The production, by James Still, is a multi-media performance with live sound bytes and videos from the actual Holocaust survivors portrayed in the play as well as real video footage from the time period.
In addition to the performance, the lobby will feature many items of interest to the audience. A collection of Holocaust memorabilia from local historian Ronda Hassig will be on display in the Art Gallery.
Students in the Advanced Drama class are displaying research on groups of oppressed peoples and plays that have been written to speak up for those groups, much like how “And Then They Came for Me” speaks for victims and survivors of the Holocaust.
Students in Jon Barnes’ Government and Current Events classes, after reading and listening to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” wrote “A Letter From a Fort Scott Classroom” about a time in their lives that they felt discriminated against.
Many of these letters will be available to read.
The Technical Theatre class also built white models of set designs for the play that are on display.
Cast and crew members of the play were educated about the real lives of their characters through research and a presentation by Hassig. Hassig has personally visited sixty concentration camps and she shared her knowledge and photos with the students to help them better understand their characters and the world of the play.
Senior Kaiden Clary plays one of the Holocaust survivors, “Performing Young Ed gave me a chance to look into how a Jewish person was treated during WWll, how this person had to hide from SS guards to even be with his grandparents, how he had to try to escape time and time again. After learning about and discussing him, it is hard to believe that people actually had to go through many of these things, especially not seeing his parents for almost four years.”
Tickets for “And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the Life of Anne Frank” are $5 for students and $7 for adults and available at fortscotthighschool.ludus.
The play is directed by FSHS Theatre Director Angie Bin with Mesa Jones serving as Assistant Director. It is produced by special arrangement with The Dramatic Publishing Company of Woodstock, Illinois.
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Who exactly are these “oppressed people”?
Gross
there are so many oppressed people are you serious? The play was about the Jewish people during the Holocaust but we have Blacks, Women, LGBQ, Hispanics, disabled, mentally and physically handicapped, non-christians are oppressed too…I suppose if you are a white man you don’t know what it means to be oppressed but you need to try to find some empathy for those that are!