Here There Are Blueberries

ABOUT

By Moisés Kaufman & Amanda Gronich

Conceived & Directed by Moisés Kaufman

A co-production with Tectonic Theater Project

2023/24 Season

April 17, 2024—June 30, 2024

The performance will run approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.

Read Synopsis

In 2007, a mysterious album featuring Nazi-era photographs arrived at the desk of a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum archivist. As curators unraveled the shocking truth behind the images, the album soon made headlines and ignited a debate that reverberated far beyond the museum walls. Based on real events, Here There Are Blueberries tells the story of these historical photographs—what they reveal about the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and our own humanity.

This new piece from Tectonic Theater Project (The Laramie Project) is conceived and directed by NYTW Usual Suspect and Tony and Emmy nominee Moisés Kaufman and co-written by Emmy nominee Amanda Gronich. Charles McNulty of the Los Angeles Times cheered, “Moisés Kaufman conducts this impeccable production with symphonic subtlety.”

VIDEOS

We’ve set aside a block of $35 tickets for anyone age 30 or under at all remaining performances. Skip the rush line and secure a ticket in advance!

Tickets are available for purchase online, by phone or in-person at our box office. When purchasing online, look for the orange seats at any remaining performance to claim this offer.

Limit 2 per person. A valid ID with age listed (30 or under) will be required to claim each $35 ticket purchased. Limited quantities available.

Over 30? Check out our CheapTix Rush program below!

Theatre isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity—a vital part of the culture that should be available to all. In an effort to make our work affordable to as many people as possible, we launched our CheapTix program. At the first two performances of every NYTW production, every seat is available for just $25. And if you’re under 25, over 65, an artist, or a resident of the East Village and Lower East Side, you can snag a $25 seat via our CheapTix Rush at any performance. View full info here!

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Tectonic Theater Project and New York Theatre Workshop are partnering with the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE), the production’s Content & Conversation partner, 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.

These discussions will be held following performances on Thursday April 25, Wednesday May 1, Tuesday May 7, Friday May 10, Thursday May 16, Thursday May 23, Wednesday May 29, Tuesday June 4, and Wednesday June 12. Check out event descriptions and participants here.

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.

In an effort to care for our community, we’re sharing details about this production that may be sensitive for members of our audience. The following information may reveal plot points.

Here There Are Blueberries engages with the subject of Nazis and the historical events surrounding the Holocaust. The production contains loud sounds and photographic flash and is recommended for ages 12+. If you’d like to speak with someone on our staff for more details, please reach out to LetsChat@NYTW.org.

  • Karl Höcker & Others

    Scott Barrow has been working with Tectonic Theater Project for almost 20 years as an actor, devisor, writer and senior teacher with the Moment Work Institute. He collaborated on the creation of 33 Variations from Georgetown to Broadway, on Uncommon Sense, The Laramie Project Epilogue; Ten Years Later, Treatment and Data, and now Here There Are Blueberries; working as a devisor on each piece and performing in the productions. Scott leads Moment Work workshops for Tectonic across the country and is an author on the company’s book of the same name. His plays Full of Grace and The Outcasts of Penikese Island received productions, and his adaptation of Geraldine Brooks’ March is in development with the author. At New York Theatre Workshop he premiered in Paul Rudnick’s Valhalla, was in the Peter and the Star Catcher ensemble, and has done fight direction for 7 productions. Scott performed at Arena Stage, the Arden Theatre, Commonwealth Shakespeare, Hartford Stage, the Huntington, the Wilma Theater, the Mint, Studio Theatre, New Rep, the Geva, the Olney, Portland Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Urban Stages, Trinity Rep, and Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, where he is an Artistic Associate. Scott is also the artistic director of Stages on the Sound; a not-for profit pairing working theatre artists with schools in the tristate area. MFA Brandeis University.

  • Charlotte Schünzel & Others

    Nemuna Ceesay (she/her/hers) is an actor/director/educator based in New York. Selected theater credits: Actors Theatre of Louisville (Loving and Loving), Shakespeare Theatre Company (Here There Are Blueberries), The Shed (Straight Line Crazy), Second Stage (Patience), Two River Theater (Three Sisters), PlayMakers Rep (The Christians and Tartuffe), Woolly Mammoth, A.R.T., The Public Theater (What To Send Up… tour), and Oregon Shakespeare Festival (2015/2016 seasons). Selected TV credits: “Bull,” “Broad City,” “Instinct,” “Younger,” “FBI,” “Prodigal Son,” and “Katy Keene.” Selected Directing credits: The Kitchen (Uncle!), Playwrights Horizons (Amusements), 66th Obie Awards, Clubbed Thumb Winterworks (Reply All), Associate Director of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning A Strange Loop on Broadway. 2022 Clubbed Thumb New Play Directing Fellow. Part of the inaugural cohort of The Workshop: North America’s first arts fellowship centering the work of JOCISM (Jews of Color, Jewish-Indigenous, Sephardi & Mizrahi) artists & culture-makers. Founder and Creative Director of an all BIPOC training program called The Blueprint. MFA in acting from American Conservatory.

