Play highlights how children are used as shields of war, how young women are treated as expendable.

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES, February 17, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Hitler’s Tasters playwright Michelle Kholos Brooks, along with the cast and director from New Light Theatre Project’s original production, will share excerpts from the play during a special Moment Magazine zoominar on Tuesday, February 23, 4:30-6 p.m.

The event will include conversations between Kholos Brooks and Holocaust historian and author Gavriel D. Rosenfeld.

Inspired by true events, the play follows a group of young women who have the ‘opportunity’ to die for their country every day as Adolf Hitler’s food tasters. The astonishing story only came to light in 2013; Kholos Brooks was immediately drawn to it.

“This story triggered every button of concern for me,” she says. “How children are used as shields of war, and how young women in particular are treated as expendable. Not to mention how difficult it is to navigate adolescence, let alone during wartime.

She says she was taken with the way these girls were seen as expendable, which is still common today.

The clothing the girls wear is historically accurate, but Kholos Brooks didn’t want this to be some ‘sepia toned, long ago’ story. The girls dance to modern music and take selfies as they navigate the topics of sexuality and patriotism. In between, they eat meals and wait to see if they will be poisoned. “It is a powerful look at young people in extraordinary circumstances,” she says.

Beyond that, it is also a look at what can happen when people are complacent and unquestioning.

"In an era of political deceit, post-truth, and mass gullibility,
Hitler's Tasters provocatively examines why people cease to think for
themselves and willingly obey authority,” says Rosenfeld. “It offers a timely message for present-day American life."

The play is written, directed and acted by women. It is the winner of the Susan Glaspell award and was named one of the top ten productions of the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe by Stage Magazine.

The free virtual program is part of the 2021 Moment Theater Festival. Register here.

Moment is an independent magazine that through its award-winning journalism, cultural and literary criticism and signature “Big Questions” provides a unique lens on the issues that concern and inspire American Jews. Founded in 1975 by Elie Wiesel and Leonard Fein, it has been led by Nadine Epstein since 2004.

For more information, contact Pat Lewis, plewis@momentmag.com, cell 703.201.5070.

pat lewis
Moment
+1 703-201-5070
email us here