August 2009 Archives

On August 2, 2009, several actors and family members gathered at the home of Kate Elias, widow of Terezín author Zdeněk Eliáš, for a working reading of the play Smoke of Home.  Thank you to all for your hard work and patience -- we were able to solve several translation questions to ensure that the script works as spoken text as well as an accurate translation.  A special thanks to Kate for hosting and to Julia for organizing the actors' participation.

Pictured, from left to right:  Travis Michael Anderson (actor), Kathy Elias (daughter of the author), Michael Clarke (actor), Dorothy Elias (daughter of the author, translator), Diana Smith (actor), Kate Elias (widow of the author), Will Ransom (actor), Julia Leichman (actor).

The Second Czech Cabaret (II. český kabaret), the first of the recently rediscovered plays from the Terezín/Theresienstadt ghetto to come to light, was written by Dr. Felix Porges, Vítěslav "Pidla" Horpatzky and Pavel Weisskopf,with lyrics by Pavel Stránský.  Its first post-Terezín performance took place as part of a two-week workshop with students in the South Bohemian town of Pacov.  

Photo courtesy of Mel Hecker and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.  

The anthology of plays from Terezin is in print! The Czech/German edition came out in November 2008. For a description of the book in Czech, German and English, click here: http://akropolis.info/terezin/ 

The English-language edition, a volume in the series "In Performance" (series editor Dr. Carol Martin, New York University), will be published in the fall of 2011.