  • Judy Cohen & Others

    In a career spanning more than five decades, Kathleen Chalfant’s performances on stage, screen and television have garnered her praise and acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Perhaps best known for her shattering portrayal of Vivian Bearing, a scholar battling cancer, in Wit, she received the Obie, the Drama Desk, the Lucille Lortel, the Outer Critics Circle, the Ovation, Connecticut Critics Circle, the Garland and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards for her work. Broadway: Angels in America (Tony and Drama Desk nom.), Racing Demon, Dance with Me. She most recently appeared in The Year of Magical Thinking with Keen Company, Long Wharf, and Theatre Aspen, as well as the upcoming film Familiar Touch. NY/Off-Broadway: A Woman of the World, Wit (Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, Connecticut Critics Circle, Obie Awards), Hellzapoppin’ with Yvonne Rainer, Four Quartets (BAM), For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday, A Walk in the Woods (Drama Desk nom.), Talking Heads (Obie Award), Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Nine Armenians (Drama Desk nomination), Henry V (Callaway Award). Television/Film: “The Affair,” “Rescue Me,” “The Blacklist,” “Elementary,” “High Maintenance,” “House of Cards,” “Madam Secretary,” “Duplicity,” “Old,” “Kinsey,” “Lackawanna Blues.”

  • U/S Karl, Rainer & Others

    Regional: Fiddler on the Roof (Olney Theatre Center); Love All; Here There Are Blueberries (La Jolla Playhouse); Are You There? (44th Humana Festival); A Christmas Carol; Dracula (Actors Theatre of Louisville). Film: The Folly of Paris or the Original Snub; Box of Chocolates; Happy Yummy Chicken. Education: M.F.A. UC-San Diego.

  • Tilman Taube & Others

    Jonathan Raviv is an Emmy award winner and original cast member of the 10-time Tony and Grammy Award winning musical, The Band’s Visit. He has extensive Off-Broadway and Regional Theatre credits, having worked at some of the most prestigious theaters in the country. Some works of note include: Monsoon Wedding directed by Mira Nair at St. Ann’s Warehouse, The Band’s Visit directed by David Cromer at The Barrymore and Atlantic Theatre, Kismet directed by Lonny Price at Granada Theatre, The Humans directed by Aaron Posner at Olney Theatre Center, Arabian Nights directed by Mary Zimmerman at Berkeley Rep, Lady Madeline (based on The Fall of the House of Usher) directed by Jessica Thebus at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and The Light in the Piazza directed by Bartlett Sher at The Goodman. Jonathan has been fortunate enough to originate roles in several world premieres and has made a career of championing new works. He has also had several guest star appearances in major network television and films and has done voice over, commercial and motion capture work. Jonathan can also be heard on the original cast albums of The Band’s Visit and The Lightning Thief.

  • Melita Maschmann & Others

    NYTW Debut. Erika is a two time Helen Hayes Award winner for Outstanding Lead Actress and a Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Member. Regional: Here There Are Blueberries (Shakespeare Theatre Company); Tiny Beautiful Things (Baltimore Center Stage); Confederates and The Cymbeline Project (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); An Octoroon, Lenny & Lou and Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company); Crying On Television, Queens Girl in Africa and The Soul Collector (Everyman Theater); In Darfur (Theater J); Fences (Ford’s Theater); Book Club Play and Pippin (Round House Theatre); The Father (Studio Theater); The Bluest Eye (Theater Alliance); Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus! The Musical!, Knuffle Bunny, The Brand New Kid, OLIVERrio and Barrio Grrrl! (The Kennedy Center); Clybourne Park (Pioneer Theater Company); Cinderella, Looking for Roberto Clemente and Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters (Imagination Stage). Erika studied at the University of Maryland, College Park, LAMDA and Labyrinth Theater Company. www.erikarose.com

