Righteous: A Play Reading

The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center & Burke-Cohen Entertainment present a live virtual reading of Jeff Cohen’s new play Righteous on Monday August 24 @ 7:30 p.m. The virtual reading is free and registration is required by visiting https://bit.ly/3a4aacJ. 

The reading stars Tony Award-winners Frank Wood and Denis O’Hare, Tony Award-nominees Johanna Day, Jessica Hecht, Daniel Jenkins, and Richard Kind, SAG Award nominee Peter Jacobson and Drama Desk Award winner Ned Eisenberg. Also featured in the cast are Jimmy Burke and Dee Pelletier. Directed by Shana Cooper. 

What would you do if you learned that your country planned to exterminate an entire race of people? That is the horrible question faced by Eduard Schulte, a captain of German industry and member of Hitler’s inner circle. Righteous is the true story of the man who sounded the alarm of Hitler’s plan to murder all the Jews in Europe. Schulte’s warning reached the desk of President Roosevelt in December 1942.

His identity was a closely guarded secret for over forty years and his heroic act to stop the Holocaust was kept hidden from his family and from the world. Righteous tells his story through the lens of Priscilla Schulte, the American granddaughter who never knew him. She uncovers a compelling and poignant portrait of a man who risked his life and the lives of his family to stand up against evil. In 1988, Eduard Schulte was posthumously honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations – a Righteous Gentile.

The reading is presented in association with The Florida Holocaust Museum, the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, the United Jewish Association of Toronto, The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, and the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

Righteous had an initial developmental reading in April 2017 at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts as part of the National Jewish Theater Foundation Holocaust Theater International Initiative.