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Written by Victor Eydus, you can perform the musical with your students or simply read and sing the play along with you.
Contact Victor for the musical notes: veydus@yahoo.com
The play is available in both English and Russian;
The first production was in Rehovot, Israel, in 2014 as a staged reading.
The 2024 production at San Francisco State University had 12 students involved, playing many roles. Victor directed the play.
Download the full play:
Music sample from the Musical:
About the musical play from Victor:
The events of this musical belong to history. It is a very recent
history, yet it happened in a world that is gone. There is no Leningrad
on the map; the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has collapsed; what
used to be republics is neither Soviet nor Socialist anymore.
As it always happens in Jewish history, things get turned upside down.
While nobody seems to question Napoleonic wars or the American
Revolution, countless efforts are made to revise events related to the
Jewish people, from Romans crucifying a Jewish carpenter and blaming
it on Jews to denying the Holocaust to commenting on the current
violence in the Middle East. I do not doubt that persecution of the
Jewish people and religion in the Soviet Union will be denied as well.
As a participant and witness of this modern exodus, I feel
obligated to provide testimony* to it. While the names and the
particular sequence of the scenes are fictitious, the actual events
happened to somebody I know personally or were told to me by an
eyewitness.
All I have tried to do is to present them with the most accurate
details.
Contact Victor: veydus@yahoo.com
Esya’s Song (from the musical)
My life was so plain and clear,
The world was sun-lit with cheer,
Sunburn my only fear
On my way to school.
Today, I feel there's been a change.
My heart beats faster; oh, how strange!
And I can mull no longer
Lectures dry and dull.
Why had I come here? Now I see
My friend was wrong in telling me
That if I do not want to
I needn’t come again.
Today, I feel there's been a change
And something’s happened, something strange,
That just a day without him
Brings me so much pain.
I should have given him a call,
Suggest to help me learn my role,
Ask if he could come early
To aid me with the set.
I've just met him, and – oh, bother! –
Could it be he’s with another?
Or perhaps he simply
Cannot come just yet.
But oh, how sweetly aches my heart
When he walks in before we start
To home, I didn't want to
Visit, if you please.
Today, I feel there's been a change,
And something’s happened, something strange,
But now I need somebody
Just to breathe with ease.