Beowulf Alley Theatre Company Hosts August Readers Theatre
(Tucson, AZ - August 6, 2009) — Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. 6th Avenue, 85701, downtown between Broadway and Congress, is holding a reading on Tuesday, August 11, at 7:15 p.m. of Dachau by Jan-Ruth Mills. Admission is on a pay-what-you-will basis. Readers Theatre is a stimulating event and a terrific opportunity for both playwrights and audiences. Playwrights have a chance to be heard and audiences have a chance to hear new and dynamic works being developed for the theater as well as contribute to their development by participating in discussions following the readings. Throughout each year, guided by its Artistic Development Committee, Beowulf Alley Theatre offers a selection of thought-provoking readings to Tucsonans and visitors to Tucson.
Playwrights may submit plays for our Readers Theatre program by following the instructions, online at www.beowulfalley.org, “Cast & Crew,” “Directors & Playwrights,” “Playwrights.” Inquiries regarding participation (actors, volunteers) in the Readers’ Theatre Program may be made by e-mailing theatre@beowulfalley.org.
A non-profit arts organization, Beowulf Alley was founded based on dialogues with local actors who wanted a permanent home for theatre artists from the Tucson community. Today, its intimate 95-seat theatre provides a facility that meets professional standards where performing artists, educators, and technicians can develop and present their skills. Because Beowulf Alley engages a talent pool that calls Tucson “home” for its productions, the Theatre is committed to helping grow a new generation of Tucson talent with its education programs for young people. And true to its roots, the Theatre maintains ongoing dialogues with the community, including Dialogues with theatergoers after the first Sunday matinee performance of each of its season plays – an opportunity for theatergoers to discuss the plays with the director and the performing artists. Writers who cover the Tucson arts scene say the Theatre provides its audiences with “the best total package”—plays, performances, and productions that are high in artistic and technical quality.
Dachau by Jan-Ruth Mills
Bavaria, Germany. July, 1947. A barrack in the former Nazi Concentration Camp Dachau is now a courtroom for the US Military Tribunal prosecutions of SS from concentration camps in Austria. The defense council, a US Army Lieutenant and a German civilian attorney, agree that their clients are guilty but disagree on everything from trial procedure to the legitimacy of the court itself. Despite the overwhelming evidence against the accused, the German defense attorney’s decades of experience challenges the skills of the prosecutor, an inexperienced attorney from the States. Frustrated, the victims' ghosts disrupt the trial, demanding to bear witness against their murderers. The ghosts’ relationships to each other are complicated by the choices they made in their failed attempts to survive the camp. Caught between the living and the dead are an Austrian woman (who still lives in the town near the camp) and a Jewish woman (whose two sons were murdered under the Austrian woman’s window). Both women find themselves transported in their dreams and daydreams to watch the trial in the company of the ghosts. While the Military Tribunal prosecutes the SS, the dead and the grieving Jewish mother conduct a trial of the Austrian woman for her seeming complicity with the Nazi regime. While proceedings against the SS fail to bring the perfect justice the dead seek, the Austrian mother must accept that she and her children will live with the guilt and consequences of her countrymen’s actions.
