Theaterlab and Talking with Angels: Budapest, 1943 Productions Present
Talking with Angels: Budapest, 1943
Adapted and performed by Shelley Mitchell
Directed by Molly Shayna Cohen
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Talking with Angels: Budapest, 1943 is a gripping and miraculous true story of divine guidance during one of history’s darkest hours. In 1943 Hungary, a young woman named Gitta Mallasz defied the horrors of the Holocaust by posing as a Nazi officer and sheltering her friends, along with scores of Jewish women and children working in a military factory.
As they faced the uncertainties of deportation and war, one of them began speaking in a voice that was not her own. These channeled messages were transcribed into journals, later published by Gitta—the sole survivor—as the book Talking with Angels, now translated into 26 languages.
This hauntingly beautiful story of self-discovery reveals the power of inner truth shining through in a world consumed by political lies and fear. Adapted and performed by Shelley Mitchell (from the book Talking with Angels, transcribed by Gitta Mallasz and spoken by Hanna Dallos), the production is enriched by the dramaturgy of Amy Marie Seidel (Here There Are Blueberries, Paradise Square) and directed by Molly Shayna Cohen.
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Performance Dates/Times:
Thursday, March 13 @ 7:30 pm
Thursday, March 20 @ 7:30 pm (this performance will be followed by a talkback)
Thursday, March 27 @ 7:30 pm
Tickets:
Preview performance on March 6: $25 + convenience fees
General Admission: $35 + convenience fees
Seniors, students, and audiences under 25: $25 with the code TWA2025. Valid ID must be presented to the box office.
MEET THE ARTISTS
Shelley Mitchell (Performer, Adaptation) is a Los Angeles-based actor, writer, and producer with a holistic approach to performance, honed over 30 years of teaching and coaching. She has collaborated with acclaimed artists such as Tom Waits (Seven Psychopaths), Sam Corlett (Vikings: Valhalla), Aluna, and Aly & AJ, as well as C-Suite executives, designers, and engineers at The North Face, Union Bank, Standard Bots, and VitalBio. In 2018, Shia LaBeouf invited Shelley to partner with him on a year-long social experiment, bringing devised theater classes to South Central Los Angeles. Shelley is best known for her critically acclaimed solo performance, Talking with Angels: Budapest, 1943. Filmmaker Carroll Ballard called the work “a tour de force,” while Irish Theatre Magazine praised it as “a thoughtful combination of human bravery and the divine.” A cornerstone of her life’s work, Shelley has performed Talking with Angels over 400 times at festivals and salons across the United States and internationally. Her stage credits include Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo’s Orgasmo Adulto Escapes from the Zoo and A Woman Alone, earning her a Best Actress nomination from the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. On screen, Shelley appears in the award-winning films Sorry to Bother You and Green is Gold, both written and directed by her students Boots Riley and Ryon Baxter, respectively.
Molly Shayna Cohen (Director; she/they) is an NYC-based director and producer whose work centers on moments of transformation and the ephemerality in all things. Since moving from Baltimore in 2022, she has worked at The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Mabou Mines, Theaterlab, En Garde Arts, and more. She is the Associate Artistic Director of Theatre of the Electric Mouth, a founding member of film collective Lux Daze Media, and a company member of the award-winning experimental theatre group The Acme Corporation. Molly is currently an MFA Directing Candidate (’25) at Brooklyn College, where they are the Joel Zwick Scholarship in Directing recipient and Graduate Teaching Fellow.
Amy Marie Seidel (Dramaturg; she/her) is a NYC-based theater maker who has worked on Broadway, off-Broadway, and regionally. She is a company member at Tectonic Theater Project, where she has developed numerous plays, including Here There Are Blueberries, a 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist recently produced at New York Theatre Workshop, and Seven Deadly Sins, which won the 2022 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience. She has been an assistant director on two major Broadway productions, Paradise Square (10 TONY nominations) and The Great Gatsby (1 TONY win), and she is currently developing a new biographical play centered on Billie Jean King. As director, Amy is developing multiple new plays, including a production of Machinal, premiering off-Broadway in 2025, All The Frozen Ones by Stella Ferra (starring Robert Sean Leonard), and Falling Forward, a new musical by Karl Amundson and Emily Fink.
Elena Vannoni (Set Design) is an accomplished theatre director and set and costume designer with a rich background in the arts. She began her career by studying costume design at the Art Institute of Florence and later earned degrees in History of Music and Theatre from the University of Florence and Theatre Direction from the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome. Her award-winning direction, including the 2005 National Prize of the Arts, highlights her talent. Notable works include Miss Julie by Strindberg and The Divine Mimesis by Pasolini. Elena draws from methodologies like Grotowski, Commedia dell’Arte, and Orazio Costa’s Mimesic Method, emphasizing physical performance. Her career has taken her globally, from Berlin to New York, where she earned a Master’s in Theatre Directing at Columbia University. Currently based in New York, Elena continues to work on various theatre projects, contributing her versatile artistic vision to the stage.
