The only specialist Holocaust theatre and education company of its kind in Europe.
Cate Hollis, founder, was previously a Head of Drama and advisor for over 15 years before founding Voices of the Holocaust. She has a deep grounding in theatre and drama education as well as Holocaust, genocide and human rights history. She brings to each project a pedagogical foundation in subject areas from history, psychology to drama...
Founded with the objective to ensure that the voices of survivors and victims of the Holocaust would not be lost in the post survivor era and that, if the stories were told in the right way, that theatre could be the surrogate human voice to continue telling stories that needed to be told...
Our mission is to show that sustainable, sensitive, dynamic, contemporary theatre can become their powerful surrogate human voice. We are a theatre for education charity; our plays are historically accurate, woven with core educational themes and ideas, and our pedagogy is guided by four core principles;
A high quality theatre production that is as powerful for adult audiences in theatre venues as it is for students in schools. Our plays move and inspire in equal measure as well as offering a meaningful way of engaging in new understandings.
Regardless of the context, we always aim to ensure that a post performance discussion / Q&A is part of sharing our plays with audiences. For Holocaust Memorial Day / Yom HaShoah events we can offer reflective readings or other complementary additions to the performance.
Voices creates professional high quality performances that tour schools across the UK. Each production is accompanied by an education programme to engage young people in learning about the Holocaust, but that also aims to inspire and refresh the pedagogical approaches of their teachers.
Our programmes empower schools to embed their own ongoing cross-curricular whole school subject (History, Drama, SMSC etc) projects with performances as a creative catalyst or starting point.
As a registered charity, we need to raise funds to support our Holocaust education programmes in a climate where schools struggle to afford us. We have reached nearly 20,000 young people in the last year alone but could reach many many more with greater capacity to subsidise our work for schools.
In addition to financial contributions, our projects are always in need of people willing to contribute their time and skills. These combined efforts allow us to bring our work to schools at an affordable rate.
Sarah-Jane Burnstein, Holocaust Survivor Centre and Outreach Coordinator
We work in schools and communities, perform in school halls and theatres, village halls and on world platforms, at academic conferences and small community events.
Voices of the Holocaust is the only specialist theatre company of its kind in Europe. We have the support and endorsement of the European Jewish Congress as well as Holocaust educators and academics around the world.
Voices has performed at the European Parliament for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, attended 10 Downing Street to discuss our work with the government’s Holocaust Commission and internationally live streamed from JW3 in London. Most recently, Voices and its artistic director Cate Hollis have been nominated for the Simon Wiesenthal Prize for civic engagement for their work in the field of Holocaust education and combating antisemitism.
We work in partnership with the Association for Jewish Refugees, MK District and Reform Synagogue and are now developing a new partnership with Generation2Generation.
Voices of the Holocaust is the only theatre company of its kind in Europe. It has the support and endorsement of the European Jewish Congress as well as Holocaust educators and academics around the world.
It is possible that the subject of the play and Voices’ friend Susan Pollack OBE may be able to join us by special arrangement depending. Please discuss this with us in plenty of advance though.
It is expected that venues will want a post show discussion with the writer / Artistic Director and actors, especially if your programming is intended as a Holocaust Memorial or Yom HaShoah event.
A high quality theatre production that provides a powerful starting point for Holocaust curriculum objectives as well as giving tremendous value to Drama departments who may already be using Mark Wheeller as a set text or need to complete theatre review coursework. Includes a post performance Q&A with Cate and the actors addressing any aspects of the play, Susan’s story, Holocaust history that the whole audience can benefit from.
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