"The Rocket Men" is a play about the former Nazis who sent us to the moon.
In this unique theatrical experience, we are carried through time in a blink of an eye to present the story of the German "Rocket Men" who used their scientific skills to flee Nazi Germany and settle in the most unlikely of places...North Alabama. These men form the backbone of NASA’s rocketry program. Told through the point of view of Heinz- Hermann Koelle, a lesser-known young German rocketeer, who joined this "Operation Paperclip" team several years later, the play explores the dynamic relationship of Wernher von Braun and Koelle as these two have set their sights on space exploration and colonization beyond the moon. Still, as the play counts down to the launch of Apollo 11, Koelle is befriended by a Jewish engineer who is hell-bent on exposing the truth: the Germans' technology is based on the V-2 rockets built by slave labor. Koelle finds himself caught between his passion for making rockets (not to mention his need to stay in the country) and helping Sol expose this secret. But the clock to launch is ticking... Played by six female-identifying women who force us to theatrically re-examine this explosive story - still widely not known in America - for a purpose to be revealed by the night's end, “The Rocket Men” asks what it means “to be an American”. It shines a modern, unflinching light on this story, as NASA prepares to fly to the moon once more asking who gets to be remembered in the history books, and why.