Women, Theater and the Holocaust at Marlene Meyerson JCC

An evening of four dramatic readings of plays by women will be featured at “Women, Theater and the Holocaust,” sponsored by Remember the Women Institute in recognition of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah. The performances will be in person at the Marlene Meyerson JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam, New York City, on April 20 at 7 pm.

Little Louis by Michael angel Johnson, a premiere, is about jazz trumpeter Valaida Snow and her friend Josephine Baker, an American performer who was part of the French Resistance. The short play is directed by Adrienne D Williams and performed by April Armstrong and Justine J Hall, with Chris Tipp.

The Match by Cynthia L. Cooper, also a premiere, directed by Tasha Gordon-Solmon and performed by Steph Van Vlack and Nadia Diamond, tells the story of noted German-Jewish author Anna Seghers, whose books were burned by the Nazis in Berlin in 1933.

The Last Dinosaur, written and directed by Tony-nominated actor, writer and director Eleanor Reissa is about the life of a Holocaust survivor. It will be performed by Robert Zukerman.

Excerpts from Laura Ferri’s The Ruins of Memory: Women's Voices of the Holocaust, first presented in Seattle last fall, are directed by Dr. Meghan Brodie, Associate Professor of Theater and chair of Theater and Dance at Ursinus College, and features Ursinus students Sophia Bush, Evan Chartock, Kate Isabel Foley, Abbie Painter, Zara Tabackin and Annie Zulick.

A talkback by playwrights will be moderated by Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel, founding executive director of Remember the Women Institute.

The evening will also include the launch of the interactive fifth edition of Remember the Women Institute’s Women, Theater, and the Holocaust Resource Handbook, a free online guide to plays about the Holocaust written by or about women, co-edited by Dr. Saidel, Samantha McLaughlin, and Karen Shulman.

Register at https://mmjccm.org/programs/person-women-theater-and-holocaust-dramatic-readings-book-launch. Proceeds benefit the JCC. Audience members are invited to join a post-performance reception.