The Empty Shell of War, Premiere Reading of New Play
The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, and Yale's Program in Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, invites you to the premiere reading of Andrei Kureichik’s new play The Empty Shell of War.
The play, featuring performance by Rachel Botchan and D. Zisl Slepovitch, is directed by Shilarna Stokes.
When: January 19, 2025
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: Slifka Center, Yale University
Registration requested in advance. Please click on this link to register.
About the Play
The Empty Shell of War offers a gripping exploration of war’s psychological scars. This monodrama follows the journey of a young Jewish girl from a Belarusian shtetl, surviving unimaginable horrors during World War II. Grounded in authentic testimonies from Belarusian survivors of the Holocaust archived at the Fortunoff Video Archive, the play reveals stories of courage, compassion, and survival. The play is a response to the policy of Holocaust denial pursued by Lukashenko's dictatorial regime in Belarus. This will be the world premiere of the play.
About the Playwright
Andrei Kureichik is a renowned Belarusian playwright, director, and publicist living in exile. Author of over 30 plays performed globally, his works include the groundbreaking Insulted.Belarus, a centerpiece of the global theater solidarity movement. His plays have been translated into 39 languages and honored with awards like the 2023 Best Foreign Play of the Season in Los Angeles and the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Speech. A Yale World Fellow, Fortunoff Fellow and Lecturer, Kureichik also teaches “Art and Resistance” at Yale University.
CREATIVE TEAM
D. ZISL SLEPOVITCH (composer, woodwinds, sound design) is a native of Minsk, Belarus, a New Yorker since 2008. He is a Jewish music scholar (Ph.D., Belarusian State Academy of Music), composer, a multi-instrumentalist klezmer, classical, and improvisational musician (woodwinds, keyboards, vocals); a music and Yiddish educator. Slepovitch is a founding member of the critically acclaimed groups Litvakus and Zisl Slepovitch Ensemble, a regular contributor to the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, a Musician-in-Residence at Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, a pianist and music coordinator at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York. Slepovitch’s credits include “Defiance" movie, "Eternal Echoes” album (Sony Classical), “Rejoice" with Itzhak Perlman and Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot (PBS), and “Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish" (off-Broadway).
SHILARNA STOKES is a Senior Lecturer and Associate Research Scholar in the program of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at Yale. She has directed over thirty plays and musicals in theaters throughout the United States, and has received numerous awards, residencies, and fellowships for her directing work. Her current book project, “Playing the Crowd: Mass Pageantry in Europe and the United States,” examines large-scale political pageants performed in England, the US, Russia, France, and Germany. She is a graduate of Yale (BA in Theater Studies and Comparative Literature), Columbia University School of the Arts (MFA in Directing), and the Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (PhD in Theatre).
RACHEL BOTCHAN is an award-winning performer with extensive Off-Broadway and regional theater experience and a variety of stage, TV and film credits, She is known for her dynamic range and transformative portrayals. She is an award-winning audio book narrator with many titles for Recorded Books and Audible. She is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts where she received the Seidman Award for excellence in Drama.
PANEL DISCUSSION
Following the performance, a Q&A and Panel Discussion exploring the play’s themes and historical context will be led by scholar of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vesta Svendsen (Brown University).