Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival is an annual showcase of contemporary Central and Eastern European theater, established in 2017. The festival is a shared endeavor of the Václav Havel Center and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association in partnership with numerous other cultural and performing arts organizations. The festival honors the artistic and political legacy of the Czech playwright/dissident/president Václav Havel. We support exchanges between American and European theater professionals and celebrate the power of the theater to transform our lives.

The 2024 festival, entitled Dark Dreams, runs June 12 – 23.  This year’s festival (including the May reading series) features work from Austria, Belarus, Estonia, Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine.  Much of the work featured this year is surreal or dreamlike, finding ways to comment on past and present tragedies, from the legacy of the Nazi and Soviet years to the current war in Ukraine.  It explores fascism but also beauty, darkness but also laughter.

We begin with one of the oldest authors in the vein of the dark and comically surreal, Franz Kafka, on the 100th anniversary of his death.  And we continue on with not only theater but dance and music.  This year, for the first time, we also include film in our lineup, specifically film of theater and dance.  And most of our programs include discussions with either the authors, experts on some of the subjects addressed, or both.

We hope you can join.  All programs are free, though we do ask for a $10 donation if you can afford it.  It makes continuing our work possible.

Conceived by Edward Einhorn

Developed and directed by Edward Einhorn and Jenny Lee Mitchell

Performing this year at the Jersey City Theater Center,
located at 165 Newark Ave, Jersey City, NJ 07302

Saturday, May 18, at 9pm

Songs and sketches written in Terezín/Theresienstadt, from Lisa Peschel's anthology Performing Captivity, Performing Escape and other sources. 

Full of satire, bitter humor, and hope, these pieces demonstrate how art became a vital survival technique for the inmates

Original work written by Armin Berg, Robert Dauber, Sergei Dreznin, Grigory Flidlider, Hans Hofer, Vitezslav “Pidla” Horpatzky, Jaroslav Jezek, Gideon Klein, Frantisek Kowanitz, Josef Lustig, Felix Porges, Frida Rosenthal, Erwin Schulhoff, Leo Strauss, Myra Strauss-Gruhenberg, Karel Svenk, Victor Ullmann, and Ilse Weber

With: Craig Anderson, Mel DeLancey, Seth Gilman, Jenny Lee Mitchell, Yvonne Roen, and Katarina Vizina

Musical direction and piano accompaniment: Maria Dessena

Violin: Tiffaney Lane

Part of Remembrance Readings program of National Jewish Theater Foundation—Holocaust Theater International Initiative

Running time: 70 minutes

The 2024 Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival’s Spring Readings will take place from May 17 – June 3. It will offer stage readings and a glimpse of a first rehearsal of contemporary plays by award-winning European playwrights from Belarus, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania.

Each festival’s spring edition is a unique opportunity for a truly intercultural and multigenerational examination of Central and Eastern European present-day trends and the not-so-distant, turbulent past. The state of affairs in the region—the Russian invasion of Ukraine—has only amplified the need for our closer examination of human nature as well as a search for peace and place to belong.

During four evenings, a number of riveting stories will be told: Maryia Bialkovich, a former member of the Belarus Free Theatre explores the origins of violence, social and personal norms that do not always reflect reality. (Any Spot with Marks Left Behind); Krisztina Toth offers a biting commentary on a Hungarian society marked by hatred, recrimination, and ultimately sorrow. (The Bat); Vladislava Fekete writes about the continuing ramifications of a childhood spent in the Slovak minority in Vojvodina, Serbia during the war (Brief Connections); and you are invited to the first rehearsal of a play adapted from a novel by Nobel-Prize winner Herta Müller, a series of episodes that center on mundane aspects of daily life in a remote village against the backdrop of the oppressive atmosphere of mid-twentieth century Romania (Lowlands).

The Reading Series is a prelude to 2024’s edition of Rehearsal for Truth: Dark Dreams, which will run June 12 – 23.

Music by Avner Finberg
Play/Libretto/Direction by Edward Einhorn

based on the 2nd Century BCE play
by Ezekiel the Tragedian

An immersive opera/play/Passover seder

April 26 - May 12
at La MaMa
66th E 4th Street, New York

Tickets $35

Synopsis: An immersive opera/play/Passover seder, based on the oldest known Jewish play, written in Alexandria in the second century BCE by Ezekiel the Tragedien. The audience gathers round the seder table or watches from the risers, joining the performers for a traditional 15-part modern seder. An opera composer, Zeke, has brought home his girlfriend Aliyah, a non-practicing Muslim, for the first time. Meanwhile, in the middle of it all, opera performers sing an adaptation of the ancient Greek interpretation of the Book of Exodus.

