The historian whose archival work lies at the root of Here There Are Blueberries was brought onstage at the Barrymore Theatre on Monday night, November 2, as the Pulitzer Prize finalist gave the first preview of a ten-week Broadway engagement that opens officially on November 9.
Delia Cunningham, who is making her Broadway debut in the production as Rebecca Erbelding, welcomed Dr. Rebecca Erbelding herself to the stage, a gesture the company used to mark how much of the play rests on the historian's own discoveries. It was Erbelding's research at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., into the Höcker Album that uncovered the true story the play dramatizes.
Written by Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich, and directed by Kaufman, the play starts from a real-life puzzle: in 2007 an album of Nazi-era photographs, unlike any the museum's staff had seen, landed on an archivist's desk. As the curators worked out what the pictures showed, the album made news and set off an argument that traveled well beyond the museum, and the play follows what those images disclose about the people who carried out the Holocaust, and about the rest of us.
Broadway is the latest stage in a long development. The piece had its first workshop production at Miami New Drama, its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in 2022 and its Off-Broadway premiere in 2024 at New York Theatre Workshop, where it won two Lucille Lortel Awards, Outstanding Play among them, besides its Pulitzer Prize finalist citation and nominations for Outstanding New Play from the Outer Critics Circle and the Drama League.
The ensemble, announced in full earlier this season, is Scott Barrow, Michelle Beck, Michael Cerveris, Kathleen Chalfant, Cunningham, Brandon Flynn, Montego Glover and Conrad Ricamora, with Jeanne Sakata, Anna Shafer, Marrick Smith and Grant James Varjas as understudies. Design is by Derek McLane (sets), Dede Ayite (costumes), David Lander (lighting), Bobby McElver (sound) and David Bengali (projections). Tectonic Theater Project produces with Brian & Dayna Lee, Bruce Roberts, Sue Vaccaro and Ricky Stevens, in a co-production with La Jolla Playhouse.
Erbelding is also among the guests in the production's series of post-show talks, scheduled to join Kaufman and Gronich after the 3 p.m. matinee on Sunday, November 15.
The limited engagement runs at the Barrymore Theatre, 243 West 47th Street, through Sunday, January 10, 2027, with opening night on Monday, November 9. Tickets are sold through Telecharge, by phone at 212-239-6200, and at the Barrymore box office. For more information, visit the official website.
