The Place We Built
In a deserted neighborhood in post-communist Budapest, young bohemians squat in an abandoned building and build a bar. Reclaiming the Jewish identity their parents' generation abandoned after the Holocaust, they create a vibrant new subculture that combines big ideas and intense debates with wild parties. Friendships form and fray, couples recombine, people change, the neighborhood is transformed. But when authoritarianism and antisemitism make a surprise comeback in the country at large, will the place they built survive? Part of the larger 7th project.
A tale of friendship, idealism, and coming of age, set against the backdrop of Hungary's current terrifying slide into dictatorship—and the global rise of right-wing populism.
Cast Requirements
7W, 4M
Honors
[2018] Top 10, Jewish Play Project's Best of the First 10 Years
[2016] Winner, AR Gurney Prize
[2016] Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival
[2015] Top 10 for Jewish Playwriting Contest
[2015] Semifinalist for O'Neill National Playwrights Conference
[2015] Honorable Mention, the Kilroys' List
[2013] Clifford Odets Ensemble Play Commission.
Production and Development History
[2016] World Premiere at the Flea Theatre Mainstage (dir. Danya Taymor)
[2015] Staged Reading in the Women's Voices Theater Festival with Mosaic Theatre of DC (dir. Eleanor Holdridge)
[2015] Workshop and Staged Reading with OPEN Festival, Jewish Plays Project (dir. Benjamin Kamine)
[2015] Workshop and Staged Reading with The Playwrights' Realm (dir. Benjamin Kamine) (Writing Fellows selection)
[2013] Clifford Odets Ensemble Play Commission. Workshop production at NYU’s Lee Strasberg Institute (dir. Portia Krieger)