Playwright Steven Fisher grew up Catholic in Delaware County, so writing a play about a boy in a Concentration Camp might not be something you’d expect, writes Jarrad Saffren for The Jewish Exponent.

But circumstances led Fisher to “The Last Boy,” which opened for two weeks off-Broadway in New York July 10.

The play is based on the true story of a secret literary society at the Nazi concentration camp Terezin in the Czech Republic.

A group of young boys hand-produced a weekly magazine, Vedem, of poems and prose.

The Vedem archives were buried by the last member of the society, Sidney Taussig, and later retrieved.

Fisher, former youth choir director for the Keystone State Boychoir, learned the story when the choir visited Terezin.

Intrigued, he later visited Taussig in Florida to learn more. 

After the choir honored Taussig in June 2019 with a musical performance written by Fisher, the playwright asked Taussig if he could follow up with a play.

Taussig agreed.

“I just want to see it on Broadway before time does to me what Hitler failed to do,” Taussig said to Fisher.

Read more at the Jewish Exponent about Steven Fisher, Sidney Taussig and “The Last Boy.”