CHILDREN OF KILLERS by Katori HallAt The Castillo Theatre In New York City September 21st - Ocotber 28th, 2012 (Limited Engagement)

                         

Official Website: http://www.castillo.org/show-children-of-killers/

Castillo Theatre Presents The U.S. Premiere Of

CHILDREN OF KILLERS

by Katori Hall

Author of the Olivier Award-Winning Play THE MOUNTAIN TOP

Directed by Emily Mendelsohn

September 21 - October 28th, 2012

Synopsis:

Set 15 years after the Rwandan genocide, Children of Killers follows a group of teenage friends as many of their fathers are being released from prison where they have been serving time for their roles in the mass killings of their Tutsi neighbors. How are these innocents — young people who don’t even remember their fathers — going to live with their brutal legacy; is it possible to move beyond it, or will they be shaped by their tragic heritage?

"With its dedication to fierce, thought-provoking political theatre that forces audiences to look into the mirror and question and confront themselves, I knew this would be the perfect home for the first American incarnation of the play." - Katori Hall

Read more at: Off-Broadway World.com
   
Featuring:
Raphael Agbune, LaTonia Antoinette, Edgar Cancinos, Kimarra Cannonier, Franceli Chapman, Suzanne Darrell, Khadim Diop, Sidiki Fofana, Naja Jack, Rain Jack, Lorenzo Jackson, Lauryn Simone Jones, Melech Meir, Niara Nyabingi, Andrea Rachel, Mariel Reyes, Starshima Trent, Terrell Wheeler

Get your tickets online today at  www.castillo.org or call our box office at 212-941-1234
 

For group rates contact Gail Peck at 212-356-8449 or gpeck@allstars.org

Castillo Theatre

543 West 42nd Street

(between 10th & 11th Avenues)

New York, NY 10036

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PRESS RELEASE

The Castillo Theatre is opening its 29th season with the American premiere of Children of Killers by award-wining playwright, Katori Hall. Ms. Hall comes to Castillo fresh from the London and Broadway triumphs of The Mountaintop, her play about the last night of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and from the premiere at the Signature Theatre of Hurt Village, a play set in the projects of her hometown of Memphis. The Mountaintop won the Olivier Award for best play in 2010. Hurt Village won the 2011 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Ms. Hall is pleased that Children of Killers is being presented to Castillo’s diverse audience, and has said, “With its dedication to fierce, thought-provoking political theatre that forces audiences to look into the mirror and question and confront themselves, I knew this would be the perfect home for the first American incarnation of the play.” The production is directed by Emily Mendelsohn.

Set 15 years after the Rwandan genocide, Children of Killers follows a group of teenage friends as many of their fathers are being released from prison where they have been serving time for their roles in the mass killings of their Tutsi neighbors. How are these innocents — young people who don’t even remember their fathers — going to live with their brutal legacy; is it possible to move beyond it, or will they be shaped by their tragic heritage?

Originally commissioned by the National Theatre in London, Children of Killers was inspired by a trip to Rwanda in 2009 when Hall attended a genocide studies conference and spoke with victims and perpetrators of the genocide. The play was developed in part through a workshop conducted by Ms. Hall and National Theatre director, Anthony Banks with students in Castillo’s youth theatre program, Youth Onstage!, in the summer of 2010. It has received eight productions in Britain and 40 productions in Portugal.

Located at the All Stars Project’s performing arts and youth development center on West 42nd Street, the Castillo Theatre (Dan Friedman, artistic director; Diane Stiles, managing director) brings experimental political theatre, dealing with contemporary and historical social issues, to the heart of New York’s commercial theatre district for a diverse audience drawn from the many communities that make up NYC. Since 1983, Castillo has staged well over 100 productions — from multicultural and avant-garde plays, to musicals and improvisational
comedy.

Children of Killers is being presented in conjunction with Performing the World 2012, an international cross-disciplinary, experiential conference being held at the All Stars Project, October 4-7. Children of Killers opens on September 21 and runs through October 28th.

Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. at the Castillo Theatre, 543 West 42nd Street (between 10th & 11th Avenues). Tickets are $35 for adults, $10 for students and seniors. Group rates are available. Tickets can be purchased through the Castillo Box Office at 212-941-1234 or www.castillo.org.

Playwright Katori Hall is available for interviews.

Contact Gail Peck at 212-356-8449 or 917-371-5008; or via email: gpeck@allstars.org.

THANKSGIVING The National Day of Mourning A Different Thanksgiving Perspective

Food For Thought On Thanksgiving...

Even though you may enjoy the great meal and the coming together of family on Thanksgiving, please be aware of this historical significance of this holiday. For the descendants of the indigenous people of "North America" (originally called Turtle Island), this holiday is represented by the sadness the Native American monument below speaks of.

