With the Volt Festival, the Playwright Karen Hartman Comes Home
59E59 Theaters is putting a spotlight on a midcareer artist whose work has seldom been seen locally.
May 20, 2022, 12:54 p.m. ET
“I’m feeling a tremendous sense of visibility,” the playwright Karen Hartman said. “And it’s not when I expected to be visible.”
Rediscovered Holocaust letters lend twists, depth to off-Broadway's 'The Lucky Star'
June 3, 2022
In order for letters to get out of the Krakow ghetto in Poland during the Holocaust, they had to be craftily written to avoid Nazi censors.
Families trapped may also have wanted to protect their loved ones from the truth about their dire circumstances.
And so, actors in Karen Hartman's off-Broadway play "The Lucky Star" at 59E59 Theaters, structured around a family's trove of correspondence, are presented with a unique challenge: Give the letters life, while conveying to the audience that what was written may not be truth.
Review: The Lucky Star Dramatizes One Jewish Family's Letters From Nazi-Occupied Poland
Karen Hartman's play makes its New York debut.
The art of letter writing (and reading) can often be found between the lines. This is especially true when you are corresponding with a person in an authoritarian society — like Nazi-occupied Poland. That is the case for the Hollander family in Karen Hartman's gripping and emotional The Lucky Star, now making its New York debut with the Directors Company at 59E59 as part of the inaugural Volt Festival.
One Family’s Letters Bring to Stage the Emotions of World War II
The most significant correspondence to survive the Krakow Ghetto is the source material for Karen Hartman’s ‘The Lucky Star.’
GRACE BYDALEK
The narrator of “The Lucky Star,” Richard, sits centerstage on the edge of a small table holding a book of correspondence. Breaking the fourth wall as he welcomes us to his lecture, he says: “A letter is an offering. For most of history, a letter was how we conjured the missing.”
The Lucky Star that keeps on shining at 59E59 Theaters in NYC
"The Lucky Star" brings to life the luminous letters sent to Richard Hollander's father from his Jewish family in Poland during the Holocaust.
Jun 01, 2022
The Holocaust is an event unique in history. It was mass murder on an industrial scale, conducted in death factories created by German engineering, with their technical know-how and famous efficiency.
Why a seemingly unconventional casting choice makes perfect sense in a story of Holocaust survival
A father explains how his son's role gives added depth and resonance to Karen Hartman's 'The Lucky Star'
May 23, 2022
I am not Jewish, and my son, Sky Smith, is ethnically half-Japanese, so it was surprising to see him onstage playing the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, berating his Jewish father for putting a soft focus on the horrors of the past. It was more surprising still because my son’s character in the play carries my distinctly Gaelic given name, Craig.
BWW Review: THE LUCKY STAR at 59E59 Theaters is a Compelling Drama in the Theater's VOLT Festival
Review: THE LUCKY STAR at 59E59 Theaters
"The minute I found these letters I vowed to shine a light on them." By Richard in The Lucky Star
59E59 Theaters is now presenting VOLT, the inaugural festival of three New York City premieres written by one author, Karen Hartman. The trio of shows is performed simultaneously at the Upper East Side venue. This initiative is one that should be embraced by theatergoers.
BWW Interview: Alexandra Silber Discusses Feeling Called to Play Dola/Vita in THE LUCKY STAR, VOLT Festival & Much More
Silber shares how she feels about celebrating the work of Karen Hartman, why she believes The Lucky Star is resonating with audiences, and more.
Alexandra Silber is often known for her nuanced and powerful portrayals of strong Jewish women, including Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof, Halina in Indecent and more. She is also the author of the novel After Anatevka, inspired by Fiddler on the Roof, which follows the lives of the characters from the musical after the curtain comes down. Silber is back on stage now in the dual roles of Dola/Vita in Karen Hartman's The Lucky Star, being presented as part of the inaugural VOLT Festival at 59E59.
Steven Skybell, Alexandra Silber, Dale Soules, More to Star in The Lucky Star at 59E59
BY LEAH PUTNAM
MARCH 02, 2022
The drama will be part of the Off-Broadway theatre's Inaugural VOLT Festival.
Alexandra Silber, Steven Skybell, and More Join The Lucky Star at 59E59
March 02, 2022
The new play by Karen Hartman tells a World War II-era family story.
The Book of Joseph
By Susan Ingram
May 2, 2018
Playbill for Everyman Theatre’s production of “The Book of Joseph” by Karen Hartman (Illustration by Jeff Rogers)
The open briefcase and scattered letters that sketch a haunting face on the playbill for Everyman Theatre’s production of “The Book of Joseph” are more than clever graphic details.