[Capdist-auditions] Auditions are coming next week for A SHAYNA MAIDEL - presented by the Classic Theater Guild with Performances in February/March 2024

[stephensanbornphd at gmail.com]

The Classic Theater Guild is pleased to announce auditions for A Shayna Maidel by Barbara Lebow, directed by Stephen Sanborn.  Performances are Feb. 29th, March 2nd & 3rd, and the following weekend of March 7th, 9th & 10th, 2024.  

Auditions will be held on:

*	Audition:  Wednesday Nov. 29th – 7pm audition
*	Audition:  Nov. 30th - – 7pm audition
*	Callback:  Saturday Dec. 2nd – 10am callbacks (as needed)

 All auditions and performances are held at the Congregation Beth Israel, 2195 Eastern Parkway, Schenectady, NY (Niskayuna)

*	All roles are available. 
*	Sides will be provided at the audition.
*	If potential auditioners would like to look at sides in advance please write the director at StephenSanbornPhD at gmail.com <mailto:StephenSanbornPhD at gmail.com> 

SYNOPSIS:  Barbara Lebow's play A Shayna Maidel, first produced in 1985, dramatizes the saga of the Weiss family, Polish Jews whose lives are irrecoverably altered by the Holocaust. A Shayna Maidel is a memory play in that it is set in three times: when Mordechai is born in 1876, when his two daughters (Rose Weiss and Lusia Weiss Pechenik) are reunited in  <https://www.encyclopedia.com/places/united-states-and-canada/us-political-geography/new-york> New York City during the present (1946), and when Lusia has flashbacks of her life in Poland immediately before and after the Holocaust.  Lusia has survived Auschwitz, and the  <https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/political-science-and-government/international-organizations/red-cross> Red Cross and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society have contacted her father to inform him that she is coming to  <https://www.encyclopedia.com/places/united-states-and-canada/us-political-geography/new-york> New York. Mordechai insists that she come to live with her sister, Rose. This order from her father upsets Rose because she does not remember her sister and thus feels uncomfortable about sharing an apartment with her. In addition, Rose, having come to New York at the age of four, has become fully Americanized and has even changed her name from Rayzel Weiss to Rose White. Although she is not ashamed of being Jewish, she has distanced herself from her past in Poland and her Jewish heritage; she does not even keep kosher, which disturbs Mordechai. The main reason Rose feels uncomfortable about living with Lusia is her guilt: she has enjoyed a peaceful and uneventful life in New York while her sister suffered unspoken atrocities during the Holocaust. Mordechai, his wife, and his two daughters were supposed to leave Poland for New York, but before they could leave, Lusia contracted  <https://www.encyclopedia.com/medicine/diseases-and-conditions/pathology/scarlet-fever> scarlet fever and had to remain in Poland with her mother. Therefore, Mordechai had taken Rose (Rayzel) with him to New York and had intended to have his wife and Lusia join them after the daughter recovered. But when the war breaks out, mother and daughter cannot leave the country. Lusia initially does not mind being left behind because she can remain with her best friend Hanna and because she has fallen in love with Duvid. Lusia marries Duvid, and they have a child (Sprinze) together, but eventually Lusia, her mother, husband, child, and best friend are taken to Auschwitz. Only Lusia and Duvid survive the ordeal, and Lusia, grieving for her mother, baby, and best friend, arrives in New York to live with the relatives who left Poland before the war and to attempt to track down Duvid, whom she believes is alive and looking for her.  

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