Click To Enlarge And Read

As time has evolved, pagan rituals have been used to instill a revisionist sense of history in us all. It's cool to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with your family, friends and loved ones. However, please don't forget the atrocities committed against Native Americans in the name of imperialism. Their losses were to the same people that held our (African) ancestors in the most barbaric form of race-based chattel slavery the world had/has ever seen. The losses of the Native American people are also our losses. Our losses are also their losses.

It is the worst form of ignorance to be unaware of your history. It insults the memory and sacrifices that your ancestors made so that their descendants might have a better life.

- N. Abdul-Wakil

The National Day of Mourning
A Different `Thanksgiving' Perspective by Terri Jean

"Brothers, we must be one as the English are, or we shall soon all be destroyed!"-- Miantinomo (Narraganset) 1642. (He was executed by the colonists and their Indian government allies in 1643).
It's that time of year. The holiday originated by poor Pilgrims and their neighborly Indian friends is about to be set again on Americas' kitchen table. With televised parades and football games, families gather together to give thanks for the previous year, and to inject heartfelt hope into the year to follow.
All the while a growing number of protesters gather yearly in Plymouth, Massachusetts to mourn the traditional feast. Well, not the feast itself or even the thankfulness it is meant to instill; they grieve the fictional foundation the national holiday sits upon, and with each passing year those protesters continue to feel the incessant societal slap dispensed to this continents first people.
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Where's the 'Thanks' in Thanksgiving?

One of the most cherished American holidays is Thanksgiving, a day that Abraham Lincoln officially declared in 1863, in praise of "our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens." In the early 1900s, Gimbels and Macy's saw dollar signs and commandeered the celebration, evicted the heavenly Father altogether, added a parade with Santa Claus, and the rest, as they say, is history. Or is it? Every American school child learns of the harvest feast where the friendly local Indians broke bread and shared turkey with the black-hatted, big-buckled European Pilgrims in a festival of interracial harmony and mutual respect. Yet, there is almost nothing true about this idyllic scenario--not even the turkey. This comforting mythology has concealed some of the bloodiest acts of race hate in American history. Let us pull the stuffing out of this Thanksgiving myth and get down to the bones of the Thanksgiving idea, which has some harsh and disturbing truths...

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In order to whet the appetite of the fierce Spanish dogs
for human flesh, New World natives were chopped up and
fed to the dogs!!!!!

The New World Holocaust!!

"From all this it is clear how a virtuous life in the preachers of the faith takes the place of miracles, so that unbelievers readily hear the words of life and see that it is reasonable to believe them, and thus finally they gain these men for Christ. But it will be just the opposite if their lives are stained by crime, especially by devastating their lands, by looting, invading and unjustly seizing the domains and properties of these same unbelievers. And if for this reason a countless number of them are killed and slaughtered, as we have always done and continue to do in the Indian lands of the west, nothing can be clearer than that we have become an effective obstacle to their conversion"

--(In Defense of the Indians, de Las Casas, p. 136). This is a famous quote from Don Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, the Defender of the New World people from his own rapacious countrymen. All we need to do to make it applicable to today is to change a few WORDS:

"But it will be just the opposite if their lives are stained by crime, especially by devastating their lands, by looting, invading and unjustly seizing the domains and properties of these same unbelievers. And if for this reason a countless number of them are killed and slaughtered, as we have always done and continue to do in IRAQ, nothing can be clearer than that we have become an effective obstacle to their conversion."

--The Hounds of HELL!!


Read And See The Rest Of The Depictions Of This Entry...

"[The Spaniards] took babies from their mothers' breasts, grabbing them by the feet and smashing their heads against rocks. . . . They built a long gibbet, low enough for the toes to touch the ground and prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles. . . . Then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive."

Mandating Indigenous Holocaust EducationDr. June Terpstra

On yet another USA manufactured “holiday” where schools close to honor the savage conquistador, Christopher Columbus, who ushered into history the holocaust of approximately 11 million native north American “Indians” I propose a mandate for indigenous holocaust education, K-12. Like the new federal legislation introduced in congress to mandate education of the Jewish holocaust, I also propose we replace not only senior citizens arts and crafts but pre-school arts and crafts with education workshops developed to examine the denial of Indian genocide and removal; the denial of African Diaspora genocide and slavery, past and present; and, the genocide of Arabs and Muslims occurring in Palestine today.

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Who's The Real Terrorist?

Christopher Columbus: GENOCIDE CRIMINAL!!! A Real Illegal AlienColumbus Day??? In Amerikkka???