Digital Holocaust Theater Archive Launched

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Tuesday, 7 October, 2014

Today is the official launch of the digital Holocaust Theater Archive, a website containing plays from 1933 to the present that has user specific informative entries and is intended for students, scholars, theater artists, teachers and the general public. This growing catalog of over 550 titles is publicly accessible and housed on line at the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies at the University of Miami.

Glaring artistic void

Arnold Mittelman, President of the National Jewish Theater Foundation explains: 'Although theater has played an extraordinary role from the 1930s to today in Holocaust awareness and education, I was shocked to discover there was no comprehensive theater initiative that sought to make understood that body of work to Holocaust educators, officials, theatrical companies, students and the general public. Even though such different fields as nonfiction, memoir, music and film surrounding the Holocaust have all been well covered and researched, the exception of Holocaust-related theater was a glaring artistic void in our collective understanding. With no comprehensive infrastructure in place to promote the utilization of theater in its historic role as an instrument for social change and education, theater artists, Holocaust museums and scholars remained isolated in their efforts to shed light on the complexity of the Holocaust and its legacy.'

The Sound of Music

The archive contains works such as Arthur Miller's Broken Glass, the stage adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank, the musical Cabaret, Jon Robin Baitz's The Substance of Fire, Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Jeff Cohen's The Soap Myth and Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music. Included are the works' synopses, country of origin, casts and rights holders.

Study guides and educational programs will be built around the archive.

Visit the Holocaust Theater Archive.