  • U/S Rebecca, Charlotte, Melita

    Anna Shafer (she/they) is a proud Philadelphia native who has lived and worked as an actor and teacher in Washington, DC for the last 5 years. Most recently, Anna understudied Here There Are Blueberries by Moises Kaufman and Amanda Gronich at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Other credits include This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing at Theater Alliance (Helen Hayes Award Nomination for Best Ensemble), Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience, and A Chorus Within Her, both for Theater Alliance, and The Upstairs Department at Signature Theatre. Anna was a member of Tour 71 of the National Players out of Olney Theatre Center. She received her BA in Performance at American University in Washington, DC. Anna is thrilled to be rejoining the outstanding team of Here There Are Blueberries for their run at NYTW.

  • Rebecca Erbelding & Others

    Elizabeth Stahlmann is delighted to make her NYTW debut. Other theater credits include: Tectonic Theater Project’s world premiere of Here There Are Blueberries (La Jolla Playhouse, Shakespeare Theater of DC); Slave Play (Mark Taper Forum, understudy for Broadway); Grounded (Westport Country Playhouse-CT Critics Circle Award); The Humans, The Cake at The Alley Theatre; Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater; Tennessee Williams Festival; national tours of Romeo and Juliet, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It with The Acting Company; The Guthrie Theater; and is a founding member of Krymov Lab NYC which ran Dmitri Krymov’s Eugene Onegin: In Our Own Words to sold out performances at this year’s Under the Radar. TV/film credits include: “City on a Hill,” “The Equalizer,” “Law & Order: SVU,” The Snare (in production). Graduate of University of MN/Guthrie Theater (BFA), Yale School of Drama (MFA). Elizabeth is a proud member of The Actors Center.

  • Rainer Höss & Others

    NYTW Debut. Off-Broadway: The Wedge Horse. Select Regional: Macbeth in Stride (Shakespeare DC, Philadelphia Theatre Co, A.R.T.), Here There Are Blueberries (La Jolla, Shakespeare DC), Prince of Providence (Trinity Rep), The Song of Summer (Trinity Rep), Three Sisters (Arden), Completely Fictional… Tale of Edgar Allan Poe (Baltimore). Select TV/Film: “Dexter,” “Julia,” “Law & Order: SVU,” Finestkind, Boston Strangler, Money Monster, Life Itself, The Unholy. MFA, Brown/Trinity Rep.  Charlie is a member of the Acting Company at Trinity Rep and a founding member of The Feast, a living wage theatre in Seatte. www.charliethurston.net

  • Peter Wirths & Others

    Grant James Varjas is a writer, deviser, and company member at Tectonic Theatre Project, and an Advanced Teaching Artist in their Moment Work Institute. He performed in the HBO film adaptation of The Laramie Project, the Los Angeles (CTG) production of 33 Variations with Jane Fonda, and Here There Are Blueberries at LaJolla Playhouse and Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington D.C. (all directed by Moisés Kaufman). Off-Broadway he has performed at Lincoln Center and The Roundabout, and in many other productions in New York City. Grant also played David in The Sign In Sidney Brustein’s Window (dir. Anne Kauffman) at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. He is the playwright and composer of 33 To Nothing (GLAAD Nomination) and Accidentally, Like A Martyr (“Top 10 Best Plays Of 2015,” TimeOut Chicago), both plays produced in Chicago (A Red Orchid Theatre), and New York City (wild project). Grant is the creator and writer of the queer web series “Way Down” (waydownseries.com).

Tectonic Theater Project /

Based in New York City and guided by founder and Artistic Director Moisés Kaufman and Executive Director, Matt Joslyn, Tectonic Theater Project develops new plays using the company’s trademarked theater-making method, Moment Work, and through a rigorous process of research and collaboration in a laboratory environment. Since its founding in 1991 the company has created and staged over twenty plays and musicals, including Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, The Laramie Project, Doug Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife, the Tony Award-winning 33 Variations, and the Drama Desk Award-winning Seven Deadly Sins. Tectonic Theater Project’s newest world-premiere play, Here There Are Blueberries, recently completed a critically acclaimed run at La Jolla Playhouse. Tectonic is currently developing more than five new projects including commissions from drag artist Sasha Velour and Broadway playwright Bess Wohl.

