Dr. Korczak and the Children

Poster by Oren Fisher

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Four actors try to tell the story of Janusz Korczak, a Jewish doctor killed by the Nazis after refusing to abandon the orphaned children in his care. But how can they put themselves in the mindset of the Holocaust’s victims – or its villains? “What’s it to you what happened in Poland in 1940 and 1942? It’s a long way from here to Poland,” wrote Erwin Sylvanus in this metatheatrical drama from 1957 – but in 2025 the problem of how to confront this atrocious truth through art is only more timely.

“There are plays that tell us something we already suspect; then there are productions that insist we feel it in our ribs. Head Trick Theatre’s staging of Dr. Korczak and the Children belongs to the latter — intimate, unsparing, and quietly furious…While the play is rooted in history, this production refuses to stay in the past. Parallels to our own moment — families displaced, bureaucratic indifference to suffering, debates over who is ‘worthy’ of protection — emerge naturally from this production…This production of Dr. Korczak and the Children is lean, humane theatre — rigorous rather than indulgent — that insists on empathy as an active discipline. In a world continually rearranging its cruelties, it shows that the smallest acts of fidelity to another person can still be a form of resistance. That is theatre put to its highest use.” —Cranston Herald

“Unforgettable and passionate performance [Frederick P. Dodge as Korczak]…complex, difficult and impressive [Jeff H. Nguyen as the Officer]…Emotionally intense and powerfully performed…immerses the audience in a heartwrenching true story that is ever so timely to this day. If an audience member pays attention to the story and this production, they will be walking out of that black box theater feeling a call to action…The fight is in our hands now.” —BroadwayWorld