A Message from Arnold Mittelman After a career in not-for-profit and commercial theater spanning more than 40 years I was honored in 2007 to found the National Jewish Theater / Foundation and in 2010 to assume leadership of its Holocaust Theater International...
Charlotte: Life? or Theatre?
Charlotte Salomon grew up in Berlin in the twenties, and died in Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of 26. In 1939, in refuge in France, she discovers the truth about a lineage of suicides in her family. To make sense of her existence she begins to paint Life? or Theater?, over 800 paintings with text and musical references. The musical follows Charlotte’s journey towards life, beginning and ending in the South of France in the room where she is struggling to give birth to Life? or Theater?.
Format: Musical
Cast Size:5F/3M
Character breakdown:
Woman, owner of a pension in Southern France
Charlotte, a young painter
Amadeus Daberlohn, a voice teacher
Franziska Knarre-Kann, Charlotte’s mother
Dr. Knarre, Charlotte’s grandfather
Mrs. Knarre, Charlotte’s grandmother
Dr. Albert Kann, Charlotte’s father
Paulinka Bimbam, Charlotte’s stepmother, a well-known opera singer
Man in the mask, Nazi official, Anatole, Voices, etc., played by the actors and/or puppets.
Charlotte, a young painter
Amadeus Daberlohn, a voice teacher
Franziska Knarre-Kann, Charlotte’s mother
Dr. Knarre, Charlotte’s grandfather
Mrs. Knarre, Charlotte’s grandmother
Dr. Albert Kann, Charlotte’s father
Paulinka Bimbam, Charlotte’s stepmother, a well-known opera singer
Man in the mask, Nazi official, Anatole, Voices, etc., played by the actors and/or puppets.
Notes:
See also, Mary Lowenthal Felstiner: To Paint Her Life, HarperCollins, 1994
Snapshot
Original or Prominent Production:
Prince Music Theater, Philadelphia, PA.
Prince Music Theater, Philadelphia, PA.
Original Source Material: Charlotte Salomon: Leben? oder Theater? Viking Press, 1981.
Nationality of Author: U.S.
Original Language: English
Production Rights Holder:
Elise Thoron and Gary Fagin
Experience(s) Chronicled: Theater During Holocaust | Women and the Holocaust | European Jewry Before the Holocaust | Germany, Hitler and the Growth of Nazism | Allegoric or Metaphoric Representations | Concentration and Extermination Camps | Perpetrators, Bystanders and Collaborators | The Ghettos | Resistance
HTC Insights
Views, reference and research of interest.
Lifetime Achievement Award
The National Jewish Theater Foundation presented its 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award to Alfred Uhry. The presentation took place as part of the Lincoln Center Library event on January 27th 2025 in commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on the 80th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz
Lifetime Achievement Award
On September 30, 2024, French playwright, Mr. Jean Claude Grumberg received the Lifetime Achievement Award. It was presented by NJTF HTII President, Arnold Mittelman with Dominique Trimbur, PhD-Manager for the History of Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, Teaching of the Holocaust of Fondation Pour La Memoir de la Shoah Project.