Running time: 90 minutes

Singers:
Pharoah, Reuel, God: Matthew Curran
Tzipporah, Messenger, God: Tharanga Goonetilleke
Moses: James Rodgers

Cover for Moses: Cristóbal Arias (May 11)
Cover for Pharoah etc: Matt Mueller (May 9)
Cover for Tziopprah: Alize Francheska Rozsnyai (May 9)

Actors:
Zeke: Hershel Blatt
Aliya: Meena Knowles
Avraham: Maxwell Zener

Puppeteers:
Rebecca Jay Caplan, Yanniv Frank,  Parker Sera

Music:
Music director/Pianist: Mila Henry
Percussion: Mariana Ramirez
Violins: Sunny Sheu, Johnna Wu
Viola: Sara Dudley
Cello: Paul Swensen
Percussion on May 2, 3, 10 & 11: Andrew Beall

Crew:
Stage manager: Berit Johnson
ASM/Food coordinator: D Henry Hanson
Set design and related puppets: Tom Lee and Grace Needlman
Puppet design: Evolve Puppets (Tanya Khordoc and Barry Weil)
Costume/Mask Design: Ramona Ponce
Lighting Design: Federico Restrepo
Art: Eric Shanower
Special fabrication: Jim Freeman
Wardrobe: Erica Reichler
Associate Producer at La MaMa: Sarah Murphy
Publicist: David Gibbs, DARR Publicity

This program is supported, in part, by the NYSCA-A.R.T./New York Creative Opportunity Fund (A Statewide Theatre Regrant Program); as well as The Schapiro Fund.

The on demand video of the critically acclaimed production of The Shylock and the Shakespeareans

Tickets $30, available here.

A darkly humorous retelling of The Merchant of Venice.

June 1 – 17 at the New Ohio Theater

Wed – Sat at 7:30
Sundays at 5pm
Additional show Mon June 5 at 7pm (which will be livestreamed)

Tickets $30

Written and directed by Edward Einhorn

Gobbo: Craig Anderson
Salarino: Ethan Fox
Salarina/Aragon: Janine Hagerty
Jessica: Yael Haskal
Bassiano: Chapman Hyatt
Lorenzo: Chase Lee
Nerissa: Stephanie Lichtfield
Jacob: Jeremy Kareken
Portia: Nina Mann
Terach/Prince: Kingsley Nwaogu
Antonio/Shakespeare: Eric Oleson
Gratiano: Thomas Shuman

Stage Manager: Berit Johnson
AD/Sound Design/Assistant Director: Becca Silbert
Set Design: Mike Mroch
Costume Design: Ramona Ponce
Lighting Design: Eric Norbury
Video/livestreaming: Iben Cenholt

Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes

Songs and sketches written in Terezín/Theresienstadt, from Lisa Peschel's anthology Performing Captivity, Performing Escape and other sources. 

Full of satire, bitter humor, and hope, these pieces demonstrate how art became a vital survival technique for the inmates

JANUARY SHOWS MARCH SHOWS
at a brownstone at 153 W. 88th at Torn Page at 435 W 22nd Street
Sat Jan 28 at 7pm, Tue Jan 31 at 7:30pm Sat March 18 at 8pm, Sun March 19 at 5pm
Special guest: Tony Torn

FEBRUARY SHOW APRIL SHOW
at New Yiddish Rep at 315 W 39th St Suite 611 at Bohemian National Hal at 321 E 73rd St
Sat Feb 18 at 8pm Sun April 16 at 5pm
Special guest: David Mandelbaum

Conceived by Edward Einhorn

Developed and directed by Edward Einhorn and Jenny Lee Mitchell

Original work written by Armin Berg, Robert Dauber, Sergei Dreznin, Grigory Flidlider, Hans Hofer, Vitezslav “Pidla” Horpatzky, Jaroslav Jezek, Frantisek Kowanitz, Josepf Lustig, Feliz Porges, Frida Rosenthal, Erwin Schulhoff, Leo Strauss, Myra Strauss-Gruhenberg, Karel Svenk, and Ilse Weber

With: Craig Anderson, Seth Gilman, Jenny Lee Mitchell, Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld, and Katarina Vizina

Musical direction and piano accompaniment: Maria Dessena.

Part of Remembrance Readings program of National Jewish Theater Foundation—Holocaust Theater International Initiative

Running time: one hour

Terezin was the final stop for more than 30,000 Central and Western European Jews, most from Czechoslovakia, Austria and Germany who perished within its walls. For thousands more it was only a way station on the journey to the slave-labor and death camps. Yet it was also a place where many prisoners became intensely aware of the meaning and power or art. During those years in Terezin/Theresienstadt, a vigorous cultural life emerged. Not all prisoners participated in the cultural life and only a small fraction of the works produced there has survived.

"Although honoring a somber event, the atmosphere was surprisingly pleasant and uplifting...Cabaret in Captivity is a call to action to use hope not as a means of passive daydreaming, but a powerful act of resistance. It has been said that humor equals truth plus distance. Perhaps humor was the most palatable, effective way of sharing the unbelievable creativity, will, and resistance that came from the 'Chosen' who 'had no choice.' " - Amy Oestreicher, Broadway World

Previously performed at Pangea, The Center for Jewish History, the Bohemian National Hall, York Theatre, the Czech Embassy in Washington, DC, and The William Goodenough House in London, England.