Free Concert Reading of THE COMING STORM Comes To Theater For The New City

On April 8 at 7:00 PM, Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave., will present a free concert reading of "The Coming Storm: the legacy of anti-Semitism endures," written and directed by Stephan Morrow. This new play play is a nightmarish fable about the rise of fascism in Germany and that country's nuclear weapons program during World War II. It is part of Theater for the New City's New Blood Reading Series.

The play is a historically-based fictional story that begins in 1933 when a non-Aryan professor is evicted from his University and is attacked by students who are young Nazis. He has a student named Anton Einsbruck. That character is based on Werner Heisenberg, the youngest Nobel Prize winner ever. Einsbruck is torn between his loathing of Hitler and loyalty to his country. He starts developing a nuclear fission program and is interrogated by the Gestapo for a year. Ultimately, his mother uses her friendship with Himmler's wife to have her son accepted as a loyal German despite his refusal to join the Nazi party, so Einsbruck is allowed to continue his work on nuclear fission. But because he is in love with a non-Aryan young woman, he is subjected to Nazi harassment constantly. When an accident destroys his reactor, his program dwindles until the end of the war, when he is captured by the Americans, who enlist him to work with them against the rising threat of the Soviets.

This piece is Stephan Morrow's second play dealing with the complexities of authoritarianism in European politics. Last season, Theater for the New City presented his "Darkness After Night: Ukraine," a drama set in the contemporary war between Russia and Ukraine. In it, a Russian logistics officer defects to the Ukrainian side, but is re-captured by Russian forces and executed. The story includes a tragic romance in which the love of the officer's life abandons him for a Putin-like character to attain power.

Mr. Morrow has directed plays by Mario Fratti and John Steppling, among others, at Theater for the New City. He is an active member of The Playwright Directing Unit of The Actors Studio and is founding Artistic Director of The Great American Play Series. He was mentored in the Playwright Directing Unit of the Actor's Studio by Elia Kazan. Morrow is also a prolific actor in theater and film and a director of indie films.

The cast of "The Coming Storm: the legacy of anti-Semitism endures" includes Dan Simon, Corrine Chateau, Bryan Hickey, Liam McGowan, George Lugo, Joe Marshall, Christina Toth, Emilie Bienne and Stephen Anthony.

Readings in Theater for the New City's New Blood Reading Series are free but $5 donations are gratefully accepted.

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