Last weekend my daughter’s love of the theater brought me and hundreds of people a wonderful gift in the form of a Czechoslovakian Holocaust survivor, Ela Stein Weissberger.

My twelve year old was in the ensemble cast of the operetta Brundibár, our first experience with the Children’s Theater of Annapolis. Brundibár, composed by Hans Krasa in Prague for a competition in 1938, was only performed twice in a The Jewish Orphanage for Boys before the children and staff were transported by the Nazis to Terezin, a layover for most on the way to the extermination camp, Auschwitz.



Terezin, a Czech village of seven thousand citizens, inflated to at times 90,000 Jewish prisoners. If they weren't transport to the horrors of Auschwitz, they faced starvation, exposure, typhus, and fear in Terezin. Of the 15 thousand children brought through Terzin, only 100 survived. One of those surviving children was Ela.

The Nazis forbid the education of the children in Terezin, but the adults did their best to smuggle in paper and pens. After their long days in stone mines or other hard labor, the adults taught the children what they could. They encouraged them to write poetry and draw pictures on the back of scraps of paper and old forms. When Hans Krasa arrived, he managed to sneak in his children's operetta, Brundibár.

Although education was forbidden, for some reason, the Nazis granted permission for the children to learn and perform this short little opera about a brother and sister overcoming a villainous organ grinder with the help of the other children and a few talking animals. It was the story about how banding together gives victory over tyranny. Fortunately, the Nazis didn't speak Czech.

The Nazis did take advantage of the performance when they used Terezin as a cover for the international inspectors. After shipping thousands out of the prison-village, the Nazis planted flowers, provided better clothes to the prisoners, built a bandstand in the town square, and had the children perform Brundibar for the Red Cross.

In all, Brundibár was performed 55 times in Terezin. Ela played the role of the cat in all 55 shows. This effervescent septuagenarian feels it is her duty to speak about her experience. She travels the world, taking the stage with Brundibár casts for the final victory song which she still sings in Czech.

Before the operetta, the performers read from the poetry recovered from Terezin's children. One of their teachers, on hearing she was to be shipped out, filled a suitcase with the contraband poetry and art and hid it in an attic in the village. It was recovered after the war and is now performed with the opera.

Ms. Weissberger spoke to the cast before the show opened and to all of the audiences. She continued to unravel her tales in the lobby where she signed books and programs.

She told stories of the children she performed with and her teachers. She spoke of the growing numbers of "the deniers" and the need to remember. She held up the star the Nazis gave to her so many years ago and said in her Slavic accent, "Now it's my lucky star. I am Jewish and not ashamed of it." She said after the war she thought Brundibár died with her friends. She thanked the children and the audience for remembering her friends through their performance.

Earlier this summer I went to see the play, "Spring Awakening" at the Kennedy Center with my daughter who is almost 16. We dressed up and ate dinner there first. It was a fun night, and an valuable car ride home.

Have you seen "Spring Awakening"? Apparently it is the hot new play, having won 8 Tony's in its original Broadway run in 2007. My college-grad niece knew the soundtrack immediately.

The play was banned when it was written 100 years ago in Germany, where the play is set. It is about the price of religious fear and oppressive morality; but, it is also about the joy of life that sneaks through the cracks of that dark box. The spiritual awakening in this tale is sexual. I do think the two are linked - sexuality and spirituality; so it is a powerful metaphor. I was surprised at some of the actions on the stage, although I had fair warning after reading the website.

Some indie rock band guys turned the original German play into a musical. The score is addicting. The songs have some challenging and visceral lyrics. I'm including "All That's Known" below. I didn't really ponder the lyrics until I had listened to the soundtrack at home for a while.

For me, seeing this play was important two reasons. First, the post show conversation can go anywhere if you have been wanting to open the door to a conversation about any aspect of sexuality. I think all the subsets of sexual topics are covered, beyond biology. With a daughter who is almost 16, it was a conversation door that was easy to open because she loves musicals. I noticed lots of mother/daughter groups in the audience. So I recommend it to anyone who's been wanting to talk about any emotional aspects of sexuality. If that makes you queasy - then you probably need to go.

But also, this play was timely for me because several things have happened recently to stir up the soup of my own religious experiences.
- I accepted a teaching position at a Christian school. The curriculum was so conservative that I found it offensive and declined the position.
- I found a new blog for rebels and refugees of my Christian tribe. These voices remind me of the students in "Spring Awakening."
- I have many friends still making the Churches of Christ work for them and I hear their struggles with that particular institution. My empathy as they beat their heads on the same brick wall is vividly frustrating.
- I recently visited the Franklin Institute in Philly and saw one of Galileo's original telescopes and am reminded that none of this is new. Will we ever learn? And if we do, what will we know then?


All that's known
In History, in Science
Overthrown
At school, at home, by blind men

You doubt them
And soon they bark and hound you-
Till everything you say is just another bad about you

All they say
Is "Trust in What is Written"
Wars are made
And somehow that is wisdom

Thought is suspect
And money is their idol
And nothing is okay unless it's scripted in their Bible

But I know
There's so much more to find-
Just in looking through myself
And not at them

Still, I know
To trust my own true mind
And to say: there's a way through this

On I go
To wonder and to learning
Name the stars and know their dark returning

I'm calling
To know the world's true yearning-
The hunger that a child feels for everything they're shown

You watch me-
Just watch me-
I'm calling
And one day all will know

You watch me-
Just watch me-
I'm calling, I'm calling.
And one day all will know

On Valentine's Day, my sweetheart took me to see the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He has a subscription to the BSO for the "Symphony with a Twist" series. We saw them around Halloween use children's toys and paper bags as instruments. Once they performed the soundtrack for the Charlie Chaplain movie, "City Lights."

