, which played at La MaMa (adapter and director) and five new volumes of translations of Havel's work (editor and essayist).

The Last Cyclist tickets are $18, $15 student rush (available at box office only). Performance of The Last Cyclist will take place at the West End Theatre at Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew (263 W 86th St) on the following dates:

Saturday, May 25th, 7:30PM / Sunday, May 26th, 3pm / Monday, May 27th, 7:30pm / Thursday, May 30th, 7:30pm / Friday, May 31st, 7:30pm / Saturday, June 1st, 7:30pm / Sunday, June 2nd, 3pm / Monday, June 3rd, 7:30pm / Thursday, June 6th, 7:30pm / Friday, June 7th, 7:30pm /Saturday, June 8th, 7:30pm / Sunday, June 9th, 3pm

Tickets can be purchased online at www.thelastcyclist.com or by calling Ovation Tix at 866-811-4111.

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