On April 13, 2015 arts, educational and memorial organizations across the country united by participating 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 of harnessing the unique power of theater to remember the Holocaust, honor its victims, and foster subsequent conversations about lessons learned for future generations. It draws upon material from over the 600 plays made accessible in this catalog.
Participating organizations in this historic inaugural event include:
- 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
- Intrepid Theatre Company at Leichtag Foundation Ranch – The Substance of Fire by Jon Robin Baitz
- 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
- Theatrical Outfit at the Balzer Theatre – The Soap Myth by Jeff Cohen
- Imagination Stage – Nivelli’s Way by Charles Way
- 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
- 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
- Eastern Florida State College – I Never Saw Another Butterfly by Jewish children from Prague imprisoned in the model concentration camp Theresienstadt
- Michal-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center – Butterflies No Longer Live Here by Fernando Hurtado.
Arnold Mittelman, NJTF Founding President and Project Director of its Holocaust Theater International Initiative stated, “I sincerely hope that Remembrance Readings engenders participation, education, identification and empathy that only live theater exemplifies and delivers in a profound way. I hope that the use of theater in this manner and in education grows in years to come”.