Moisés Kaufman / Director, Conceiver and Co-Writer

Moisés Kaufman‘s Broadway credits include Paradise Square (10 Tony Award nominations), the revival of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song, Rajiv Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo with Robin Williams, the revival of The Heiress starring Jessica Chastain, 33 Variations starring Jane Fonda (Tony Award nomination for Best Play), and Doug Wright’s I Am My Own Wife (Obie Award and Tony, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award and Lucille Lortel Award nominations). West End: Gross Indecency, I Am My Own Wife, This Is How It Goes. Off-Broadway / Regional: Here There Are Blueberries (Tectonic Theater Project/La Jolla Playhouse), Seven Deadly Sins (Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience, Tectonic Theater Project/Madison Wells Live), One Arm by Tennessee Williams (Tectonic Theater Project/The New Group); The Laramie Project (writer/director; Theater in the Square, Drama Desk nomination); The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later (writer/director; Alice Tully Hall); Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde (writer/director; Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play, Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Play and the Joe A. Callaway Award for Direction); Macbeth with Liev Schreiber (Delacorte Theater); Master Class with Rita Moreno (Berkeley Repertory Theatre). Opera: El Gato Con Botas (New Victory Theater). Film/TV: “The Laramie Project” (HBO; two Emmy nominations for writing and directing, Opening Night Selection at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, National Board of Review Award, the Humanitas Prize); “The L Word.” Kaufman is the Artistic Director of Tectonic Theater Project, a Guggenheim Fellow in Playwriting, and an Obie Award and Lucille Lortel Award winner. In 2015, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama, which he accepted in a ceremony at the White House.

Amanda Gronich / Co-Writer

Amanda Gronich has devoted her career to bringing true stories to the stage and screen. An Emmy-nominated scriptwriter, she created dozens of hours of top-rated series and specials for non-fiction broadcast networks, including NatGeo, Discovery Channel, History Channel, WeTV, Animal Planet and Science Channel. Over a ten-year career in television, she worked as a lead series writer for National Geographic Television and became the Supervising Senior Writer at Hoff Productions. Prior to this, Ms. Gronich was a charter member of Tectonic Theater Project, where she directed the company’s Toronto production of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and was one of the group of artists who traveled to Wyoming and co-created The Laramie Project, later made into an HBO film. Currently, she works as a playwright and a script development consultant in theater and documentary television. She also teaches interview-based storytelling as a Lead Teaching Artist at the Moment Work Institute, using techniques she developed as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Graduate Program in Educational Theatre, City College New York. She is at work founding a non-fiction play development institute. In addition, a book about her original play-devising methods will be released by SIU Press.

Derek McLane / Scenic Design

NYTW: Traps. BROADWAY: MJ the Musical, Moulin Rouge!, Purlie Victorious, A Soldier’s Play, Beautiful, The Parisian Woman, The Price, Noises Off, Fully Committed. Off Broadway: Black No More, Merrily We Roll Along, The True, Jerry Springer: The Opera, If I Forget, The Whirligig, Into The Woods, Love, Love, Love, Sweet Charity The Voltaire Theatre at the Venetian. 

Dede Ayite / Costume Design

NYTW: Slave Play. Two-time Tony nominated. Opera: X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X (Metropolitan Opera). Select Broadway: Days of Wine and Roses, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, Appropriate, Topdog/Underdog and Slave Play. Select Off-Broadway: Hell’s Kitchen, Merry Wives (The Public Theater), Buena Vista Social Club (The Atlantic). 

David Lander / Lighting Design

NYTW: Restoration, Top Secret (Set and Lighting), Aftermath, Beast, Liberty City, All That I Will Ever Be, Bach At Liepzig, Dirty Blonde. Broadway: Torch Song, The Heiress, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, 33 Variations, I Am My Own Wife among others. Extensive Off-Broadway, Regional Theater and International Theatre & Opera. Two Tony Nominations, Five Drama Desks-One win. 

Bobby McElver / Sound Design

NYTW: Hadestown (Associate), Red Speedo (Associate). Off-Broadway: AFTER (The Public Theater). Recent: NOWISWHENWEARE (BAM, Walker, NYU Abu Dhabi), The Other Shore (On the Boards), Here There Are Blueberries (Shakespeare Theatre Co, La Jolla Playhouse), Circular Dimensions: Microscape (Coachella). Professor at UC San Diego Theatre & Dance. 

