Photos: First Look At The World Premiere Musical, WITNESSES At CCAE Theatricals

WITNESSES, making its World Premiere in the Center Theater at California Center for the Arts, Escondido (CCAE), from July 15 - 30, is a riveting, heartfelt and incredibly powerful theatrical event based on the diaries of five Jewish teenagers during the Holocaust. As the audience watches each of teenagers' unique stories unfold, they become witnesses themselves to the events that transpired, viewed through the compelling eyes of these five incredible youth. Conceived by Jordan Beck, produced by CCAE Theatricals, with a book by Tony Award winner Robert L. Freedman, music by Carmel Dean, Matt Gould, Adam Gwon, Anna K. Jacobs and Gerald Sternbach, lyrics by Jordan Beck, Mindi Dickstein, Matt Gould, Adam Gwon and Anna K. Jacobs. Artistic Director, J. Scott Lapp will direct. Tickets are available online at www.artcenter.org.

WITNESSES is generously sponsored by the David T. & Dorris E. Staples Foundation, with additional support by The Conrad Prebys Foundation, National Endowment of the Arts, Whiteboard Insurance and Risk Solutions, and The Raymond Foundation.

The diaries are from the following five teenagers who lived during the Holocaust:

Moshe Ze'ev Flinker; was born in The Hague on October 9, 1926, and was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home. Moshe was a deeply religious young boy who grappled with the theological problems posed by the unprecedented persecution of the Jews.

Renia Spiegel; was a Jewish Polish diarist who was killed during World War II in the Holocaust. Spiegel's diary, kept between the ages of 15 and 18, documents her experience as a teenager living in the city of Przemyśl as conditions for Jews deteriorated.

Dawid Rubinowicz; was born on July 27, 1927 in the Polish city of Kielce. The oldest of three children, he and his family were very poor. When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Dawid, like all Jews, was forced to do hard labor.

Éva Heymann; was a Jewish girl from Oradea. She began keeping a diary in 1944 during Nazi rule in Hungary. Her diary has been compared to The Diary of Anne Frank.

Yitskhok Rudashevski; was a young Jewish teenager who lived in the Vilna Ghetto in Lithuania during the 1940s. He wrote his diary from June 1941 to April 1943 which detailed his life & struggles living in the ghetto.

PRODUCTION DETAILS

WITNESSES
Directed by J. Scott Lapp

July 15 - 30, 2022

Center Theater at California Center for the Arts, Escondido

340 N. Escondido Blvd., Escondido, CA 92025

Tickets: $35 - $75

Press and Opening: Friday, July 15 at 7:30pm
Evening Performances: Friday, Saturday, July 15-16; Thursday, Friday, Saturday, July 21-23; Thursday, Friday, Saturday, July 28-30 at 7:30pm
Matinee Performances: Saturdays-Sundays, July 16-17 and July 23-24; Friday, Saturday, July 29-30 at 2:00pm

CREATIVE:

Director J. Scott Lapp

Movement/Staging Natalie Iscovich

Musical Director/Arranger/Orchestrator Gerald Sternbach

Associate Musical Director Lisa LeMay

Lighting Designer Zach Blane

Scenic Designer Matthew Herman

Sound Designer Jon Fredette

Costume Designer Janet Pitcher

Projection Designer Andrew Nagy

Dramaturg & Jewish Historian Raymond Zachary

Casting Director Lindsay Brooks, CSA

CAST

Kai Justice Rosales | Moshe Ze'ev Flinker

Camille Umoff | Renia Spiegel

Giovanny Diaz De Leon | Dawid Rubinowicz

Afra Sophia Tully | Éva Heymann

Austyn Myers | Yitskhok Rudashevski

Katherine Paladichuk | Ensemble, u/s Renia

Ian Dembek | Ensemble, u/s Moshe, u/s Yitskhok Rudashevski

Hannah Frederick | Ensemble, u/s Éva Heymann

David Landis | Swing, u/s Dawid Rubinowicz

Priya Richard | Swing

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