Community

New York Theatre Workshop’s Core Values are to inspire deeper understanding, welcome learning and growth, to celebrate community, and to live its values.

Through our For The Culture Series (FTC), NYTW seeks to bridge the gap between the world we know and the world we are actively striving to build – where we harness the power of theatre to deepen human connections by learning and growing from the lived experiences of each other; connect through art, shared customs, traditions and heritage(s); and where we amplify artists and work by traditionally underrepresented groups or individuals, creating access to the Workshop for historically marginalized communities in order to build and sustain authentic relationships with our fellow community members and theatergoers.

Tectonic Theater Project and New York Theatre Workshop are partnering with the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE), the Content & Conversation partner for Here There Are Blueberries, to curate a series of post-show discussions and engagement events for the play where leading ethicists, scholars, and audiences can discuss the complex issues raised in the play—and consider their relevance for today. Conversations take place directly after the performance, and a ticket to that evenings performance is required for entry.

In Conversation: Moisés Kaufman, Amanda Gronich & David Bengali

Post-Show AfterWords Discussion
Wednesday, April 24

How do you make a play from an album of photographs? Associate Artistic Director, Theatre & Productions Aaron Malkin interviews co-writer Amanda Gronich, co-writer director Moisés Kaufman, & projection designer David Bengali on the process of bringing the Höcker album to life.

AfterWords, our post-performance discussion series, gives audience members a chance to engage with a production after the curtain comes down. With guests ranging from actors and creative team members to scholars and community leaders, the facilitated conversations provide historical and artistic context for a production and invite audiences to explore the artistic process and themes of the piece more fully from a variety of vantage points.

“There Were Blueberries: The Transformation of Norms and Complicity as the New Normal”

Post-show FASPE Discussion
Thursday, April 25

Moderated by Thorsten Wagner (Executive Director for Strategy and Academics, FASPE) and Jordyn Holman (Business Reporter at The New York Times, FASPE Journalism Fellow ’18). In the course of the 1930s and 1940s, German society experienced a gradual, comprehensive, and ever-accelerating transformation of its system of ethical and moral values. As much as the sense of leisure and happiness characterizing the visual representations of the Nazi perpetrators disturbs us, the presumable normalcy might be powerful evidence of this transformation. Frequently, professionals were key players in this process, and the central role of doctors, lawyers, and accountants for the crimes of Nazism, so central to the play, raises fundamental questions about contemporary professional ethics and professional responsibility.

“Of Monsters to (Ordinary?) Men (and Women)”

Post-show FASPE Discussion
Wednesday, May 1

Moderated by Nate Silver (Head of Operations and People, Adonis, FASPE Business Fellow ’19) and Stuart Liebman (Professor Emeritus of Film Studies and Theatre, CUNY Graduate Center). Here There Are Blueberries invites us to consider: were Nazi perpetrators incomprehensible monsters or “ordinary” individuals? Film and theater representations of Nazi perpetrators have evolved over time, from their depiction as inhuman monsters in the earliest portrayals following the war to somehow “ordinary” individuals with families, some who were not even overtly racist against Jews. This discussion delves into the various portrayals of Nazi perpetrators, and the complex questions they raise about evil, complicity, and human nature.

“Mass Complicity and Transitional Justice”

Post-Show FASPE Discussion
Tuesday, May 7

Moderated by Trevor Morrison (Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus, NYU School of Law, FASPE Law Faculty) and Jessica Roth (Co-Director, Jacob Burns Center for Ethics in the Practice of Law, Cardozo School of Law, FASPE Law Faculty). As Here There Are Blueberries brings vividly to light, the perpetrators of the Holocaust included many individuals who were far from the Nazi “top brass.” Some of these lower-level individuals were later held accountable for their actions. But many others were not and were often seamlessly integrated back into society, even into their prior professions. Here There Are Blueberries invites us to consider the limits of formal institutions of justice in the face of mass complicity, the consequences of inconsistent accountability, and the responsibility of the professions when perpetrators return to the fold.

