Preview of Uprising, an original play about the Warsaw Uprising at Latham’s 16th Annual PolishFest

Uprising begins the day before W-Hour, the start of the Warsaw Uprising during World War II. Seventeen-year-old Halina (Hela) and her thirteen-year-old sister Elżbieta (Elża) work for a German family who has appropriated their family’s small pharmacy in Warsaw’s city center, having lost both their parents in the years prior. Hela is getting ready to sneak out to a secret resistance meeting which is disguised as a dance. Elża begs her to come along but Hela flatly refuses, knowing the risks of going out after curfew. The mischievous and brave Piotr, however, knows a back entrance to the venue where the audience will meet Hela’s battalion.

Ad Astra Theatre Troupe is all about empowering local teenagers to make a meaningful contribution to their community through the arts.  Their choice of subject matter is important because it is all about how young people, many of them teenage women, contributed to an important chapter in history. Ad Astra hopes that its production will inspire young people to understand their potential to make the world a better place.

Show times are Friday, June 8 at 7 PM, Saturday, June 9 at 7 PM and Sunday, June 10 at 2 PM at the Saratoga Springs High School Teaching Auditorium, 1 Blue Streak Way, Saratoga Springs, NY. Please use the parking lot near the football field and enter through the rear entrance for easiest access to the Teaching Auditorium. Tickets are $15. Students and senior citizens 62 and older have a discounted ticket price of $8.

Playwright and director, Grace Alberti, is a junior at Saratoga Springs High School. Playwright Lâle Davidson is an award-winning author and a professor at SUNY Adirondack. Playwright Catie LeCours is a senior at Niskayuna High School and will be attending Skidmore in the fall. Poster Artist, Tess Davidson-Brown, is a junior at Saratoga Springs High School. Grace and Catie are of Polish heritage.

Ad Astra Theatre Troupe is a non-profit student-run performance company focusing on spreading education, confidence, and a sense of community through the arts. They are unique because of their aim to enable local high-school students through all forms of theatrical development, with new opportunities in writing, direction, production, choreography, technical and publicity direction, and stage management, with little to no cost to families.

Learn more at www.AdAstraTroupe.org