About the Play:

Finalist for the 2009 Governor General's Award for Drama (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize).

East of Berlin is a full-length a psychological drama by Hannah Moscovitch. Rudi's father was a Nazi doctor. Sarah's mother was a prisoner at Auschwitz. Both struggle to understand and escape their inheritance. Can they possibly fall in love? And if they do, what happens when the sins of the father are visited upon the son? In this taut and suspenseful tale of redemption, Rudi tries to come to terms with a frightening past that was never his own. Particularly suitable for schools and play contests.

East of Berlin is about the next generation and asks what happens when you discover your Father was a Nazi war criminal? Standing outside his father's study in Paraguay, Rudi is smoking cigarettes, trying to work up the courage to go in. It has been seven years since he stood in that same spot; seven years since he left his family and their history behind him. As a teenager, Rudi discovered that his father was a doctor at Auschwitz. Trying to reconcile his inherited guilt, Rudi lashed out against his family and his friends, and eventually fled to Germany. While there, he tries to atone for his father's appalling acts by studying medicine, and falls in love with Sarah, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. Can love heal what history has so brutally torn asunder? Or will the horrors of the past haunt him forever? East of Berlin is a stirring and absolutely essential meditation on the psychological legacy of the Holocaust.

East of Berlin premiered in 2007 at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto to great acclaim, and toured successfully for two seasons. Her first full-length play, it was a Finalist for the 2009 Governor General's Award. Since then the play had regional premieres at professional theatres across North America, a European premiere in 2014 at the Southwark Playhouse in London, and has been mounted by high schools, colleges, and community theatres.

Cast: 1 female, 2 male

What people say:

"If you can buy, beg or borrow a ticket, you must get yourself to see Hannah Moscovitch's East of Berlin, perhaps the most powerful and harrowing play this year." — Classical 96.3 FM

"East of Berlin could easily have a life in theaters around the world." — Variety

"[Moscovitch is] the real thing." — The Toronto Star

About the Playwright:

Hannah Moscovitch is an acclaimed Canadian playwright and TV writer. Her plays have been widely produced across Canada, as well as in the United States, Britain, Europe, Australia and Japan. She has been honoured with numerous awards, including the Governor General's Literary Award for drama (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), and the prestigious Windham Campbell Literary Prize administered by Yale University (she is the first Canadian playwright to win the prize). She's twice been a finalist for the Governor General's Award, and twice for the Siminovitch Prize, as well as the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize honouring the best English-language women writers worldwide.