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...
Herod’s Children
Author(s): Ruth Perry
This play is about a group of children—with the wrong king of grandparents—in Nazi-dominated Vienna. They try to escape to freedom, to adjust to brutal, senseless regulations—or to console each other. They accept Ellen, the central character, dubiously. Her status is "Undetermined"—after all, she had only one, or possibly two, "wrong grandparents"—but she is Jewish by choice. Ellen brings her crayon-drawn visa to the American Consul to sign. "I can't let my mother go to America alone," she explains. "Who would she peel an apple for if I can't go? And whom would she slap when she can't bear it any more?" Ellen is so sensitive, loyal and courageous that she is dominant in the group. "It's all a matter of who your grandparents are" they explain to Ellen. But they wait by the river. A child might fall in. If they save it, perhaps they'll be allowed to sit on the park benches again like the other children—or even the merry-go-round! As they all proceed from childhood into their teens, the others are terrified by the war and the consequenses of wearing the Star. Ellen is determined at any cost to wear it. She sees and makes them see, too, that the yellow star with the tiny word 'JEW' in the center is the talisman that will lead to the blue city, New York, where love and peace abide.
Format: Full-length drama
Cast Size:7M/9F
Running Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
Snapshot
Original Source Material: From the novel by Ilsa Aichinger.
Nationality of Author: U.S.
Original Language: English
Publisher:
Production Rights Holder:
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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.