Family Matinee: My Brother's Gift

Runs Oct 20 – Oct 27, 2024

YouthAware Production adapted by Claudia Inglis Haas

From the writings and memories of Eva Geiringer Schloss and the poetry and paintings of Heinz Geiringer

Directed by Andrew Jordan Nance

Based on the remarkable true story of Heinz Geiringer – neighbor and friend of Anne Frank – we follow the story of a young artist and loving brother living in unconscionable circumstances. A trained musician at only 15 years old and now forced to live in hiding and silence, Heinz turns to painting and poetry to express his everyday terror but also his faith in a brighter future. Through Heinz’s inspired paintings, nostalgic love of life, and his sister Eva’s remembrances, we are shown how art is part of our collective humanity and its power to help us cope, heal, and offer hope.

Performances are recommended for ages 10 and up.

Run time: 40 minutes plus a post-show talkback l Read the show program

Supported in part by Lesbians for Good of Horizons Foundation, The Libitzky Family Foundation Fund, LSP Family Foundation, and the generosity of NCTC’s individual donors.

Click on the calendar to book a public performance for My Brother’s Gift.

Click HERE to book a school matinee performance Oct 1-24 (Tue-Thur at 10am and 11:30am)

Photos & Video Interviews

Creative Team & Headshots

Playwright Claudia Inglis Haas (pronouns: she/her) has worked as a playwright, director, actor and teacher of theatre. She has created theatre in schools (including their gymnasiums and cafeterias), caves, nature centers and libraries. Theatre is everywhere. Claudia has fifty published plays which have seen over 1500 productions in every state in the U.S.A. as well as on five continents (Still looking for South American and Antarctica.) Her plays have been popular in the high school one-act play festival competitions and the ten-minute plays are used regularly for forensics.

Andrew Jordan Nance (pronouns: he/him) most recently wrote and directed Puppy Mind, which has been touring in San Francisco Public School for the past two years with NCTC’s YouthAware program. Additional directing highlights include As Bees in Honey Drown, My Beautiful Launderette (NCTC) , Wunderworld, ( Lesher Center for The Arts), It’s Christmas, Carole (Children’s Creativity Theater). Additionally, he is the author of five published books; The Barefoot King, Dolly Dives Deep, The Lion in Me, Mindful Arts in the Classroom, and Puppy Mind. In 2013 he founded Mindful Arts San Francisco; a program of the San Francisco Education Fund that provides volunteer mindfulness educators to teach in SF public schools. www.mindfulartssf.org. We hope this love letter to the Geiringer family makes them proud and brings us that peace is possible.

Eva Schloss (pronouns: she/her) is an Austrian-English Holocaust survivor, memoirist and stepdaughter of Otto Frank, the father of Margot and diarist Anne Frank. Schloss speaks widely of her family’s experiences during the Holocaust and is a participant in the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive project to record video answers to be used in educational tools. She has authored three books (The Promise, Eva’s Story, and After Auschwitz) and is a co-founder of the Anne Frank Trust in the UK. Learn more about the book that inspired this play here.

Creative Team

Stage Manager: Liam Kirk (pronouns: he/him)
Lighting Designer: Nic Candito (pronouns: he/him)
Sound Designer: Kaitlin Rosen (pronouns: she/her)
Costume Designer: Anthony Lopez (pronouns: he/him)