Following a premiere at La Jolla Playhouse last year, Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich's Here There Are Blueberries begins its Washington, D.C. premiere May 7 at Harman Hall. It's a fitting spot as the play began in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum archives. It will run through May 28.
Exploring the human realities of Nazism and the Holocaust from an unexpected vantage point, the play is staged by Tectonic Theater Project at Shakespeare Theatre Company. The D.C. company stars Scott Barrow (33 Variations), Nemuna Ceesay (What to Send Up When It Goes Down), Kathleen Chalfant (Angels in America: Millenium Approaches), Maboud Ebrahimzadeh (English), Nicholas Gerwitz (The Tempest), Erika Rose (Taming of the Shrew), Anna Shafer (The Upstairs Department), Elizabeth Stahlmann (Slave Play), Charlie Thurston (Macbeth In Stride), and Grant James Varjas (Twelve Dreams).
Conceived and directed by Kaufman, Here There Are Blueberries was co-authored by Kaufman and Gronich, and devised with Scott Barrow, Amy Marie Seidel, Frances Uku, Grant James Varjas, and Members of Tectonic Theatre Project.
The production features scenic design by Derek McLane (33 Variations), costume design by Dede Ayite (Slave Play), lighting design by David Lander (Torch Song), sound design by Bobby McElver, and projection design by David Bengali (1776). Amy Marie Seidel (Paradise Square) serves as dramaturg and associate director with Ann C. James (Sweeney Todd) as intimacy coordinator and sensitivity specialist. Casting is by Stephanie Yankwitt, and STC resident casting director Danica Rodriguez.
STC and Tectonic Theater Project have partnered with Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE) to create a series of talkbacks for Here There Are Blueberries.
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