Fania Fenelon, a Jewish cabaret singer working in Paris at the time of the Nazi invasion, arrived at the Auschwitz death camps in 1944. Playing for Time is Arthur Miller's tribute to the courage and survival of Fania and many other women found themselves "lucky" enough to escape the gas chamber at Auschwitz by being chosen to participate in a prisoners orchestra. Their duty was to serenade, for hours on end, the prisoners on their way to the gas chambers, lest they too be exterminated. This story of human endurance and one's capacity to transform pain into beauty through art speaks to us in a very poignant and timeless way.

Playing For Time is directed by Melba Martinez with Equity Guest Artists Jill Parker-Jones (Ally McBeal, Women Who Steal), Babs George (A Macbeth, Women Who Steal, Trojan Women) and Jenny Larson (Lend Me a Tenor, Conference of the Birds, Polaroid Stories) and a cast of talented St. Edward's University students, including Yebuny Johnson, Elizabeth Wakehouse (Death of a Salesman, Lend Me A Tenor) and Jason Newman (Conference of the Birds, Death of a Salesman).

The Mary Moody Northen Theatre of St. Edward's University offers the only pre-professional undergraduate theater program of its kind in the United States. Designed for the student-artist, the program offers a rare combination of conservatory and academic training with a rigorous liberal arts curriculum.

Founded by the Congregation of Holy Cross, St. Edward's University is an independent, Catholic liberal arts university of 4,100 students in Austin.

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