The Place We Built
By Sarah Gancher
Directed by Portia Krieger
2013 Clifford Odets Ensemble Play Commission
Sponsored by The Lee Strasberg Creative Center®
December 11-14, 2013 | The Marilyn Monroe Theatre
SYNOPSIS: 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?
A tale of friendship, idealism, and coming of age, set against the backdrop of Hungary’s terrifying slide into dictatorship — and the global rise of right-wing populism.