Cyma's Story

by Barbara Kahn

Set in Shoshone, Wyoming in September 1939, on the beginning of war in Europe. Cyma is a Russian Jewish immigrant living with her partner Rachel in Shoshone. She write weekly to her family in Russia, hoping for an answer that has not come in many years. News of war triggers memories of her childhood, both good and bad, and the scandal that forced her to leave her family and homeland so many years before.

Set in Shoshone, Wyoming in September 1939, on the beginning of war in Europe. Cyma is a Russian Jewish immigrant living with her partner Rachel in Shoshone. She write weekly to her family in Russia, hoping for an answer that has not come in many years. News of war triggers memories of her childhood, both good and bad, and the scandal that forced her to leave her family and homeland so many years before.

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Cyma's Story

Recommended by

  • Cheryl Bear: Cyma's Story by Barbara Kahn
    “

    A moving story of one's journey through war, escape and the connection that remains from a distance. Well done.

    A moving story of one's journey through war, escape and the connection that remains from a distance. Well done.

    ”
  • Doug DeVita: Cyma's Story by Barbara Kahn
    “

    At its heart and from its earliest incarnations, theater has existed to tell stories – whether through words, actions, song, dance, all combinations thereof – and as playwrights, telling stories is, or should still be, our main concern. And Barbara Kahn tells a beautiful one, and beautifully simply, in "Cyma's Story." Vivid, touching, intimately epic, this letter written by a Russian Jewish emigre living in Shoshone, Wyoming at the outbreak of WWII pierces the heart, and lingers for days after reading it.

    At its heart and from its earliest incarnations, theater has existed to tell stories – whether through words, actions, song, dance, all combinations thereof – and as playwrights, telling stories is, or should still be, our main concern. And Barbara Kahn tells a beautiful one, and beautifully simply, in "Cyma's Story." Vivid, touching, intimately epic, this letter written by a Russian Jewish emigre living in Shoshone, Wyoming at the outbreak of WWII pierces the heart, and lingers for days after reading it.

    ”

Production History

  • Professional, Fresh Fruit International Festival, NYC, 2010
  • Professional, Harvest Festival, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 2010
  • Professional, International Women Artists Saln, Dixon Place, NYC (excerpt), 2018
  • Professional, Theater for the New City, Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, NYC, 1999
  • Fringe, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, 1999
  • Professional, Expanded Arts, New York City, 1999
  • Professional, Jewish Women's Theatre Festival, Hollywood, CA, 2002
  • University, Jewish Women Writers, US & UK/1990's and beyond, Mainz, Germany, 2003