FLOWERS OF FOREST HILLS To Perform At Theater For The New City

Theater for the New City, Executive Artistic Director Crystal Field is set to present The Flowers of Forest Hills which premieres November 5 and runs through November 22.

Based on a true story about emigrating to America during that chaotic time, The Flowers of Forest Hills, by Claude Solnik is a powerful, funny, touching and heart-wrenching play about family, flight, fear, struggle, survival, strength and the difficulties of being a foreigner in a foreign land.

Directed by Patricia Magno, the play presents very realistic characters in a time of global upheaval. 'It's a story about belonging - the fact that we all belong to a society, a family, or simply to each other,' Magno said.

Bollywood producer Jay Patel co-produced the play, which he sees as an important, even film-worthy, story about individuals with universal connection. 'Art preserves what time tries to erase,' said Patel, an Indian-American entrepreneur, actor, film producer and author. 'The beauty of art is that one person's story can become the story of billions.'

A two-act play just short of two hours, 'The Flowers of Forest Hills' follows a family who, out of a desire to succeed, successfully create a new life in America, making compromises that impact them all later.

'It's really an immigration story,' said playwright and journalist Claude Solnik. 'It's very much based on true events and how in order to adapt and succeed in America, people sometimes make decisions that create difficulties later. It's a play about what it means to be authentic, as we follow the family, and, in particular, three generations of women.'

Doriana Schoner portrays Sylvie, a young girl who went from a baby carriage with a Jewish star in Austria to an enterprising young woman in Forest Hills. We see her caught between adoptive and real parents as the family launches a successful business.

Gail Merzer Behrens and Jon Lonoff, both Actors Equity members, play Sylvie's parents, creating characters trying to start anew in America while devoting themselves heart and soul to their family. Mike Cesarano, also Equity, and Karen Freer play close family, building a light-hearted bridge to America with humor and heart.

Carolyn Seiff plays the charismatic and droll grandmother who yearns for her former life in Vienna, even after the horrors that occurred there. And Noah Frankenfield plays Jacques/Jack as the endearing young man who meets and falls in love with Sylvie, as a new generation looks to the future.

'It's a story about people who left Europe before the Holocaust, but barely,' Solnik said of the story that he said is based on his family. 'Then and now people who immigrate, leaving behind one country for another, face a lot of challenges. And some of the challenges can be with each other.'

Cameron Reilly-Steele is assistant director for the production with lights and sound by Marsh Shugart and set design by Reuben Speed.