Morris Theatre Guild presents “And Then They Came For Me” starting Friday

The Morris Theatre Guild kicks off its performances of “And Then They Came For Me” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, a play by James Still that combines acting with video interviews of Holocaust survivors Ed Silverberg and Eva Schloss.

The actors, like Karsen Gromm of Ottawa, will recreate the scenes from the survivor’s lives, including Schloss’s 15th birthday, where her family was arrested.

“So much of it is the emotional side of what these people went through,” Gromm said. “I think a lot of Holocaust media focuses on the graphic content, but since this is so minimal, we don’t have any of that. We’re focused on the emotional and the psychological of what these people were going through. It’s important that we see a lot of the human side of what happened.”

Silverberg was Anne Frank’s first boyfriend and one of the characters written about in her diary. Schloss was the same age and lived in the same apartment building in Amsterdam.

Gromm said the characters are sitting and hiding for much of the play, and the play shows how much space there was during these times where life still happened.

Gromm, who plays the role of both Silverberg and Pappy, said the preparation for this play is different than what he’s used to. It reminds him of his time on the speech team in high school reading dramatic duets and poetry.

“It’s very minimal,” Gromm said. “We didn’t have sets. We weren’t doing costumes. It was all just us, and the way we do this show is similar. It’s minimal sets, minimal costumes and minimal characters.”

Plainfield’s Ellen Rasmussen, who plays Mutti, said her son, Colin, plays her son in the show. That’s helped her put herself in the headspace of the character.

“One of the things I think is interesting about this play is the integration of the technology with it, and having the actual video recordings of people who witnessed what happened,” Rasmussen said. “It has made preparing for the show a little bit more unique, because you have to not just know when other actors are going to perform their portions, but you also have ot know when to pause to let the technology piece come in.”

The play runs at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 7 and 8 and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, March 9, and follows the same schedule Friday through Sunday, March 14-16.

Tickets cost $20. For more information, visit https://morristheatreguild.org/.