Miami New Drama launches its 2025–26 season with a riveting historical drama, Here There Are Blueberries, written by Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich. The play first appeared as a workshop at Miami New Drama in 2018 under the title The Album. It was later developed at regional theaters, eventually reaching off-Broadway last year, where it became a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Now it returns home, full circle.
The play is spellbinding from its opening moment to its final line. This is essential theatre. Unforgettable and overwhelmingly human. A masterwork of historical storytelling brought to life onstage. Another home run from Florida’s best theater company.
The story centers on a photo album donated to a Holocaust museum. The album contains images not of victims, but of the perpetrators at Auschwitz. Soldiers and officers smiling, relaxing, flirting, even vacationing. These photographs force us to confront the horrifying normalcy of evil.
The drama unfolds as museum archivists begin asking questions.
Who were these people? What did they know? What did they do? Did they escape justice? Were they complicit, or actively murderous? Which leads to the obvious and deepest question for the audience, also the timeliest. If you were part of a fascist system, what would you do? Pretend your hands are clean? Look away? Or resist?
Here There Are Blueberries goes out of its way to declare we must never humanize monsters. And most audience members will have it in their DNA not to humanize Nazi monsters. But at the same time, the play indeed humanizes monsters, very much like 2023’s award winning movie, The Zone of Interest.
Blueberries raises the question of humanization only to clarify that empathy must never excuse atrocity. And they were all complicit. All of them. A late-story discovery drives that point home with brutal clarity.
Miami New Drama’s Here There Are Blueberries
The production itself is exceptional. Derek McLane’s scenic design and David Bengali’s projections make stunning use of the Colony Theatre, with screens displaying the haunting historical images. David Lander’s lighting deepens the atmosphere with precision and restraint.
The cast is uniformly superb. None are local. Most have appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, or national tours. Their skill elevates the material even further. Delia Cunningham’s performance as Rebecca shines excpetionally bright amongst a glistening pool of talent.
This is next-level storytelling. It’s gripping, haunting, intellectually rigorous, and emotionally devastating. It is history, memory, and moral inquiry brought to life using mystery as its storytelling device.
Blueberries will leave you asking hard questions long after the curtain falls. Every student in South Florida should see this play. Every theater lover from Key West to West Palm Beach should make the trip.
Here There Are Blueberries
Now playing at Miami New Drama till December 7th.
Click here for more info and tickets.
Click here for $5 tickets through Culture Shock for college students.
Do not miss it.
Photo-by-Morgan-Sophia-Photography
