MAN 1/HENRY SILBERSTERN

I am A1843 when my mother and I are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Fortunately, Mama is chosen to work and not die. I am chosen for something else. Five hundred boys, aged 12 to 15, are lined up for a special selection by Dr. Mengele … known as “The Angel of Death.”

Except from “SURVIVORS,” by Wendy Kout

In 2022, I received an email from playwright Wendy Kout. She asked me to audition for the role of MAN 1 in the West Coast touring production of “SURVIVORS,” produced by Arts for Change. The play was originally commissioned in 2017 by CenterStage Theatre in Rochester, New York, to create an educational play about the Holocaust.

However, just one month after Kout began extensive historical research, neo-Nazis marched on Charlottesville with tiki torches. In Kout’s words, the play was no longer just a teaching play — it was a warning.

Prior to 2022, I was primarily a TV and film actor, which meant I was usually employed in other fields as I awaited my big break. I did everything from teaching children, giving tours of Paramount Studios, playing guitar at Lucy’s El Adobe Cafe, and delivering food. I was close on multiple big roles, even screen-testing with Robert De Niro in New York for a Nancy Myers movie.

I did guest star on multiple shows, including “The Upshaws” opposite Wanda Sykes, but alas, that big break did not quite come to fruition. Then the pandemic happened, and two years later, I had an epiphany of sorts. I was determined to take more control over my career and return to stand-up comedy and stage acting, where the demands on one’s craft are more intense, where I could do more in-depth character study, and I could develop as an artist. Perhaps it was a coincidence or a realignment with the universe once someone is set on their intention, but just months after that epiphany, I received Kout’s email.

Once I was cast, I was thrown into an intensive two week rehearsal period at the American Jewish University with seven other cast members. Our ages and ethnicities all varied, but our love for deep and insightful theater bonded us. Director Evie Abat led us through countless exercises to explore the thoughts, feelings and physicality of our characters.

Among the roles I performed as MAN 1 were Henry Silberstern, a sweet young boy from Czechoslovakia who was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau with his mother; Arthur Herz, who escaped to America, only to enlist and return to the frontline as an Army combat photographer; and believe it or not, Adolf Hitler, who needs no further description.

Until this play, I never performed in an outright Jewish story. In theater school, you perform the classics that are recycled by most colleges and theaters in the Western world. Classics include Shakespeare, Molière, Euripides, and a smattering of mid-20th-century American playwrights. There is typically no space for students to explore their own cultures.

I did not realize how much performing in “SURVIVORS” would affect my outlook on my craft as an artist until the day I performed in front of Holocaust survivors at the Museum of Tolerance.

Releasing true emotion as an actor is a tricky task. You never want to push it, otherwise it will come out false, and the audience will sniff it out like hounds. But on the other hand, if you don’t reach a semblance of that emotionality, you are not hitting the demands of the play.

Prior to my participation in “SURVIVORS,” my emotional range was hit or miss. As a young male performer with an admittedly strong sense of self and confidence, tears never came easy. Yes, I could “cry on command,” but that is not real emotion. Rather, it’s a synthesis of emotion that might trick a few people, but it’s not the real deal.

At the performance for the Museum of Tolerance, I put myself into a certain headspace where my inner imagery was more vibrant than ever before. I tried to see, imagine and smell the environment, live and breathe the world that these survivors dealt with day in and day out.

And when it came time for that special monologue in which Henry Silberstern describes the numbers being tattooed on his arm, sleeping four to a bed in three-tiered bunk beds, and being experimented on by Dr. Mengele, the emotion fell out of me in a way I had not experienced before. It was uncontrollable and undeniably potent, and I knew in that moment that I had unlocked new pieces of my heart to explore in the service of character and story.

In addition to the Museum of Tolerance, we also performed at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, the Saban Theatre, Santa Barbara’s Marjorie Luke Theatre, and countless schools across Los Angeles. Our performances for schools were always the most unexpected and challenging. Performing for kids of any age can require a depth of patience that I don’t always have at my disposal. There can be snickering, texting, sleeping and, the most difficult of all, the waft of teenage B.O.

But more often than not, “SURVIVORS” caused an awakening of truth and justice in the kids. After each performance, the kids asked insightful questions in a Q&A moderated by a member of our creative team or production partners. The Q&A revolves around how the kids deal with prejudice and cruelty in their own lives, whether it’s as small as a bigoted joke or as great as racist policies enacted by politicians. The moderation pushes the students to think critically about how they may enact change in the future.

While I was touring “SURVIVORS,” other stage opportunities came my way. However, they weren’t just stage plays, they were often related to Jewish storytelling. I was asked to be a part of a reading of the newly translated Yiddish play, “The Song of the Massacred Jewish People,” at Holocaust Museum LA. This incredible play was written by Yitshak Katznelson just prior to his deportation to Auschwitz. He buried his epic poem into the ground at the transportation camp of Vittel-France, and it was later discovered after the war.

From there, I was cast by The Braid, formerly known as the Jewish Women’s Theatre, where I performed a series of notable real-life stories, including a wild tale about a reformed neo-Nazi called, “The Nazi in the Hot Tub,” by Rob Eshman.

Finally, my two-year exploration into Jewish theater reached its pinnacle in February 2024, when I booked the lead role in the world premiere of Boni Alvarez’s “Mix-Mix: The Filipino Adventures of a German Jewish Boy.” Produced by the Latino Theater Company and Playwrights Arena, “Mix-Mix” tells the extraordinary true story of Ralph Preiss, who fled Germany with his parents to the Philippines after Kristallnacht. They were forced to seek refuge in the jungles of Mount Banahao after the American bombing of Manilla during the Japanese occupation.

Along with their friends and Filipino guerrillas, the Preiss family mainly survived off an abundance of sweet potatoes. This mammoth production required me to speak English, Hebrew, Aramaic and Japanese — all with a German accent. At our opening performance, I had the opportunity to meet the real-life Ralph Preiss, who attended with his daughters and grandchildren.

There is no doubt in my mind that without Kout’s “SURVIVORS,” I would not have performed in so many Jewish productions. Her play taught me how to persevere through obstacles in my life that may seem insurmountable, to always laugh, and to be kinder to others as they traverse their own adversities.

As so many Jews say over and over, we must bear witness. But being a witness to others’ victimhood is only the first step. The second is to take that mantle and teach others. That’s exactly what our playwright/ producer Wendy Kout, our executive producer Genie Benson, and the entire team are doing with “SURVIVORS.” This play teaches students both the Holocaust and tolerance; the past, as both a warning and a call to action to stand up to antisemitism and all identity-based hate.

I urge you to donate to future productions of Arts for Change so that students of all economic backgrounds can learn about the Holocaust in a theatrical and immediate art form. For more information about “SURVIVORS,” visit Arts for Change.

MAN 1/HENRY SILBERSTERN

I was a prisoner and a victim. After all I went through, how could I still believe in God? I never had a doubt about where God was. I wanted to know, where was man? The Nazis took so much from us … including our schooling. So, as an adult, I earned my high school equivalency diploma. You can’t change the past. But you can make choices to change your present and your future.