JANKA Opens
This year commemorates the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps by Allied forces at the end of the Second World War. To celebrate, Roust Theatre Company embarks on a production of one woman’s journey of survival and hope, from the beautiful Romanian town of Sighet, through two of history’s most notorious death camps—Auschwitz and Dachau—to the shores of the United States and the embrace of the American Dream. JANKA, adapted from Janka Festinger’s sixty page hand-written letter to her uncle of the events following the Nazis’ internment of Romanian Jews in 1944, provides a deeply personal, moving and often humorous account of her courageous life.
Written by her son, award-winning producer, director and writer, Oscar Speace, and performed by her daughter-in-law, nationally acclaimed actress and singer, Janice Noga, JANKA is “a grueling odyssey of self-realization that is testimony to her love of life and her will to survive,” and poses the ultimate dilemma of whether or not to share painful personal information to illuminate an incomprehensible and unbearable truth.
JANKA has been performed in California, London, Romania, Australia and the International Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. This production will be JANKA’s New York premiere and is made possible through the generous support of California’s Central Valley theatre patrons, Dan Pessano/Good Company Players, ValleyPBS and the Fresno Regional Foundation with the fiscal sponsorship of The Fresno Arts Council.
DATES: Thursday-Saturday, April 2-4 / Wednesday-Saturday April 8- May 2 / Sunday April 5,12,19 and 26 / Monday April 13, 20 and 27.
TIME: All shows 8pm, except Sundays at 3pm
VENUE: June Havoc Theatre Complex, 312 West 36th Street, 1st Floor, between 8th Ave & 9th Ave
TICKETS: All tickets $30.
Buy tickets/get more info now