Molly Tiede (Co-Lighting Designer) is a lighting designer specializing in theater, opera, immersive design, and corporate events. Designing in NYC theaters such as HERE, The Sheen Center, Abrons Arts Center, and many more. Associate and Assistant credits include Broadway (Walter Kerr), The Vineyard Theater, Roundabout Theater, Signature Theater, Labyrinth Theater Company, and Gotham Chamber Opera; she also worked in London’s West End (Vaudeville Theater). She is currently the Lighting Director and Associate Lighting Designer for the Tectonic Theater Project’s production of Here There Are Blueberries.
Bentley Heydt (Co-Lighting Designer) is a NYC-based Korean American lighting designer who designs for musical theater, theater, dance, opera, and live events. His work has been seen across the United States and abroad at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Recent work includes: Tectonic Theater Project Gala 2024 (NYC); Kafkaesque (Staro Industries, NYC); The Color Purple (Theatre Latte Da/Geva Theatre); (no) man (IMGE Dance); Romeo and Juliet (Nebraska Wesleyan University); How To Dance In Ohio (Assist LD/Broadway); Life of Pi (TONY Award; DMC/Broadway); you don’t have to do anything (HERE Arts Center); A Christmas Carol (Assoc LD/Indiana Repertory Theatre). MFA, Ohio University.
Paul Deziel (Visual Design) is a New York- and Chicago-based projection designer. His work has been seen at The Goodman Theatre, The Muny, Asolo Rep, The Second City, En Garde Arts, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Paramount Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre, Court Theatre, American Blues Theater, The Neo-Futurists, Jackalope Theatre Company, Mosaic Theatre Company, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and many others. He holds a B.A. in Theatre from Columbia College Chicago and an M.F.A. in Projection & Multimedia from the University of Maryland. He is a proud artistic affiliate with American Blues Theater and a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829.
Kodi Lynn Milburn (Sound Design), renowned as the “Swiss Army Knife of Theater,” embodies a fusion of creativity and activism. As a mixed indigenous neurodivergent queer, Kodi’s artistry resonates with a commitment to justice, harmony with nature, amplifying lost voices, and reflecting contemporary issues, echoing the ethos of the Jester’s Privilege. Kodi’s work has been described as “inspired” (Alix Cohen, Women Around Town), “amazing” (Travelanche), “lush compositions and evocative soundscapes…a fantastic collaborator: creative, proactive, generous, organized, versatile, and indispensable” (Nathan Davis, Drama Desk-nominated Sound Designer). Cross discipline credits include: Sylvia Milo’s The Other Mozart (Hong Kong, Players Theatre NYC, U.S. Tour), Funny Guy (59e59, London, Edinburgh Fringe), AMP (HERE), Tussaud/Antoinette (IRT), Big Wave (TaDa!), My Onliness (The New Ohio), Chess (American Theater of Actors), Uta Hagen Centennial Salon (Lincoln Center), Heart Strings (Atlantic Theater Co), Magdalene: I am the Utterance of my name (Baryshnikov Arts Center, Theaterlab, HERE), Sparkle Spa (BMI), Ewalt & Walker (54 Below), Mary & Max (Bobby Cronin & Crystal Skillman), Voyage en Chanson (National Sawdust), L’autre Mozart (Fringe North, Halifax Fringe), Rhinoceros (Atlantic Acting School), and more. Kodi is a New York Foundation for the Arts Music Fellow.
Litha Ashforth (Original Music), coloratura soprano and composer, is “bursting with the goods” (Craig Rutenberg, Metropolitan Opera). Ashforth’s vocal agility and artistic versatility have garnered her many accolades, including the Performing Arts Scholarship Foundation at the Music Academy of the West, the Maestro Award from the WorldStrides Heritage Festival, and the New England Conservatory of Music’s Entrepreneurial Musicianship Grant. Recent appearances include the role of Gretel in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Olympia in Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman, and Adele in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. A strong advocate of new music, Ashforth was engaged in more than a dozen premieres over the past year. This spring, she will sing the title role in Vespa by Don DiNicola in a set of world premiere performances across New York City and debut the title role of Lucia di Lamermoor in Copenhagen, Denmark. A composer and sound designer exploring new intersections of technology and the human voice, Ashforth has created a series of novel wearable electronic garments for stage performance. As part of her ongoing collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and quantum physicist Jasmine Sinanan-Singh, Ashforth built “The Vest,” a shirt that receives haptic feedback for live sonic engagement, and “The Talking Stick,” a tree that requires the touch of multiple musicians for sounds to be produced electronically. Born and raised in Santa Barbara, California, Ashforth had her official debut at Santa Barbara’s Granada Theatre at the age of 8. She received her Bachelor of Music under the tutelage of Carole Haber from Boston’s New England Conservatory in 2023. Ashforth is currently based between Berlin and NYC.
