Details

"How do you open a door when there is no key? You burn down the whole room... And so I stood at the edge of my family with two choices. Jump through an open window. Or stay. And burn with the rest of them... And so I jumped." Inspired by a true story. On the afternoon of Saturday, 25 March 1911, someone screamed "Fire!" on the eighth floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Within ten minutes, 146 workers, many of them young women - and most refugees from some of the world's most oppressed countries - lay dead, either on the floor of the sweatshop or on the street eight storeys below. Winner of the 2015 Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition, and a finalist in the 2015 Henley Rose Playwriting Competition for Women, The Great Divide tells the individual stories of just a few of these doomed young female workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Full of heart, music and history, The Great Divide is an emotional and heartfelt insight into the immigrant and refugee experience of the early 20th Century, and those who paid the ultimate price for seeking opportunity and a new life across the ocean. World Premiere

Cast/Performers

Josh Collins (Jacob / Avram), Hannah Genesius (Rosa), Michael Kiersey (Max / Papa / Lustig / Samuel Gompers / Policeman / Judge / Others), Emma King (Manya), Miztli Rose Neville (Sadie / Sophie / Clara / Others)

Creatives/Company

Author: Alix Sobler
Producer: Georgina Ratnatunga (in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre)
Director: Rory McGregor
Design: Sebastian Noel
Lighting: Sam Waddington
Music: Tim Shaw