Tectonic Theater Project has announced “Widening the Lens: A Conversation Series,” a series of post-show discussions following select performances of “Here There Are Blueberries,” the Pulitzer Prize finalist play returning to Broadway this fall.
Directed by Moisés Kaufman, “Here There Are Blueberries” will begin previews on Nov. 2 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, with opening night set for Nov. 9. The strictly limited 10-week engagement is scheduled to conclude on Jan. 10, 2027. The play begins with the discovery of a photo album that arrived at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2007. The album, now known as the Höcker album, shows Nazi soldiers, secretaries and more enjoying leisure time during World War II. Based on real events, the play by Kaufman and Amanda Gronich examines what the images reveal about the perpetrators of the Holocaust and human behavior.
The post-performance conversations will bring together journalists, historians, human rights advocates, faith leaders and others to discuss themes of memory, complicity and responsibility raised by the play.
The series will feature Anderson Cooper, Ken Burns, Ambassador Samantha Power, actor and podcast host Jonah Platt, civil rights leader the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and other guests.
The first scheduled conversation, “The Most Dangerous Animal,” will take place on Nov. 12 following the 1 p.m. matinée and will feature 15-time Emmy Award-winning journalist Cooper with Auschwitz survivor Irene Weiss. Cooper previously interviewed Weiss for a 2024 “60 Minutes” story about the depictions at the center of the play.
On Nov. 15, following the 3 p.m. matinee, Emmy Award-winning “CBS Sunday Morning” contributor Faith Salie will moderate “The Detectives of History,” featuring historian Rebecca Erbelding and the play’s creators, Kaufman and Gronich. Erbelding’s research at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum into the identities of people pictured in the album formed the basis of the play.
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“Power and Responsibility,” presented by Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE), will take place Nov. 19 following the 7 p.m. evening performance. The discussion will feature Ambassador Power, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, in conversation with FASPE founder and chair David Goldman.
Reverend Barber and author, pastor and activist Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove will join Goldman for “Faith, Conscience and Complicity” on Dec. 2 following the 7 p.m. evening performance. The conversation, also presented by FASPE, will examine moral responsibility in the face of injustice.
The Dec. 13 matinée will be followed by “Victims and Perpetrators: The Legacy of Trauma,” featuring Gary Kramer, grandson of Auschwitz survivor Lili Jacob, and Tilman Taube, whose grandfather was an SS doctor pictured in the Höcker album. FASPE principal scholar Thorsten Wagner will lead the discussion.
On Dec. 20, Platt, creator and host of the podcast “Being Jewish with John Platt,” will join Sara Bloomfield, longtime director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, for “The Responsibility to Remember.” This will be a conversation about preserving Holocaust memory for future generations.
The series is scheduled to conclude Jan. 7 with “History as Teacher,” featuring two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Burns, National Book Critics Circle Award– and National Jewish Book Award-winning author Daniel Mendelsohn and Erbelding. The discussion will explore historical storytelling and the responsibilities of presenting the Holocaust to new generations.
Additional talkbacks as part of “Widening the Lens” are expected to be announced. The schedule and participants are subject to change, and audience members must purchase tickets to the corresponding performance to attend a post-show conversation.
“Here There Are Blueberries” had its first workshop production at Miami New Drama and received its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in 2022. The New York mounting debuted Off-Broadway in 2024, in a co-production at New York Theatre Workshop, and received two Lucille Lortel Awards, including Outstanding Play. It was also named a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
“Here There Are Blueberries” will be produced on Broadway by Tectonic Theater Project (founder and artistic director Moisés Kaufman and executive director Matt Joslyn), Brian and Dayna Lee, Bruce Roberts, Sue Vaccaro and Ricky Stevens.
