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Audition information:

Kindertransport, by Diane Samuels. Directed by Malcolm Brown

Performances: Saturday 29th May, then 31st May - 5th June 2010 at 7.45pm, plus matinée at 2.30pm on 5th June.

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Reading: Friday 5th March at 7.45pm

Auditions: Sunday 7th and Monday 8th March at 7.45pm

*NOTE: to get a part in a play you need only attend one of the auditions and you do not need to attend the reading. You do not need to be a member of the Chesil Theatre to audition, but you must join if you take part in a production. The readings and auditions are held at the Theatre.

The tag line advertising Kindertransport  "Are you really who you say you are ?"  could equally have been "Where do you think you belong?" because the core of this play is a consideration of one's place in the family and in society as well as an exploration of one's sense of identity. 

Growing to a well balanced maturity is a difficult enough path as it is, even when the external pressures and stresses that the world places upon us are born of peace. When the world is in turmoil and decisions are made that are truly a matter of whether or not we live or die, and we are too young to fully understand that, how will that affect us?

Kindertransport is a poignant story based on the truth of the evacuation of Jewish children from Nazi Germany during 1938 and 1939.  Using this forced separation of parent and offspring Diane Samuels sets her action, simultaneously at times, in Hamburg in 1939 and Manchester in the mid Eighties, to explore the fear, tensions, guilt and salvation brought about by parting, experienced by mother and daughter in both time frames. 

The action takes place in an attic room in Evelyn's house in an outer London suburb in the mid Eighties.

These are all terrific, meaty parts giving opportunity over a wide age range for talented, dedicated female actors. The male characters, whilst all of 'authority', offer a chance for the male actor to demonstrate his chameleon like qualities to distinguish one from the other.

Evelyn English middle-class woman. In her fifties.
Eva Evelyn's younger self.  She starts the play at nine years old and finishes it at seventeen years old. Jewish German becoming increasingly English.
Faith Evelyn's only child.  In her early twenties.   
Helga German Jewish woman of the late 1930s.  In her early thirties.  Eva/Evelyn's mother.
Lil Eva/Evelyn's English foster mother.  In her eighties.
The Ratcatcher A mythical character who also plays: The Nazi Border Official; The English Organiser; The Postman; The Station Guard.

How to book | Home Page | How to find us | Forthcoming productions