Our Class, a readers theater presentation, is about a group of schoolchildren, Jewish and Catholic, who are classmates in 1925 Poland. As the children grow up, their country is torn apart by invading armies, first Soviet and then Nazi. Internal grievances deepen as fervent nationalism develops. Friends betray each other and violence escalates, until these ordinary people carry out an extraordinary and monstrous act that darkly resonates to this day.

Written by Polish playwright Tadeusz Slobodzianek (trans. Ryan Craig), “Our Class” had its world premiere in London in 2009, and its New York premiere last fall at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The play, directed by John Gancar, delves into the lives of 10 students who were caught up in the nearly forgotten 1941 massacre of members of the Jewish community in Jedwabne, a small village in northeast Poland, by their Polish Catholic neighbors.