“Forget Me Not,” an Australian play based on the true story of child migration opens tonight at the Kranzberg. It is the first of two Australian plays Upstream Theater is producing this year.
Although the child migrant in the play is imagined, his story is representative of thousands of true stories, artistic director Philip Boehm said.
According to the Child Migration Trust, more than 3,000 British children were sent to Australia between the end of World War II and 1970 to be fostered out or live in institutions.
“They were almost like slave child labor,” actor Jerry Vogel said. He plays Gerry, a man in his 60s who was shipped to Australia as a little boy.
Because the play is being performed in a small black box theater, the set focuses on light and sound, stage designer Michael Heil said. A big photograph surrounded by many little photographs is symbolic of the idea that the play tells one story out of many.
Related Event
Upstream Theater Presents Tom Holloway's "Forget Me Not"
January 31 - February 16, 2014
Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m.
Sundays, February 2 and 9 at 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, February 16 at 3:00 p.m.
Kranzberg Arts Center, 501 N. Grand at Olive
For more information, visit the Upstream Theater website.
Cityscape is produced by Mary Edwards and Alex Heuer, hosted bySteve Potter and funded in part by the the Arts and Education Council of Greater St. Louis, the Regional Arts Commission and the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.