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Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story
Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story
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Author: Hannah Moscovitch Publisher: Samuel French Format: Softcover # of Pages: 66 Pub. Date: 2020 ISBN-10: 0573707804 ISBN-13: 9780573707803
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About
the Play:
Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story is a full-length musical
drama by Hannah Moscovitch (playwright), with music co-written
by Christian Barry (singer-songwriter-actor) and Ben Caplan
(director) who co-created the show to explore what the phrase 'old
stock' really means in a country founded by immigration. The play is
inspired by the true stories of two Jewish Romanian refugees coming
to Canada in 1908 to start a new life. Dark and hilarious, Old
Stock is a genre-bending folk tale, woven together in a concert
of brash, rollicking, joyful Klezmer Folk music.
Old Stock
tells the story of two young Jewish refugees – Chaim and Chaya –
who flee Romania and meet as asylum seekers in Canada
in 1908. Fresh off the boat at Pier 21 in Halifax – once Canada's
equivalent of America's Ellis Island – the two meet when he's 19
and she's 24. They each carry deep scars from the anti-Semitism that
drove them from their home but manage to work out a marriage that
grows in strength as they carve out a life for themselves in
Montreal. Inspired by
the true story of writer Hannah Moscovitch's
own paternal great-grandparents, who
fled religious
persecution and the
"pogroms"
(large-scale
wave of anti-Jewish riots)
that swept
through Romania, this humourously dark folktale is elevated by
original Yiddish Klezmer and traditional folk-music and songs,
weaving through a poignant journey of finding love after being broken
by the horrors of war. Taking
a divisive comment by a Canadian politician as a starting point, Old
Stock is an invigorating if
none too subtle reminder of the often bloody sacrifice made by
refugees.
Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story
premiered in 2017
by 2b
Theatre in Halifax to rave
reviews, earning seven
Theatre Nova Scotia Merritt Awards, including Outstanding Production.
The play garnered four-star reviews when it opened later
in 2017 at the world famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival, winning
a Herald Angel Award and
Edinburgh Fringe First. The
show's seven-week off-Broadway run at
59E59 Theaters in 2018 garnered it nominations for six Drama Desk
Awards, including Outstanding Musical, and Critics picks
from both The
New York Times
and Time
Out New York. Since
then it has since been
performed to great critical acclaim throughout Canada, in the
US, across the UK, in
Australia and Holland, receiving many awards and accolades along the
way.
Cast: 1 woman, 2 men
What people say:
"The Old Stock
experience becomes irresistible, borne along on a tide of brilliant
klezmer music and original song that links us to an old world, and
helps us to live joyfully in a new one." — The
Scotsman
"Moving between a comic
courtship and the everyday hardships ... conjuring up a much bigger
picture of how the world was built on immigration ... in an
entertaining and heart-warming fashion makes for a thing of raw and
unmissable beauty." — The Herald
"Richly humorous, wildly
entertaining and deeply moving." — The Globe and
Mail
"A work of mingled genres and
strong flavors… mixes bitter herbs with apples and honey."
— The New York Times
"Old Stock: A
Refugee Love Story is a Jewish musical along the same
lines as Fidlder on the Roof, but here's the difference. It has a
happy ending. ...The other difference is that the storyline is
completely true... It is a pity the show does not have a longer run.
Maybe it is not Fiddler but the underlying theme is the same."
— The Jewish Weekly
(UK)
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.
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