Publisher Description
As Jews tried to escape Nazi Germany in the 1930s, they faced unthinkable roadblocks in obtaining exit visas. And while they were denied entry in one country after another, a bureaucratic oddity enabled some of them to flee to an unlikely destination: Shanghai, China.
In this Los Angeles Theater Works original commission, playwright Kate McAll used the survivors’ own words to create a narrative of people starting their lives over in a completely new land.
Funding for this presentation is provided in part by The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation and the I. Michael Kasser Trust: Michael and Beth Kasser.
Special thanks to Prof. Steve Hochstadt for his generosity in sharing his research and recordings to help create this work.
Recorded at the UCLA James Bridges Theater in June 2023.
Directed by Anna Lyse Erikson
Producing Director: Susan Albert Loewenberg
An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast recording, starring:
Edyta Brychta as Lisbeth Loewenberg
Michael Canavan as Herbert Greening
Shannon Cochran as Ilse Greening
Arye Gross as Gerard Kohbieter
Anna Mathias as Trude Reisman
Alan Shearman as Paul Reisman
André Sogliuzzo as Ernest Culman
Joanne Whalley as Melitta Colland.
Senior Producer: Anna Lyse Erikson
Recording Engineers: Mark Holden and Charles Carroll
Sound Design: Mark Holden
Editing and Mixing Engineer: Charles Carroll
Senior Radio Producer: Ronn Lipkin
Download and start listening now!
“This play, recorded from a live performance by Los Angeles Theatre Works, draws on the testimony of some of the refugees…There’s no point in calling out individual actors since they are all wonderful with accents and emotions…very effectively telling their story…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
—
AudioFile
About the Narrators
Shannon Cochran is an actress and director, whose work includes the First National Tour of the Pulitzer Prize–winning play August: Osage County, a film opposite Kathleen Turner called The Perfect Family, and Last Days, a radio play for the BBC. She has performed and directed with LA Theatre Works, an organization producing radio plays for NPR, for fifteen years.
Edita Brychta was born in Prague but grew up in London, having fled the 1968 Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia. Shetrained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and went on to play leading roles in numerous theater productions, including the long-running West End production of Daisy Pulls It Off. Among her notable television credits are the award winning shows The Escape and The Britoil Affair.
André Sogliuzzo has
been working in the Los Angeles region for the past fifteen years as a voice
actor. He has provided voices for countless characters in movies, animated
programs, and video games, though he has also had some appearing roles in
several movies. André’s area of expertise is the wide array of accents that he
can provide for various characters, which has permitted him to work with some
of the best voice actors and actresses in the country.
Dennis Boutsikaris is a two-time OBIE award winner. He has received five Audie Awards and seven Golden Earphone Awards for his work in over 100 audiobooks and was voted one of the Best Voices of the Year by AudioFile magazine. He has appeared in numerous Broadway, television, and film roles. He played Mozart on Broadway in Amadeus and has appeared on television shows including Shameless, The Good Wife, House M.D., Grey’s Anatomy, ER, and Law & Order.