The Workroom [L’Atelier]

The Workroom takes place in France between 1945 and 1952 and chronicles the lives of seamstresses and a tailor who have survived Nazi occupation and struggle in the post-war as well as the Jewish shop owner, who hid in an attic during the Holocaust. One of the seamstresses continues to search for her Jewish husband who was deported.

Format: Full-length drama

Cast Size: 6M/6F

Running Time: 2 hours and 20 minutes

Notes:

See Robert Skloot, The Darkness We Carry: The Drama of the Holocaust (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1988) pp. 58–59. See also, Gene A. Plunka, Holocaust Drama: The Theater of Atrocity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 291–299.

The play has been adapted several times. Among the most important ones: Festival d’Avignon Off, Théâtre de L’Étincelle, France, 2016.

Original or Prominent Production:
Directed by Maurice Benichou, Jacques Rosner and Jean-Claude Grumberg; sets and costumes by Max Scchoendorff; with Jean-Claude Grumberg... [et al.]. Performane: Paris (France): Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, France, 04-18-1979. Note(s): With the participation of the Jeune Théâtre National. First English language production: The Unbound Theatre, NYC.

Original Language: French

Publisher:

Samuel French

French publisher: Avant-Scène Théâtre 659 / December 1979. Actes Sud Papiers 1985 and dramaturgical dossier presented by Henri Mainié. Actes Sud Répliques 1993. Actes Sud Babel 1998.

English version: Three plays: ‘The Workroom’ (‘L’Atelier’, 1979), ‘On the Way to the Promised Land’ (‘Vers toi Terre promise’, 2006) and ‘Mama’s Coming Back, Poor Orphan’ (‘Maman revient, pauvre orphelin’, 1994), University of Texas Press, Austin, 2021.

Production Rights Holder:

Samuel French

Experience(s) Chronicled: Survivors and Subsequent Generations