Adelphi University Alumna Returns to Direct Charlotte Delbo's Who Will Carry the Word?

Online, February 17, 2012 (Newswire.com) - The Adelphi University Performing Arts Center (AUPAC) will present Charlotte Delbo's play Who Will Carry the Word? directed by Andrea Gail '03, beginning on February 21 through February 26, 2012 in the AUPAC Black Box Theatre, 1 South Avenue, Garden City, NY. Set in the grim and degraded setting of a Nazi concentration camp, a group of women attempt to keep their sanity and hope, as one by one, they fall victim to the terror. Charlotte Delbo, a French resistance fighter imprisoned in 1942 and sent first to Auschwitz and later to Ravensbruck, penned her account of her time served. In this poetic tale, although the conflicted characters would rather die than live in the death camps, they insist on making sure there will be someone brave enough to live and tell their story.

The characters in Who Will Carry the Word? struggle with their personal fears, concerns, and ultimately their hopes for future generations. Ms. Gail's intimate production focuses on how to accurately tell this story and how to engage the audience. By removing the fourth wall and including the audience into the world of the play, she hopes they can begin to form their own opinions on the subject matter. When asked if this play is timeless, Andrea Gail said that, "The hope and need for change is timeless, but this story is not timeless, it is time sensitive." Although the given circumstances of these women place them in a Nazi death camp, the ideas and issues discussed are still relevant to what [has been] and what continues to happen in the world. Ms. Gail stated, "This show isn't just about World War II. It reflects the current climate of the world, from genocide in Rwanda, to the "ethnic cleansing" of Muslims over the course of three years in the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina."

Ms. Gail is a Chicago native and the co-Founder of Candentia Theatre Company. She received her B.F.A. in theatre at Adelphi University, an M.A. in directing from the E15 Drama School at the University of Essex in London, and has also taken master classes at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (GITIS) in Moscow. Recent credits include the Inaugural Spark Project, Sarah Kane's Crave and Adam Rapp's Animals and Plants.

This event is co-sponsored by the Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County whose mission for 20 years has been to teach the history of the Holocaust and its lessons through education and community outreach. Individual tickets for this event are on sale now and will be available at the door for $15, $12, $10, or $7 depending on seating. To learn more about AUPAC's season, please visit aupac.adelphi.edu or call The Lucia and Steven N. Fischer Box Office at (516) 877-4000.