LAFPI

Antaeus Theatre Company presents the world premiere of Eight Nights, a story developed in the Antaeus Playwrights Lab that honors the global refugee experience. Written by Jennifer Maisel and directed by Emily Chase

Set during eight different nights of Chanukah over the course of eight decades, Eight Nights tells the story of Holocaust survivor Rebecca Blum, who arrives in America at age 19 to forge a new life. As Rebecca moves through time, the play explores the lives that come and go in her New York apartment, where ghosts of the past both haunt and guide her. Maisel lyrically weaves together heart-aching moments with life-affirming humor to call out the trauma experienced not only by concentration camp survivors, but by African American descendants of slavery, by interned Japanese Americans, and by current victims of war in Africa and the Middle East.

The role of Rebecca is shared by Zoe Yale (young Rebecca, 1949-1978) and Tessa Auberjonois (older Rebecca, 1988-2016). Also in the cast are Arye Gross as Rebecca’s father, Josh Zuckerman as Rebecca’s American husband; Devin Kawaoka as the Japanese-American boyfriend of Rebecca’s daughter, whose parents were interned during World War II; Christopher Watson as the African American soldier who liberated Rebecca from Dachau; and Karen Malina White as Rebecca’s business partner. Most of the actors also play several additional roles.

Although Antaeus has presented new work in the past, this is only the second full production of a play developed in the company’s Playwrights Lab; the first, the company’s production of the Lab-developed The Abuelas by Stephanie Alison Walker, opens three weeks earlier, on Oct. 11, and will run through Nov. 25. A rotating performance schedule is set for the weeks during which the two productions overlap. The two plays share similar themes: questions of family, identity, and of the repercussions of a political dictatorship on personal lives.

Previews: Oct. 31 – Nov. 7
Performances begin Nov. 8
• Fridays at 8 p.m. (dark Nov. 15)
• Saturdays at 8 p.m. (dark Nov. 16)
• Sundays at 2 p.m. (dark Nov, 10, Nov. 24)
• Mondays at 8 p.m. (dark Nov. 11, Nov. 25)

PARKING:
First 90 minutes free, then $2 per hour in Glendale Marketplace garage located at 120 S. Artsakh Ave. (between Broadway and Harvard)

INFO:
(818) 506-1983 or www.Antaeus.org
• Join us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AntaeusTheater
• Follow us on Twitter: @AntaeusTheatre