David Bengali / Projection Design

NYTW Debut. Broadway: Water for Elephants,The Thanksgiving Play; 1776;Off-Broadway: Walk on Through(MCC),Twilight: LA 1992 (Signature-Henry Hewes Award, Drama Desk Nom); Without You (New World Stages); Monsoon Wedding (St. Ann’s Warehouse); The Visitor (The Public-Lortel Nom); Circle Jerk (Fake Friends-Obie Award, Drama League Nom.); Einstein’s Dreams(59E59 -Drama Desk Nom); Van Gogh’s Ear (ERC – Drama Desk Nom); National Tours: Peter Pan, 1776; Rockin‘ Road To Dublin. MFA: NYU 

Ann James / Intimacy Coordinator & Sensitivity Specialist

Ann C. James made her debut as the first Black Intimacy Coordinator on Broadway for Pass Over. Her Broadway credits include: LEMPICKA, HAMILTON, PARADE (Tony Award 2023 for Best Revival) SWEENEY TODD, HEART OF ROCK AND ROLL, THE OUTSIDERS, JELLY’S LAST JAM. Her Off-Broadway credit include: SUNSET BABY, JONAH, WHITE GIRL IN DANGER, HOW TO DEFEND YOURSELF, THE COMEUPPANCE, EVANSTON SALT COSTS CLIMBING, THE HALF-GOD OF RAINFALL, MY BROKEN LANGUAGE, SEVEN DEADLY SINS, SEIZE THE KING, TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES 1992, CONFEDERATES. James’ company, Intimacy Coordinators of Color was just awarded a Special Citation from the OBIE Awards and The American Theatre Wing. She has directed at Joe’s Pub, The Public Theatre of San Antonio and The National Queer Theatre. In 2023 she made her New York producing debut with HARRIET HOLLAND SOCIAL CLUB… (The Movement Theatre Company). She is also an Affiliate member of the Broadway League, a member of the Tectonic Theatre Project and serves on the board of The Acting Company. James has partnerships with The Juilliard School, Fordham University, Adelphi University, New York University, Columbia University, American Conservatory Theater, Brown University, Trinity Repertory Theater, A.R.T./New York, and The American Repertory Theater at Harvard. Her upcoming work includes ORLANDO (Signature Theatre), HERE THERE ARE BLUEBERRIES (New York Theatre Workshop) and SASHA VELOUR ROAD SHOW (La Jolla). 

Amy Marie Seidel / Associate Director & Dramaturg

Broadway: The Great Gatsby, Paradise Square. Other: Here There Are Blueberries (La Jolla Playhouse & Shakespeare Theatre Company), Seven Deadly Sins (Drama Desk Award), A Clean Slate (The Tank), Eternal Flamer (The Wild Project), A Sacred Song of Thebes (Irondale). Proud Tectonic Theater Project company member. amymarieseidel.com

Stephanie Yankwitt / Casting

Stephanie Yankwitt, tbd casting co. (she/her). tbd casting co. is the resident casting office for Tectonic Theater Project, and has cast multiple developmental workshops, readings, and all previous productions of Here There Are Blueberries. Additionally, with Tectonic, tbd co. has cast Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard, and will soon begin work on The Sasha Velour Project, both helmed by Moisés Kaufman. As the resident casting office for Soho Rep, tbd casting co. has cast productions including Obie Award-winning Public Obscenities and Wolf Play and Pulitzer Prize-winning Fairview, among many others. Select Film/TV credits include In the Summers (Lexicon/Exile, 2024 Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winner), ReEntry (PlotNaut, 2024 release), and “Growing Up” (Disney +/ Culture House). Select Broadway: Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. Regional theatre work includes ongoing casting for La Jolla Playhouse, TheaterWorks Hartford, and Long Wharf Theatre. tbdcastingco.com @tbdcastingco 

Jacob Russell / Stage Manager

JACOB RUSSELL (Stage Manager) is a creative multi-disciplinary theatrical Stage Manager and so grateful to the Tectonic family to be the PSM of Here There Are Blueberries at NYTW, after having been the Assistant Stage Manager at La Jolla Playhouse & Shakespeare Theatre Company. Jacob is also a company member with Krymov Lab NYC and has served as Production Supervisor and Production Stage Manager on Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin: In Our Own Words (Under the Radar) & Big Trip (La MaMa). Select theatre stage management credits, NYC: Good Vibrations (Irish Arts Center), The Essential Straight and Narrow (The Mad Ones), The Library (The Public Theater). Regional theatre: to the yellow house, Kiss My Aztec!, The Who’s Tommy benefit concert (La Jolla Playhouse), David Mamet’s The Christopher Boy’s Reunion (Odyssey Theatre), Lisa D’Amour’s Mad Moon (The NOLA Project), This Random World (Actors Theatre of Louisville). Dance: Production Stage Managing Pilobolus’s Big FIVE-OH! Tour internationally and nationally, Jean Butler’s What We Hold (Irish Arts Center), Ashley Chen/Kashyl (La MaMa). Other credits, Dave Harris’s Cat Sitter (1st AD/Oregon Shakespeare Festival), SummerFest ’18 (La Jolla Music Society). I aspire to approach every process with equanimity, vulnerability, and a commitment to anti-racist stage management. M.F.A.: University California San Diego. 