Alessandra Marconi (Movement Consultant) is a versatile creative who fosters authenticity and harmony through her work. Her career traverses many landscapes: independent and commercial film, Broadway, educational programs, community engagement, and concert dance. Her driving motivation is to cultivate environments where one can integrate their mind and body together through visual, physical, and/or experiential ways. She believes that when people can connect with their inner worlds, they’ll then be able to reflect and build deeper relationships with the world around them. This ethos is reflected within her art as well as her business, INNER COMPASS, a personal development practice that guides people to align who they are with what they do by integrating mind, body, and spiritual aspects of the self. Her range of experience encompasses being the resident choreographer of Broadway’s Hamilton and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; stage director of Do the Hustle, produced by Works and Process at the Guggenheim;. movement director for the alternative pop-rock band The Nicotine Dolls; Choreographer of NYU’s 2022 The Reality Show, as well as performer in Polaris by Kidd Pivot, iLuminate: Artist of Light (int’l), Phish at Madison Square Garden, In The Heights (Warner Brothers),and Halston (Netflix). She was also a writer, performer, and co-choreographer for Untitled Arguments which premiered at the Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium. (2016). As a community organizer, iAli created The Hustle Social, a mobile dance event centered on New York’s original 1970s partnered dance called “the hustle”. She was the Hustle instructor for Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night Swing (now Summer for the City) from 2018-2020. Social dancing continues to be a practice that brings joy to every aspect of her life
My Le (Stage Manager) is a theater artist from Vietnam with international experience in design, directing, and stage management. In 2020, she worked with the Vietnam National Opera and Ballet as an Assistant Director and Stage Manager for Les Misérables. She made her directorial debut in Vietnam with Alice in Wonderland the Musical at the Hanoi Opera House in 2022. In 2023, she was an Assistant Director at Theater for the New City, participated in the Summer Street Theatre, and worked as a Production Assistant for Krymov Lab’s Big Trip at La MaMa. In 2024, she expanded her technical skills as a Theaterlab intern, serving as a lighting/projection designer for multiple shows. She was also a panelist for New Perspectives Theatre Company’s 2024 Women’s Short Play Lab. A Hunter College graduate with an Arts Management and Leadership Certificate, she was a 2024 Little Island Fellow. That year, she directed The Collapse of The Hubbard Glacier at Frigid New York, earning a Best Direction nomination (Off-Off-Broadway play) at the Broadway World Off-Broadway Awards.
Sage Kirwan (Line Producer)Â is a New York based actor and producer with a particular interest in stories that center on history, strong female characters and the exploration of spirituality.
Recent theater development projects include several new plays developed with AMT Theater and 29th Street Playwrights. Talking With Angels: Budapest, 1943 is her theatrical debut as a producer. An alumna of NYU Tisch, Sage has spent the past decade in film and television. Recent film credits include film-festival shorts Gen Sex (2024) and Lingering (2020), as well as the HBO film Paterno (2018). She has co-starred in television favorites Blue Bloods (CBS), Shades of Blue (NBC), Dietland (AMC), and Nurse Jackie (Showtime). She continues to study acting with the Bob Krawkower Gang.
Sam Grobemeier (Associate Producer)Â is a Chicagoland-born, NYC-based producer and actor with a passion for bringing important, untold stories to the stage and screen. She most recently was the lead producer of the industry reading of All the Frozen Ones, a new play starring TONY Award-winner Robert Sean Leonard. She was previously a producing assistant with bd productions, where she worked on Broadway shows and national tours (SIX, The Outsiders, Jagged Little Pill, and more). She is also the co-founder of The Maddog Strong Foundation, a nonprofit focusing on organ donation education. Through this, she was the Associate Producer on the documentaries Teach Life and GIFTED: The Docuseries, both of which earned International Telly Awards. She holds a BFA in Drama with a minor in Producing from NYU Tisch and is expected to graduate with her MBA in May. Sam dedicates everything she does to her younger sister, Maddie, who has the best seat in the house up there.
COVID-19 policy: In guidance with the city and state COVID-19 policies, we will no longer be requiring masks, but strongly recommend them.