Having a website for a play like this is very beneficial. We used online resources when we worked on productions of
The Laramie Project and
The Diary of Anne Frank,
and they proved to be helpful throughout the process. For
Letters to Sala, our primary source of information beyond the script has been Anne Kirschner's book,
Sala's Gift. I purchased several copies and made them available to the cast and crew. (And since the day that I put them out, I have not seen any of them. The students are reading the book, referring to it in rehearsals, and passing it on to one another!) I was also able to get a copy of The New York Public Library's book about the exhibition, much of which is taken from
Sala's Gift, but which focuses heavily on the socio-political world in which the Garncarz family lived and the work camps existed.
Letters to Sala has the built-in challenge of distinguishing between the Nazi Concentration Camps, which the students know so much about through their history classes, and the Work Camps, for which they have little frame of reference. To that end, we are using The US Holocaust Museum website. They have Survivor stories, in audio and video format. Is there a way to post links to those that might be pertinent to the play's content?
We have developed exercise to create connections between the cast and the characters. For example, writing letters, so important in the play, is a lost art to many teenagers whose lives consist of texts and tweets. So we developed a workshop around the act of writing a letter or card in longhand. Soliciting activities and suggestions from teachers/directors who are working on a production might be a way to build a library of ideas that help to engage students.
Half the script is about the relationships among the three generations of the Kirschner family. It's important to address these modern scenes on any website. Prior to reading the script, I thought, based on comments that I'd read about
Letters to Sala, that it all took place in the camps. We are working in rehearsal to create "recognizable and relatable" family dynamics.
There are two issues I've found regarding online resources for any play and for docudramas in particular. They can become a one-stop shopping experience. Students don't need to dig as much. And it's in the digging that they sometimes discover really interesting and influential bits of information. A website that becomes "the definitive resource" almost makes research too easy.
The other challenge is that I want the students to develop their own characters based on the script. Interviews and images/videos from other productions can interfere with an actor's ability to be creative. I've found that if a student sees another production or watches an interview with a person who they are playing in a production, he tends to think of that as the only way to play that person. I remind my students all the time that they were cast in these roles because they demonstrated something in the audition process that felt right for a character. It is what they can bring to a production, from their own understanding and experience, that differentiates this version of the play from another school's performances.
In short, for me, a website has value if it can help to focus a production by guiding directors/actors to elements that are critical to telling the story, provide links to other resources that encourage deeper exploration, and create opportunities for a group to creatively explore the play.
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Michael Bergman
Teacher/Director
The Potomac School
McLean, VA
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-10-2017 14:45
From: Arlene Hutton
Subject: advice on website resources
I'm looking for advice on what website resources would be helpful to teachers and students producing and/or studying the Holocaust story LETTERS TO SALA, published by Dramatists Play Service. A team of us, including Sala's daughter Ann Kirschner, who wrote the book the play is based on, and Jill Vexler, who curated the original exhibition of letters at the New York Public Library along with director Eric Nightengale who has staged the play in different venues, are creating a website.
What webpages would be of most use to high school directors and their students? An historical timeline? Links to articles? Photos of the real people the characters are based on? Ideas for music? Image boards from a costume designer? Set and costume renderings from other productions? Production photos? ideas on staging? Suggestions for doubling? A downloadable pdf of the exhibition that can be printed as a lobby display?
Would a shorter version of the play would be helpful? A 55-minute classroom-length version? A 40-minute version for contests?
Many thanks to the schools who have presented LETTERS TO SALA and thanks to those of you who have reached out to Ann and me. it would be fun to post photos of school productions on the website, so feel free to send to arlene [at] barrowgroup.org.
And, it's appropriate that I'm writing this today, just hours before heading to a Passover seder with Sala and her family. As always, we'll talk about the productions we've heard about. It means a lot to Sala.
Thanks in advance for your help and suggestions.
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Arlene Hutton
The Barrow Group
New York, NY
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