Video: The Company of OUR CLASS At Brooklyn Academy of Music Meets the Press!

Our Class, the contemporary, award-winning play by Tadeusz Slobodzianek and directed by Ukrainian-born, Jewish director Igor Golyak will see a completely new production and its New York premiere at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) beginning January 12. The company of the play met the press this week and BroadwayWorld correspondent Richard Ridge was on hand to chat with the cast! See our visit to the rehearsal room in the video!

Our Class has now been added to the 19th edition of NYC's world famous and cutting-edge Under the Radar Festival, which takes place January 5 to January 21 with more than a dozen productions at renowned institutions across the city.

“Our Class is an incendiary work, no one leaves unmoved,” said Mark Russell, Under the Radar Festival Director. “Igor Golyak is one of the most innovative and visual young directors working today. His work has to be seen.”

Our Class is based on real events, and follows 10 classmates — five Jewish and five Catholic — as they grow up as playmates, friends and neighbors, then turn on one another with life and death consequences. Inspired by real life events surrounding a horrific 1941 pogrom in the small village of Jedwabne, Poland, the play is about friendship, antisemitism and betrayal, and follows their lives from childhood through eight decades in a contemporary new production, directed by Igor Golyak.

The international cast of Our Class features Gus Birney (The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window) as Dora, Andrey Burkovskiy  (Call DiCaprio!) as Menachem, Jack DiFalco (Torch Song) as Zygmunt, José Espinosa (Take Me Out) as Rysiek, Tess Goldwyn (New Amsterdam) as Zocha, Will Manning (As Reaper in the Summer Gain) as Heniek, Stephen Ochsner (Chicks) as Jakub Katz, Alexandra Silber (Fiddler on the Roof) as Rachelka/Marianna, Richard Topol (Indecent; The Normal Heart) as Abram, and Ilia Volok (Gemini Man, The Gaaga) as Władek.

At the beginning of November, the cast and creative team gathered for a special retreat in the Berkshires mountains of Massachusetts. They worked on the script, delved into history and context with dramaturg Dr. Rachel Moss, experimented with music with composer Anna Drubich, and discussed the powerful connections between Our Class and our world and lives today. The entire weekend was documented on video - watch a short piece featuring Richard Topol, Alexandra Silber, Andrey Burkovskiy, Stephen Ochsner, and Igor Golyak as they prepare for the rehearsal process.