Kansas City Actors Theatre (KCAT), a professional repertory theater company performing at City Stage in Union Station, announces the world premiere of “Four Children,” opening Thursday, October 7 for three weeks.
An emotionally charged theatrical event, “Four Children” presents the first-person accounts of four budding young writers who lived during the Holocaust and genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, and Sarajevo. Their voices remind us that, without vigilance, tragedies like the ones they experienced can happen anywhere, anytime.
“When officials at Union Station first planned on hosting the world-renowned exhibit ‘Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away,’ they reached out to KCAT about programming something that would expand on the same themes and stories,” explained KCAT Artistic Committee chair John Rensenhouse. “Working with Theater League founder Mark Edelman — whose mother was a Holocaust survivor — we came up with this important new work.”
“Four Children” features excerpts from the diary of Dawid Sierakowiak found in the post-World War II rubble of Lodz, Poland, after Dawid’s family perished in Auschwitz. Passages from the diaries and memoirs of three other young people — Vahram Dadrian, Nadja Halilbegovich and Chanrithy Him — are interwoven with Dawid’s tale in the play, recounting their harrowing experiences and the courage and determination that enabled them to endure unbearable hardships in Armenia, Sarajevo, and Cambodia, respectively.
Victor Raider-Wexler, Vi Tran, Kathleen Warfel, and Marisa Tejeda will read the diary entries of these young writers under the direction of KCAT artistic committee chairman John Rensenhouse. Solo cello works selected and prepared by UMKC Conservatory professor Michael Mermagen will accompany the 70-minute production, performed without intermission. “Four Children” is recommended for audiences 14 and older.
“We hope patrons attending the Auschwitz exhibit will add “Four Children” to their Union Station experience,” added KCAT president Gary Heisserer. “The play is especially important for young people to see and hear. It is their peers—the ones who wrote these diaries—whose stories must never be forgotten.”
“Four Children” will be performed Wednesday thru Saturday nights at 7:30 pm with matinees on Wednesdays and Sundays at 2:00 pm. Tickets are now on sale at www.kcactors.org or at 888.343.6946. Patrons purchasing tickets through Union Station can receive a reduced rate when purchasing tickets to both the Auschwitz exhibition and “Four Children” at the same time.
Proof of vaccination will be required; KCAT will not be accepting negative test results at this time. Masks will be required and social distancing will be practiced where possible at City Stage during performances of “Four Children.”