Fosston and Win-E-Mac will perform their One Act Plays at the Win-E-Mac Arts & Event Center on Sunday, January 18th with Fosston’s One Act starting at 2pm. Win-E-Mac’s will follow after a short intermission.
Fosston will be performing “OZ” by Don Zolidis: When a tornado whisks young Beth away, she suddenly finds herself in a place that feels oddly like the movie The Wizard of Oz. Just like the movie’s main character, Dorothy, Beth is from Kansas, although she’s reluctant to embrace the comparison. Longing to get back home, Beth decides to go see the powerful Wizard of Oz for help. Along the way, she encounters an anxiety-riddled lion, a sarcastic tin man, a proudly ignorant scarecrow, and a wicked witch, all parodies of their counterparts in the movie. This short one-act parody takes the classic story and turns it upside down; the famed yellow brick road leading to the Wizard has been sold to foreign investors, Glinda the Good Witch seems to have a dark side driven by annihilation, and the Wicked Witch doesn’t seem so wicked.
Win-E-Mac will be performing “The Ninth Train” by Jim and Jane Jeffries: Just before the start of World War II, Nicholas Winton organized trains to transport Jewish children out of Czechoslovakia to England. Known as the kindertransports, these trains successfully rescued 664 Jewish children from the death camps of the Holocaust. During this tragic time in history, some Jewish families had to make a grievous choice: should they separate the family and send their children away on one of these trains to safety, knowing that they may never see them again? Or do they keep the family together in Czechoslovakia and risk ultimate peril against the swiftly advancing forces of their greatest enemy? This drama explores one family’s experiences with the growing tensions in the region and the difficult choice they have to make in order that at least part of their family might still have a small hope of survival. Due to its portrayal of a very difficult time in history, “The Ninth Train” is not suitable for younger audiences.
