By National Jewish Theater Foundation

On April 13, 2015 organizations across the country including major theaters, universities, memorial museums and embassies will unite to honor victims of the Holocaust by joining in the first ever Remembrance Readings for Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah). This event was conceived and launched by the National Jewish Theater Foundation (NJTF) as a way to use the unique power of theater and playwriting to remember the Holocaust. It draws upon material from over 600 plays made accessible in their newly created Holocaust Theater Catalog (HTC).

The following is a list of participating organizations and their play selections: San Diego- La Jolla Playhouse – Intelligence Slave by Kenneth Lin; The Old Globe –The Revisionist by Jesse Eisenberg; North Coast Repertory Theatre –The History of Invulnerability by David Bar Katz and San Diego Repertory Theatre – date & play tbd: Chicago – The Theatre School at De Paul – Ghetto by Joshua Sobol; Genesis Stage at the Illinois Holocaust and Museum Education Center – The Last Cyclist by Naomi Patz: Atlanta- Theatrical Outfit at the Balzer Theatre – The Soap Myth by Jeff Cohen: Bethesda-Imagination Stage – Nivelli’s Way by Charles Way: Washington D.C.- Untitled Theater Company #61 at Czech Embassy in conjunction with Israel Embassy – source: Performing Captivity and Beyond: Songs and Sketches from Terezin by Lisa Peschel, New York City – The Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center, co-presented by the Polish Cultural Institute New York – Our Class by Tadeusz Slobodzianek ; Remember the Women at Center for Jewish History – Gretel Bergmann by Cynthia Cooper, Excerpts from In The Underworld by Germaine Tillion and Wild Wind Blows by Cynthia Cooper: Melbourne – Eastern Florida State College – I Never Saw Another Butterfly by Jewish children from Prague imprisoned in the model concentration camp Theresienstadt; North Miami Beach – Michal-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center – Butterflies No Longer Live Here by Fernando Hurtado.

The HTC was researched by NJTF staff, scholars, artists, volunteers and a remarkable Advisory Board overseen by Arnold Mittelman the founding NJTF President and HTC Project Director. The HTC was funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, private donors and is housed online at the University of Miami Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies. Mittelman added, “Although theater has played an extraordinary role from the 1930s to today in Holocaust awareness and education, there has never before been a national program that emphasized the use of theater in Holocaust awareness. I am delighted that these plays are now a resource for this inaugural series of Remembrance Readings done by so many worthwhile organizations across the U.S.A. for their deserving audiences. It is our sincere hope that the utilization of these select theater works in education and production will continue and grow internationally inspiring all to keep alive the lessons of the Holocaust while providing an artistically driven moral compass for future generations”.

Please visit NJTFoundation.org for a complete list of participating organizations, information about this initiative and HTC or to register your organization as a host.