"On Holy Ground" a play about Israel

Genesis Theatrical Productions will present the Chicago
premiere of On Holy Ground by
Stephanie Liss directed by Katie Horwitz, beginning May 5, 2014.

The two act plays include Daughter of My People which examines the life of Henrietta Szold,
the founder of Hadassah.  This is the
story of a woman, an older woman deeply in love for the first time, with a much
younger man.  This is her journey through
the awakening of her womanhood and her womanliness in a time when women were
not allowed to be productive parts of society. 
It is the story of the Jewish state of Israel.

The second, Jihad,
examines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the stories of two mothers, one
living in an Israeli settlement and the other in a Palestinian area.  This is set in the present day in the Middle
East, a land where nothing changes yet nothing stays the same. 

According to playwright Stephanie Liss, “The stories rise
from the land… a land that never changes…a land that endures.  This land
has a life that is its own. It calls questions and withholds answers. It is its
own mystery. It is the land of the Jewish state.”

 For On Holy Ground
Stephanie did research by going underground with the PLO, Hamas and other
terrorist groups as well as the IDF.

Stephanie Liss was born and raised in NY, NY. Her
family moved to Los Angeles while she was in high school, but she wanted to go
back to NY, so she went back to NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She graduated
from the theatre program, and moved back out to L.A., where she began her
writing career almost immediately. Although it took almost six years to have a
movie for television made, she is proud that the first time she ever saw her
name on screen was for ‘Second Serve – the Renee Richards Story.’

Following ‘Second Serve,’ came ‘David,’ for
which she was nominated for both an Emmy and a Writers Guild Award, ‘Hidden In
Silence,’ for which she won the Writers Guild Award and the Berlin Film
festival for best television film, and a host of other television movies. She
has testified before congress on behalf of issues about which she has written
television movies, and researches her work extensively.

All of Stephanie’s plays are not only Jewish
in orientation and theme, but through her films, there is always the thread
of Torah, somewhere. Stephanie moves back and
forth between television and theatre, but theatre is her heart, soul, and first
love, and bringing Judaism to the stage in her plays, actually makes her heart
sing…

Genesis Theatrical Productions seeks to empower and educate
members of society through dynamic new theatrical works which emphasize social
justice and communal responsibility.

On Holy Ground will be presented May 5,6,7,12,13,14, 2014 at
7:30pm and Sunday, May 11 at 2pm at the National Pastime Theater in the Preston
Bradley Center, 941 W. Lawrence, 4th Floor, Chicago.  Tickets are $20 and can be reserved through
Brown Paper Tickets or by calling 1-800-838-3006, ext. 1.  For group sales, contact Elayne LeTraunik at genesistheatricals@gmail.com.

After closing in Chicago, On Holy Ground will premiere in Indiana on the Frank
and Katrina Basile Stage at the Phoenix Theatre on Tuesday, May 20 and Wednesday, May
21, 2014 at 7:00 PM. Tickets are $22 for all performances and are available at Vendini.