For Immediate Release
How To Live to Have World Premiere at the 14th Street Y
Limited Engagement runs January 25 – 29, part of LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture
Mindy Pfeffer’s thought provoking new play How To Live is slated to have its World Premiere at the 14th Street Y in the East Village in January 2023. The timely production is directed by Jean Randich and is part the 14th Street Y’s LABA (A Laboratory for Jewish Culture), a NYC-based artist fellowship program for which Pfeffer was a part of in 2021. How To Live runs January 25 – 29 with opening night scheduled for January 25.
Poland, 1941: a young Jewish girl watches in horror as her father is brutally beaten by German soldiers. He makes her swear to keep silent. The next day, he also chooses silence. He stops speaking and spends a year reading Shakespeare. Postwar, the girl, Maria Pfeffer Orwid, becomes one of Poland’s leading psychiatrists and finds herself face to face with a man who worked as a doctor at Auschwitz – a man who believes that what he did to survive the war is unconscionable. How to Live is a meditation on grief, courage and in choosing life after insurmountable odds. Inspired by actual events.
The beginnings of the play started in 2011 when Pfeffer was in Poland teaching and performing puppetry and theatre with the organization NYC Kids Project. While in Krakow, she visited the Old Jewish Cemetery and saw Maria Pfeffer Orwid’s grave. She knew very little about the history of the Pfeffer side of her family, other than they were immigrants who moved to Brooklyn. It was then a spark was born and she started to research Maria’s story, a story that has stayed with her since. During the pandemic, Pfeffer took an online playwriting class with Marsha Norman and wrote the scene of Maria Orwid seeing her father being beaten by the Nazis, and at that point knew she had to write about Maria. Pfeffer grew up knowing she wanted to be an actress and tell stories. “From a young age storytelling was a part of my life’s fabric. My family told stories of every kind including those of my older relatives, growing up during and after WWII.” Pfeffer, who is a distant cousin to Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel on her maternal side, went on to share,
“I had never met Mr. Wiesel. Growing up it was an interesting fact. I liked that I was related to someone famous, and that I knew some of the family history but it never really seemed tangible.” She went on to say, “One of his books is dedicated to “Dodye Feig,” a Hasidic rebbe (rabbi), his grandfather, my great-great grandfather. I read the book and dedication in college, and it struck me like a lightbulb! It made me realize that the stories Mr. Wiesel told were much more a part of me than I previously thought. My living, breathing relatives (including a great-aunt who survived Auschwitz) were connected to these stories in a way I could barely comprehend.” She continued, “I started writing plays later in life and always knew I wanted to tell stories of the Holocaust. It didn’t feel right, somehow, to tell my own family’s story and then I saw Maria Pfeffer Orwid’s grave. I still don’t know if I’m related to her, but I hope to find out someday.”
The cast features Christine Bruno (Public Servant/Off-Broadway), Danielle Delgado (Life Is A Dream (1677)/La MaMa), James Hallett (The Diary of Anne Frank/Broadway), and Jacqueline McCarthy (American Dynasty The DuPonts/Roku).
The creative team includes lighting design by Samuel J. Biondolillo, sound design by Robert Murphy, scenic and projection design by Sue Rees, costume design by Charles Schoonmaker.
How To Live runs January 25 – 29 with performances Wednesday – Saturday @ 7:30pm, and Sunday @ 2pm. Running time: 75 minutes. The Theater at the 14th Street Y is located at 344 East 14th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues), New York, NY 10003. Subway: L train to 1st Avenue.
LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture is a program of the 14th Street Y that uses classic Jewish texts to inspire the creation of art, dialogue and study. Part of LABA is the House of Study, a NYC-based artist fellowship program in which approximately 10 culture-makers–a mix of visual artists, writers, dancers, musicians, actors and others–are brought together to study classic Jewish texts in a non-religious, open-minded setting. www.14streety.org/artsandculture/laba
14th Street Y
How To Live
By Mindy Pfeffer
Directed by Jean Randich
14th Street Y, January 25 – 29, 2023 @ 7:30pm