November 4-21, Thurs – Sat at 8pm, Sun at 3pm. 155 1st Ave. (9th & 10th Sts.). Res/Info: 212-254-1109. Tkts: $15, seniors/students $12, TDF accepted.
A historical play set in the mid-19th century in a now landmarked building in Battery Park–the entry point to the United States prior the facility on Ellis Island. Newly-arrived travelers share their hopes and dreams, seeking love and success in a new land. An Irishman fleeing the potato famine; an Italian man who escaped from forced child labor in the sulfur mines of Sicily; the sole survivor of a pogrom (organized violence against Jews) in a Russian village; a woman who “always felt different” and ran from an arranged marriage; a freeborn African American woman who works for the NYC Commission on Immigration. Castle Garden was briefly a prominent entertainment center. In a re-imagining of a night’s entertainment, the Italian tenor Lorenzo Salvi performs and the infamous dancer Lola Montez recreates her notorious “Spider Dance.”
