What do we do when the past refuses to let the present move into the future?
Drama.
5F.
Est. 90 min.
Flexible space.
Five contemporary women find themselves bound in varying degrees to what happened to Eastern European Jews during World War II. Four of the women, all New Yorkers, are second- and third-generation descendants of survivors of the Holocaust. A fifth is a survivor herself. She wants to forget. She didn’t tell her daughter and she refuses to tell her granddaughter even the smallest detail of what happened to her. But the granddaughter needs to know. She feels incomplete, unanchored. She must know about her ancestors who died or continue to battle increasing loss of self. In desperation, she reaches out to strangers.
One evening, on a stoop in The Bronx, NY, the strangers come together to help. Humor and fellowship, stories and memories take the women to a place where their metaphorical suitcases can be opened, revealing close-held secrets. The grandmother reclaims her life, and the younger women to varying degrees will find reconciliation with a past that has haunted them.
The play is highly theatrical. The women move in and out of a chorus, providing a level beyond the purely here and now, giving the story a universality. There is space in the play for a choreographer to weave in creative movement.
Premiere available.
SET REQUIREMENTS: A unit set, very spare to accommodate various locations.
HONORS:
– Reading at theThe English Theatre, Berlin, Germany.
– Reading at the Segal Center, NYC.
– Staged reading. Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, NYC.
NOTES: SEARCHING FOR A NEW SUNRISE (previously titled SEARCHING FOR A NEW SUN) was written with the Intimate Relations Project of OneHeart Theatre. The Project entailed a series of workshops in which five Jewish women who are actual descendants of survivors of the Holocaust delved into their families’ pasts and their own feelings. The information gained in these workshops, as well as from movies, films, books, lectures, and personal experience as the wife of a survivor (and years with his extended family, all survivors) – all this went into the writing of the play.
For inquiries, contact the playwright.