Gillian Lelchuk / Assistant Stage Manager

NYTW debut. Regional: Here There are Blueberries (La Jolla Playhouse); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Portland Center Stage); The Sound of Music (Musical Theatre West). Other selected work: Newsies (Theatre Lab), Daddy Long Legs (Monumental Theatre Company), A People’s History with Mike Daisy (Capital Fringe Festival). MFA from UC San Diego. 

NEWS

The Chilling Truth Pictured in "Here There Are Blueberries"

THE NEW YORKER

In Here There Are Blueberries, a central concern of the play is what it means to look at the mundane when, somewhere just beyond the frame, there’s a massacre afoot. Read Vinson Cunningham’s thoughts on the production in The New Yorker.

Interview with Moisés Kaufman & Amanda Gronich

THEATERMANIA

Here There Are Blueberries is a story of not only the people in pictures, but what is happening outside the frame. Dig deeper with Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich to get details on lifting up the real-life archivists in the story.

New York Theatre Workshop strives to be both an active producing theatre, engaging in an ongoing conversation with our audiences, and a nurturing workshop, providing off-stage support to a diverse community of artists. Our workshop activities are designed to provide artists a space to experiment and are not open to the public. However, the development of the work we share with our audiences is an important part of the conversation around each production. To that end, we include information on the piece’s provenance, or beginnings, in our programs.

In 1991, Moisés Kaufman became an NYTW Usual Suspect and co-founded Tectonic Theater Project, creating work through a rigorous process of research and collaboration in a laboratory environment. Among the first company members was fellow NYC student, actor and playwright Amanda Gronich.

In 2007, Moisés read the New York Times article “In the Shadow of Horror, SS Guardians Frolic,” detailing the discovery of a previously unknown album of photos from Auschwitz. He contacted Holocaust historian and author Rebecca Erbelding to learn more. From their conversations, the theatrical seeds of Here There Are Blueberries blossomed.

From 2016 to 2018, Moisés, Amanda and the Members of Tectonic explored the theatrical potential of Erbelding’s story and the Höcker Album artifact through a series of workshops and readings. In 2018 the first hour of material was staged at Miami New Drama. Longtime company members Scott Barrow and Grant Varjas (members of the current cast) joined the project as devisors.

In April 2019, Moisés, Amanda, dramaturg Amy Marie Seidel, and Tectonic Executive Director Matt Joslyn traveled to Poland and Germany to visit the sites in the album and interview descendants of Nazis photographed within. That summer, Tectonic continued with devising workshops utilizing their signature “Moment Work” method to explore and expand narrative possibilities. By fall, the piece was presented in readings with FASPE (Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics) and the German Consulate. In March of 2020, NYTW hosted a reading of the piece. Throughout the COVID-19 shutdown, Moisés, Amanda, Amy, Matt, Scott and Grant worked together on Zoom to develop the script.

The world premiere production at La Jolla Playhouse in the summer of 2022 was created in a collaborative, laboratory setting. The rehearsal room engaged the full creative team from day one to integrate design the narrative. David Lander, David Bengali, Derek McLane, Bobby McElver and Dede Ayite each made contributions to the overall creation of the production as co-devisors of the piece. Patricia McGregor saw the play in La Jolla just before becoming NYTW’s Artistic Director. In May 2023, it traveled to Washington D.C’s Shakespeare Theatre Company. The company has continued to refine the piece in advance of the New York production.

Here There Are Blueberries was originally commissioned and developed by Tectonic Theater Project (Moisés Kaufman, Artistic Director & Matt Joslyn, Executive Director).

Here There Are Blueberries is the winner of the 2021 Theater J Trish Vradenburg Jewish Play Prize (Adam Immerwahr, Artistic Director & David Lloyd Olson, Managing Director).

The play had its first workshop production at Miami New Drama’s Colony Theater, Miami Beach, May, 2018.

The World Premiere of Here There Are Blueberries was produced in 2022 by La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla, California (Christopher Ashley, Artistic Director & Debby Buchholz, Managing Director).