“What did Americans know? What did they do?”

Post-Show FASPE Discussion
Friday, May 10

Moderated by Rebecca Erbelding (Educator and Historian, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) and Thorsten Wagner (Executive Director for Strategy and Academics, FASPE). By 1944, the ongoing murder of European Jews was not a secret in the United States. Journalists, artists, activists, and theater-makers all called Americans’ attention to the ongoing crimes, and often, demanded that the United States government try to rescue the Nazis’ victims. They ultimately convinced the Roosevelt administration to set up a government agency tasked with rescuing Jews–the War Refugee Board. And while the Board was attempting its lifesaving work, Karl Höcker and his colleagues were murdering hundreds of thousands of Jews. How are the actions–and inactions–of the United States reflected in Karl Höcker’s album?

In Conversation: Amanda Gronich, Moisés Kaufman and Menachem Rosensaft

Post-Show AfterWords Discussion
Wednesday, May 15

NYTW Usual Suspect & Pulitzer Prize-winning Playwright Doug Wright moderates a conversation between Moisés Kaufman (NYTW Usual Suspect, Tony and Emmy nominee and the director, conceiver, director and co-author of Here There Are Blueberries), Amanda Gronich (Emmy nominee and co-author of Here There Are Blueberries) and Menachem Rosensaft (Adjunct Professor of Law, Cornell Law School; Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School, and General Counsel Emeritus of the World Jewish Congress).

AfterWords, our post-performance discussion series, gives audience members a chance to engage with a production after the curtain comes down. With guests ranging from actors and creative team members to scholars and community leaders, the facilitated conversations provide historical and artistic context for a production and invite audiences to explore the artistic process and themes of the piece more fully from a variety of vantage points.

“The Next Generation: How Do We Deal with the Sins of Our Fathers—Literally and Metaphorically?”

Post-Show FASPE Discussion
Thursday, May 16

Moderated by David Goldman (Chairman, FASPE) and Father Steven Bell, CSP (Paulist Mission Priest, FASPE Board Member and FASPE Seminary Faculty). Here There Are Blueberries invites us into the minds of the children and grandchildren of some of the most complicit of the Nazi perpetrators. With this discussion, we ask not only how those “heirs” are to think about the sins of their fathers, but also how we are to think of the perpetrators, themselves, in their normal lives as fathers and grandfathers, as husbands and children. Is it possible to compartmentalize criminal behavior from “normal” lives? Or, should we even allow the idea of compartmentalization in such fashion?

Masterclass with Tectonic Theater Project: Introduction to Moment Work

90-Minute Masterclass
Monday, May 20 @ 6:30pm

Moment Work is the groundbreaking process of devising new work developed by Moisés Kaufman and Tectonic Theater Project to create works such as Here There Are Blueberries, The Laramie Project, Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and 33 Variations, among others. Moment Work explores the theatrical potential of all the elements of the stage in order to create strong theatrical and dramatic narratives from the ground up. This 90-minute master class led by Tectonic Theater Project company member Grant James Varjas introduces the technique and dives right into generating original work. Register here.

“Democracy in Retreat, Journalism Under Siege—Then and Now”

Post-Show FASPE Discussion
Thursday, May 23

Moderated by Mark Lukasiewicz (Dean, The Lawrence Herbert School of Communication, Hofstra University, FASPE Journalism Faculty) and Sheila S. Coronel (Toni Stabile Professor of Professional Practice; Director of the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, Columbia Journalism School, FASPE Journalism Faculty). Wherever—and whenever—democracy is under attack, journalists find themselves on the frontline. Populists and autocrats see the press as the enemy. Journalists are intimidated, censored, harassed, surveilled, jailed and sometimes killed. The Nazi party labeled journalists the “lügenpresse”—the lying press—and once in power, moved rapidly to shut down all independent journalism. In its place, the Nazis created a powerful propaganda machine that successfully swayed world opinion and even co-opted some important voices in international journalism. Today journalists in places where democracy is in retreat struggle to speak truth to power. Their credibility is under attack; they are called liars, tools of liberal elites, “presstitutes.” Is it legitimate for journalists to keep themselves safe by compromising with autocrats? Is full and open opposition the only legitimate choice for journalists in an autocratic regime?

