The Yiddish Queen Lear

New York in the late 1930s: a once-famous Yiddish actress gives her theatre business over to her three daughters. The Yiddish Queen Lear is a story of love, infedelity, betrayal and exile, which examines the moment when Jewish East European and American cultures mix, on the eve of the Holocaust. Both a free reworking of Shakespeare's King Lear and a homage to the lost world of Yiddish theatre, The Yiddish Queen Lear is a vibrant, funny and tragic study of the clashes and connections between two very different worlds.

"This play is an affecting and electic treat." Evening Standard (The Yiddish Queen Lear)

Woman In The Moon

Set in the United States, England and Germany, between 1920 and 2001, Woman In The Moon is a dream play inspired by both the legend of Faust and the testimonies of French, Austrian and German survivors from Camp Dora. It explores the connections between the US space programme, the V1 and V2 bombers, and the slave labour in the Third Reich.

"Brave, intelligent and desperately moving." The Guardian (Woman In The Moon)

Julia Pascal's plays are edgy personal and political dramas often connected to Jewish culture and history. From British collaboration with the Nazis on the Channel Islands to current Palestinian-Israeli conflicts, they explore the complexity of the most highly-charged conflicts of our age. These texts range from dance-theatre Expressionism to naturalism and often offer large roles to women which challenge stereotypes. The plays have an international dimension. Year Zero is set in Vichy France. St Joan in London and Paris. The Dybbuk takes place in Eastern European ghetto. Crossing Jerusalem is 24 hours in the life of a Jerusalem family. Honeypot is a spy story situated in Stockholm and Paris. Styles range from cabaret to thriller. And always there is sharp dialogue that is often darkly funny as well as disturbing. The plays have been staged in the UK, the USA, Belgium, France, Germany and Sweden.