Peninsula actor Michael Bell, who performed in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and Silverwing with Kaleidoscope, is one of the featured young actors in the group’s latest performance.
Hana’s Suitcase is the story of two Jewish children who lived in Czechoslovakia, and what happened to them when their country was occupied by the Nazis in 1939.
In March 2000, a suitcase arrives from Auschwitz at the Children’s Holocaust Centre in Tokyo. Painted on the side is the name Hana Brady, a birth date and the word waisenkind (German for orphan). Asked relentless questions by the children of the centre, curator Fumiko Ishioka embarks on a journey from Tokyo to Prague to Toronto, to uncover the fate of Hana and her family at the hands of the Nazis.
Roderick Glanville makes his directorial debut as Kaleidoscope’s new artistic director with a mixed cast of talented young people and well-known local veteran adult performers. Aly Tisdale (The Hobbit) plays her first major professional lead role with Hana Brady. Bell plays her brother George Brady. Real life brother and sister team Amisha and Ajay Parikh-Friese (The Hobbit, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever) play the roles of Maiko and Akira.
The adult ensemble includes Valerie Sing Turner as Fumiko, Kirsten van Ritzen (Twelfth Night, Little Women, Animal Farm) playing multiple parts including Hana’s mother Marketa Brady as well as Ian Ferguson (Twelfth Night) and former artistic director Leslie D. Bland (Little Women, Animal Farm) playing a variety of roles.
Kaleidoscope Theatre’s production of Hana’s Suitcase premieres April 30 at the Metro Studio Theatre in Victoria.