“Mengele at Auschwitz”

Post-Show FASPE Discussion
Wednesday, May 29

Moderated by David G. Marwell, Ph.D (Author of Mengele: Unmasking the Angel of Death, FASPE Board Member) and Claire B. Rosen, MD, MSME (Resident of General Surgery at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, FASPE Medical Fellow ’22). Josef Mengele is perhaps the most recognizable figure among the many photographs that make up the album which is at the center of Here There are Blueberries. Made famous by his portrayal in movies, novels, and plays, Dr. Josef Mengele has emerged as a grotesque caricature that threatens to obscure the frightening man that he was. Join the author of Mengele: Unmasking the Angel of Death, David G. Marwell in conversation with Dr. Clare Rosen as they discuss the man behind the myth.

“Crisis of Faith: Confronting Human Nature after the Holocaust”

Post-Show FASPE Discussion
Tuesday, June 4

Moderated by: Rabbi Deena Silverstone (Director of Jewish Life, Jewish Community Project of Lower Manhattan, FASPE Seminary Fellow ’18) and Rabbi Gil Steinlauf (Executive Director, Center for Jewish Life, Princeton Hillel, and the Jewish Chaplain at Princeton University, FASPE Seminary Faculty). How do we retain our faith in God—and in humanity—when we confront a world filled with hatred? Here There are Blueberries forces us all to face the gaps that exist between the sweetest moments of our humanity and the darkest depths of our inhumanity.  Rabbis Silverstone and Steinlauf will reflect on the play not only from their rabbinic perspectives, but from their personal stories and experiences.  They will reflect on the chilling and humbling truth of light and darkness coexisting in our human condition–not only at Auschwitz, but within us all even now.

“Medical Research: The Journey from Auschwitz to Today”

Post-Show FASPE Discussion
Wednesday, June 12

Moderated by: Karla Childers, BA, MSJ, MSBE (Head, Bioethics-Based Science & Technology Policy, Johnson & Johnson, FASPE Board Member) and Dhruv Khullar, MD, MPP (Assistant Professor, Weill Cornell Medical College, Contributing Writer, The New Yorker, FASPE Medical Fellow ’12). The Doctors’ Trial was the first of several trials for war crimes committed by high ranking officials in Nazi Germany. The trial was named as such because 20 of the 23 defendants were doctors, whose brutal experiments and mass murders shocked the conscience of the medical community and resulted in the creation of the Nuremberg Code – the first formal principles that articulated what appropriate research with humans should look like. Over the past several decades, we have seen dramatic evolution and innovation in the field of medicine and research, as well as the formalization and codification of requirements for human research. And yet we continue to wrestle with the implications of new technology and questions of equity and autonomy all these years later. This talk back will explore the historical evolution of clinical and research ethics, and the tensions felt by physician investigators who must balance the dual duties to their individual patients and the creation of generalizable knowledge.

Get tickets for HERE THERE ARE BLUEBERRIES

ABOUT FASPE
FASPE challenges its professionals to recognize and exercise their ethical and leadership responsibilities as influencers. FASPE’s distinctive approach is to examine the roles and behavior of individual professionals in Germany and elsewhere between 1933 and 1945 as an initial framework for approaching ethical responsibility in the professions today. Each year, FASPE awards 80 to 90 Fellowships to graduate students and early-career professionals in Business, Design & Technology, Journalism, Law, Medicine, and Seminary. The Fellowships begin with intense study in Germany and Poland where FASPE takes advantage of the urgency created by the power of place to translate the history into the present. Visit faspe-ethics.org to learn more.