Photo Flash: Inside Rehearsals For The World Premiere Of THE RUSSIAN & THE JEW at The Tank

The Tank (Meghan Finn and Rosalind Grush, Artistic Directors) in association with Anna & Kitty, Inc. will present the World Premiere of The Russian & The Jew, a political fairy tale on New Year's about anti-semitism and female friendship in the Soviet Union in 1968, co-written by Liba Vaynberg and Emily Louise Perkins and directed by Ines Braun at The Tank (312 West 36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues), December 4-20.

Tickets ($50 VIP; $25 General; $15 Student) are available for advance purchase at www.thetanknyc.org. The performance will run approximately 2 hours, with an intermission.

The Russian & the Jew: A New Year's Play is a political fairy tale that explores anti-Semitism and misogyny through a female friendship in the Soviet Union in 1968. The first public presentation of this play was a 2017-2018 BluePrint project, as part of the Council of Jewish Emigre Community Organizations (COJECO) and incubated by the Tank. The play underlines the eternal question of fidelity oneself, to one's partner and to one's country. Drawing on autobiographical and historical material, this piece blends and revisits Russian fairy tales, literature and politics through the eyes of two women. Drawing on themes from Anna Karenina alongside ubiquitous Vysotsky bootlegs of the time, the play begins when Jews in the former USSR started to apply for coveted exit visas in the late '60s when the first letters from America and Beatles tapes started to break through the borders. This piece investigates what it meant (and what it continues to mean) to be a Jew, a woman and a citizen.

Photo Credit: Maren Searle