THE PRODUCTION

Written in 1964 about events that transpired in 1942—and shockingly relevant in 2019. A multi-faceted collaboration between 7 different (local) arts, education and social activist organizations working together to bring a 55 year-old, rarely-performed play to Omaha for the first time ever. This powerful production, even more timely than when it was written, will be accessible to all, opening at the Jewish Community Center and completing its run at the B Side of Benson Theatre. This theatre experience features the play, three travelling art installations (provided by the Institute for Holocaust Education), firsthand accounts from survivors, educator-led talkbacks with the ADL-CRC, cast and production team, and free admittance for all OPS students to any Sunday matinee performance (made possible by the Omaha Public Schools Foundation.)

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THE STORY

Is it 1942 or 2019? A group of strangers simmer outside a make-shift interrogation room lobby, fresh from being plucked off the streets of their everyday lives. As they are questioned and their papers scrutinized, trivial social connections become lifelines, personal convictions get weighed beside self-interest and prejudices emerge within the victim class, itself.

Some are released and others "relocated." As the group grows justifiably more concerned and introspective, the thread of tension is pulled tighter and tighter and we are given a front row seat to the spectacle of human interaction in times of genuine peril.

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BACKGROUND

Written in 1964, this rarely-produced masterwork from Arthur Miller (Death of A Salesman, A View From the Bridge) explores the heart-breaking reality and vulnerability of immigrant/oppressed peoples when exploited and the willful disbelief that too often stands in the wings of history with its head lowered, asking us:

“If we deny the plausibility of history repeating, are we not ultimately complicit when it does?”

Shining a light on apathy, classism, the honesty of fear and the futility of individual bravery in the face of unchecked ideology, the myriad of questions raised by Miller are more relevant now than at any time since the ending of WWII.