Six Points Theater has brought back Wendy Kout's play Survivors after a successful run about this time last year. Only three public performances are scheduled in Six Point's home base theater at Highland Park Community Center in St. Paul. The remaining performances of this production will be presented at area schools, churches, synagogues and senior residences, bringing this urgent story of ten survivors of the Nazi Holocaust directly to audiences who might not make it to the theater and who remain in community afterward to discuss the play it and what it means for them in 2025.

Survivors was commissioned by CenterStage Theatre in Rochester, New York, with development beginning in 2018. It has been produced as a touring show, similar to Six Points' run, in and around Rochester, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Victoria, BC. While there have been numerous dramatic presentations of the trauma, and in some cases, ultimate renewal of body and spirit, among Jews and others victimized by the Third Reich, Survivors uniquely weaves together diverse stories, each taking a different course to underscore the wide range of journeys taken by the millions who died in the Holocaust and the much smaller number who survived its terror.

Because we know by the play's title that the ten individuals portrayed by a talented cast of six actors are among those survivors, Kout's one-act play offers the assurance, as we get to know each of them before the onset of their nightmare, that we will see them through to the other side. This does not mean, however, that we won't suffer along with them and feel their grief as they lose family members and friends less fortunate than they. The ten start out in different homelands (Germany, Austria, Poland), another way of showing the diversity of their stories. One family moves to Italy where things are better for the Jews–until they aren't.

In being introduced to each survivor as a young person we learn of their interests and aspirations–to be a great violinist, a sports photographer, a fashion designer, an engineer–and pastimes shared with friends, both Jewish and not. Each experiences, in a different way, the shift in their gentile friends' attitudes, restrictions on their freedom of movement and association, banishment from schools, their fathers' loss of employment, and other ways in which life begins slipping away. One survivor, Evie, did not know she was Jewish–her parents, to protect her, raised her as a Christian–and explodes in anger upon learning that she is one of "them." We travel with them, variously stepping out of cattle cars into a camp where they are torn from their family, into the swarm of the Warsaw ghetto, joining bands of partisans living in the woods, or being secreted in hiding places by brave and compassionate gentiles.

Because the play was created, at least in part, to serve an educational mission, it crams in a lot of information, sometimes at the expense of dramatic fluidity. This includes Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass); the Kindertransport that saved 10,000 Jewish children by shipping them off to the United Kingdom; the fact that 32 free nations–including France, the UK, and the United States–restricted access to Jews trying to flee Germany; that not only Jews, but other groups branded as non-Aryan or undesirable (Blacks, gays, Roma, Catholics, communists) were victims of the Holocaust; the hideous "experiments" conducted by Dr. Mengele; and the 375,000 souls who survived concentration camps only to perish on forced death marches, the Nazi's attempt to conceal the evidence of genocide when they realized they were about to go down in defeat.

What Survivors may lack in dramatic fluidity as well as coherence, as it is difficult to keep track of each individual's story–names and numbers of siblings, thwarted aspirations, and such–it makes up for in its composite presentation of the breadth and depth of the Holocaust, its complexity as a system affecting every aspect of life, its unthinkable cruelty and barbarism, and the numerous ways in which its victims experienced it. It also delivers a positive outcome from these ten individuals and their fellow survivors, extolling a message of hope and testifying to finding the strength and vision to rebuild their lives, raise families, and live to advanced ages. That this play pays tribute to those who survived does not diminish the tragedy of the millions who perished.

Director Warren C. Bowles gives the production as smooth a flow as one might hope for, gliding from one plot thread to another, as actors seamlessly abandon their character to serve as ensemble members in another character's story. The play is appropriately enacted on a bare stage, with only a pile of beat-up suitcases to mark it as a chronicle of arduous journeys. Eleanor Schanilec's costume design makes effective use of simple elements to distinguish between characters and settings, and Todd M. Reemtsma's lighting design reenforces the emotional tones as they are played out.

All six actors are excellent, articulate and affecting throughout as they shift from their one or two primary characters to ensemble members, becoming a guard, a survivor's sibling or parent, a young student taunting her Jewish schoolmate, and others. They are Kevin Brown, Jr., Zach Christensen, Eliana Meyerowitz,, Anya Naylor, Michael Quadrozzi, and Charleigh Wolf. My kudos to all. The actors are racially diverse, underscoring the diversity of the survivors' backgrounds, even as all are Jews. The actors are also young, as are these survivors in the time frame of the play.

Early in The Survivors, before the Third Reich has been established, a character cautions against the rising political figure, Adolph Hitler, who seems bent on subverting democracy. Another character retorts not to worry, that Hitler's aims require German citizens to vote for his agenda and that nobody would vote to end democracy. The Survivors, in addition to being chilling theater, is an important reminder that, in fact, that is what people voted for–many, no doubt, not knowing that would be the result of the ballot they cast.

With growing numbers of Holocaust deniers, this chronicle of its torturous truth is essential. With democracy only as safe as those in whose hands we entrust it, The Survivors is more than a history lesson. Six Points Theater does a great service in bringing the play, not only to those fortunate enough to attend its three public performances, but also to far corners of the community.

Survivors runs through January 26, 2025 at Six Points Theater, the Highland Park Community Center, 1978 Ford Parkway, Saint Paul MN. For tickets and information, please visit www.sixpointstheater.org or call call 651-647-4315. The production will also tour locally at schools, churches, synagogues and senior residence facilities.

Playwright: Wendy Kout; Director: Warren C. Bowles; Costume Design: Eleanor Schanilec; Lighting Design: Todd M. Reemtsma; Sound Design: Anita Kelling; Properties Design: Rick Polenek; Stage Manager: Scott Gilbert; Assistant Stage Manager: Becca Kravchenko.

Cast: Kevin Brown, Jr. (Arthur Herz/Henry Silberstern/ensemble), Zach Christensen (Kurt Weinbach/Erich Arndt/ensemble), Eliana Meyerowitz (Ellen Lewinsky/ensemble), Anya Naylor (Rosemarie Marianthal/Helen Przysuskier/ensemble), Michael Quadrozzi (Carl Voldman/ensemble), Charleigh Wolf (Evie Schuerman/Eva Vezer),