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Home on the Mornin' Train
Author(s):
Kim Hines
The year is 1939, Berlin, Germany. Hitler has called for the extermination of Jews. The year is 1839, Talledega, Alabama, in America. Slavery is alive and doing quite well in the United States. Jewish children, Rifka and her little brother Aaron, are spirited away from their home by their parents. They are sent into hiding with the Westemeiers, a rural German family. Soon Rifka and Aaron are joined by other Jewish children, Baruch, David and Ledah. The plan is to move from hiding to a boat that will take them to Denmark where they will be safe. While in hiding the Jewish children read to pass the time. Rifka reads, from a book sent by relatives in America, a first-person account of a runaway teenage slave named Brave Mary. The Jewish children learn of the history of slavery in the United States and Brave Mary's story of escaping an Alabama plantation in the 1830s. Brave Mary is joined in her escape by Katie-Mae and a young boy named Kindred. All of the black children are lead by a young woman named Runaway Jessie, who has found the courage to go back to the deep South and lead other young people to freedom. The means of survival for both groups of children is the Underground Railroad. The Westemeier's son Karl helps his father smuggle the Jewish children out of Germany. In America, Adelaide, the daughter of an abolitionist banker, gives asylum to runaway slaves on their fight to freedom. Olivia, a slave, puts her own safety in jeopardy as she uses her slave owners' boat late at night to ferry blacks across the Ohio River. Trials and tribulations beset both groups of children. However, the Jewish children are inspired by the strength and courage of the black children trying to find their way to Canada, as they make their own way to Denmark. This play has songs that reflect African-American and Jewish cultures, and small pieces of dialogue are spoken in German, Yiddish and Hebrew.
Area staging.
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| Genre(s): | Not Available | | Time Period(s): | Not Available | | Play Type: | Play | | Runtime: | 44 minutes | | Acts: | Not Available | | Set Complexity: | Not Available | | Set Information: | Not Available | | Year First Published: | Not Available | | Total Characters: | 15 | | Male Characters: | 7 | | Female Characters: | 8 | | Androgynous Characters: | 0 | | Minimum Cast: | Not Available | | Maximum Cast: | Not Available | | Cost: |
$60.00 /per performance
Royalty/cost information prone to change.
Please check with the publisher for the most accurate information. | | Publisher: | Dramatic Publishing
Click on the publisher's name above for additional information, including updated prices. | | ISBN: | Not Available |
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