Washington Township High School Classes Visit McCarter Theatre for Performance of Here There Are Blueberries
For Immediate Release
January 30, 2025
Washington Township High School students pose for a photo outside of the McCarter Theatre during their trip to see Here There Are Blueberries.
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP - On January 30th, Washington Township High School students in Ms. Brittany Mason's Humanitarian Studies/Social Injustice classes, along with students in Mr. John Stephan's Theatre classes, attended a performance of The Tectonic Theatre Project's Here There Are Blueberries at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton. Afterwards, they were able to take part in a talk back with members of the cast.
This play, from the same creators of The Laramie Project, is based on a true event from 2007, when a mysterious album featuring Nazi-era photographs arrived at the desk of a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum archivist. As curators unraveled the shocking truth behind the images, the album soon made headlines and ignited a debate that reverberated far beyond the museum walls. Here There Are Blueberries tells the story of these historical photographs — what they reveal about the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and our own humanity.
The writer and director [Moisés Kaufman] said, “Every time that you share a story with the world you become an activist, because your story is either reinforcing or questioning the status quo. I think that it’s important for artists to be aware of that power that we have.”
This play asks: Were these people monsters, or were they just people? How could Höcker (the photo album's owner) create a keepsake album to remember his time at Auschwitz? Why would anyone want to remember this place?
Thousands of SS men and women worked at Auschwitz. [...] How did those people end up working at a place like Auschwitz? What do we think about a teenage secretary who sent telegrams with information about how many people were gassed, or the doctor who tried to make conditions better for prisoners, but also chose which ones went to the gas chambers? Kaufman and Gronich are asking us to consider how ordinary people come to engage in evil, even in genocide. They ask us to look inward. What would I have done? What about you?" (Vawter, 2023).
For more information, please visit https://www.heretherareblueberries.com/
A special thank you to The McCarter Theatre Center for offering this opportunity. This field trip was made possible, in part, by a generous grant from the Mark Schonwetter Holocaust Education Foundation.
WTHS students watch a performance of Here There Are Blueberries.
- WTPS -
