MOLINE, ILLINOIS (January 8, 2020) — The Black Box Theatre in downtown Moline will open their fourth season with “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” a play by Celeste Raspanti.
“We chose to do the play in honor of Holocaust Remembrance” said Lora Adams, director and co-founder of the theatre. The piece is an inspiring story that shows how art can be used in times of tragedy and is centered around Raja, a Czech teenager forced into Terezin, a Jewish ghetto. The camp was a stopping-point before being sent to the death camps, particularly Auschwitz. Fifteen-thousand children under the age of fifteen passed through Terezin. Less than 100 survived. The poems and pictures drawn by the children were discovered after the war and were first published in 1959.
The cast includes: Laila Haley as Raja, Mischa Hooker and Patti Flahrety as her father and mother, Justin Ruefer as Pavel, her brother, and Dee Canfield as her Aunt Vera. Also, Ethan D Mason, Isabel Trulson, Anna Gold, Dorothy Turner, Jaclyn Marta, Jim Harris, Grayson Dunbridge, Marley Haley, Wrigley Mancha, Ethan Dunbridge, and Phil Dunbridge.
"We are always so honored to have so many actors join us for the first time on the Black Box stage," Adams said, "and we are very grateful for the generous support of the Jewish Federation of the Quad Cities and Allan Ross."
Tickets are available at theblackboxtheatre.com. Performances are January 23 through February 1, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 7:30PM and Sunday at 2PM. Tickets are $16 except on $13 Thursdays.