The BSO's conductor, Maestra Marin Alsop, is the first woman to conduct a major American orchestra. She's wonderful, as you'll see in the above clips. Yesterday's performance included some music that she had been tracking down for years. Alsop was intrigued by the pianist and composer James P. Johnson who wrote "The Charleston" and was renown for his "stride" piano techniques that made him one of Harlem's most famous pianists She found some of his surviving relatives and one of them had some of his music stashed in the attic. Alsop brought the music to us all last night. Can you imagine? It was a powerful piece entitled "Drums."

Yesterday's twist was Savion Glover, a world renown tap dancer, who accompanied several of the pieces. I wouldn't even say what he was doing was tap dancing so much as podiatric, paroxysmal, percussion. It was wonderful!

Last night my sweetheart took me to meet some friends at the Livingston Taylor concert in Annapolis. What a great entertainer! Have you had the pleasure?

Liv is in his late fifties now and looked professorial in his sweater vest and bow tie. He walked right in the front door of the Ram's Head and said hello to us while we were waiting to go to our table. When we sat down, an hour before the show, he was up on the stage, polishing the fingerprints off the black grand piano that has had so many talented hands on it.

When he started the show, he said he was in no rush. He loved this and he wanted it to last as long as possible. The blonde curls of his early career have been slowly replaced with a free-ranging forehead that bares expressive folds which exaggerate his animated face like extra parentheses. He told stories between the songs he performed that were sometimes heartbreaking, like the one about the Civil War soldier, and hilarious, like "I'm not as herbal as I ought to be."

If you get a chance to go, don't miss it.


We had so much fun that we didn't want to go home right away. We strolled a few doors down to 49 West Cafe and had some baklava and a flaming glass of Sambuca with coffee beans. You should always drink with new friends so you get introduced to different drinks. Our friend was an Italian gentleman, originally from the Bronx. He has introduced me to the drink that will be my winter drink special. Yum!

Boy can December get busy!
Mom posted a great description of my little one's chorus performance at the Kennedy Center. The Ex had the best seats and got this great picture for me. She's smiling at her grandma and siblings who were "embarrassing." Looks like she's enjoying their shenanigans in the balcony.

My oldest daughter got her first real job as a hostess and food runner in a nearby restaurant (of course, adding another shift to my taxi schedule.) Her initial adorable anxieties brought back memories of first days on other jobs I've had.

I got fired - very publicly, from my first job as a telephone interviewer. Seems they needed to make an example of the caller who was interviewing the wrong respondent. I was about my daughter's age because it was before I could drive and I had to call my mom to come get me. I remember sitting out on the curb after getting yelled at in front of all my co-workers. What a memorable misery.

Another early career catastrophe came as a waitress at Bob's Big Boy. I was much more experienced and mature - probably 17. It was a busy Saturday and the orange juice fountain ran dry. I quickly looked in the walk-in and found a big tub of already mixed OJ and refilled the fountain, serving the first glass to my customer. He quickly - and angrily - called me back over, wondering what kind of sick person I was to serve him raw eggs in his juice glass.

You know, eggs can get real frothy in one of those fountains. Boy were a lot of folks mad about that mistake! And was it ever hard to clean up that error.

Any stories from your earliest employment endeavors?

As the final piece of my daughter's fifteenth birthday present, I took her and two friends to the Jason Mraz concert at DAR Constitution Hall on Monday night. It was so fun watching her enjoy herself with her BFFs. They are all such beautiful girls. If they were the youngest at the concert, I was the oldest. Quite a college crowd there just around the corner from GWU. I am happy to encourage good musical taste in my kids, happy to be moving up from the JoBros and Cheetah Girls.

He's kind of jazzy and did a lot of scat in the concert, drawing the audience into a scat duel. Great brass section of his band, although the drummer with the gnome was intriguing.

Here's a couple of Jason's most popular songs. I bet you already know them.

Because the Ex is well connected, I got to go to the Jonas Brothers' concert Wednesday night in Baltimore with my kids. I was annoyed at myself for forgetting my earplugs, not due to the loud music so much: it was the thousands of shrieking girls. My son was happy that Demi Lovato opened for the JoBros. He was in the gender minority, although I heard no complaints.

In case you are not living with children between the ages of 10 & 15, the JoBros are all the rage in Disney boy bands. They put on quite an entertaining show with lasers and pyrotechnics. They had an eight piece string band playing, all beautiful young women in red. I imagine this is not the venue their parents had in mind when they were driving them to lessons. But I bet it pays better than many violin gigs.

So the kids got to sit in the second row at the end of the catwalk - almost in touching distance. No binoculars necessary. Tim & I sat about 20 rows behind them. When seated, you could look sideways and see all the other parents in attendance. We had a silent camaraderie beneath the hysterical shrieking.

What was your first concert?