Searching for a New Sunrise
by Robin Rice
What do we do when the past refuses to let the present move into the future? Five contemporary women find themselves bound in varying degrees to what happened to Eastern European Jews during World War II. Four of the women are second- and third-generation descendants of Holocaust victims. The fifth is a survivor herself. The protagonist in the play is losing her sense of identity in a debilitating way. She needs to know details of what happened to the survivor, her grandmother, or all will be lost. In desperation she reaches out to strangers and the stories unfold, the secrets are revealed. With varying degrees of success, the past is confronted and dealt with. Based on true stories and extensive interviews.
- Cast Size: 5W
- Running Time: 90+ minutes
- Royalty Rate: $75 per performance
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About the Playwright
www.RobinRicePlaywright.com
https://newplayexchange.org/users/707/robin-rice
Author of over 100 works for the stage (24 full length plays ). Productions worldwide, from Off-Broadway to London, Mongolia to Australia.
Some Producers: NYC – American Bard, New Georges, Emerging Artists, HERE, Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, Nylon Fusion, Articulate. Others – State Theatre of Mongolia, Finborough + Lord Stanley (London), 3Fates (South Africa), OneHeart (Berlin), NJ Rep., Teatro del Pueblo (Minneapolis), MadLab (OH), Bailiwick (Chicago), Looking for Lilith (Louisville), Bloomington (IN), Alleyway (Buffalo), BareBones (NC), Two Trees + Flush Ink (Canada), Texas A&M (at Kennedy Center).
Honors include: StageWrite, Mazumdar, Shiner, Karamu House, Moondance, Perishable, Drury, Finborough, Kernodle, Phoenix, Goshen Peace Play, O’Neill (semi-final), Smith, Barrington, Reverie, Chambers, Kitchen Dog.
Publishers include: Samuel French, Next Stage Press, Original Works, Blue Moon.
Some Residencies: Lark, Cleveland Public, Will Geer, Phoenix, Sarah Lawrence, Metropolitan Ensemble, Great Plains, Last Frontier.
Membership: Dramatists Guild, League of Professional Theatre Women, International Centre for Women Playwrights, Manhattan Oracles, 29th Street Collective, New Amsterdam, Shop Talk, Honor Roll!,
Represented by: Antonia Brancati for Italian productions.
Education: Williams, Antioch, McGregor, Ramapo, University of Massachusetts (undergraduate/graduate degrees in playwriting, political science, fine art).
Robin Rice has given us a superbly theatrical exploration of the generational effects of holocaust survivorship. There is so much here. PTSD, survivor’s guilt, the need to talk about it, the need NOT to talk about it, the need to KNOW, the fear of connection, the fear of betrayal, and, most heartbreaking perhaps, the test before accepting a friendship: if it meant death to you as well as to me, “would you hide me”? That story needs to be told, and this play needs to be produced. Everywhere.
Review Searching for a New Sunrise.