Bøker av Myla Lichtman-Fields

SERENADE chronicles the passing of the torch to the young composer Johannes Brahms, who is mentored by the mentally-deteriorating Robert Schumann and his virtuosa wife Clara Wieck-Schumann.After Robert is institutionalized, Johannes takes on the responsibility of helping to care for the Schumann's seven children, while Clara tours to earn money to support her family. She is forbidden by the doctors from seeing Robert, forcing Johannes to serve as the Schumann's "go-between".Johannes composes his "Lullaby" for the Schumann children. He and Clara find themselves falling in love. After Robert's passing, and Johannes' proposal of marriage, Clara is forced to choose between what is in the best interests of Brahms' career and what she is feeling in her heart.

This stage play about pioneer women enduring the hardships and the rewards of crossing the plains and the Continental Divide to reach Colorado is a story depicted in the Women's Gold stitchery that hangs in the Colorado statehouse in Denver. The play presents a rainbow of women pioneers who helped to tame the West. It chronicles their tribulations and their triumphs.

During the 1990s, outside the village of Connemara in County Galway, Ireland, resides the elderly Padric and Schirley Kilhara. Padric is receiving his last rites as the play opens. The lightning bolt that illuminates the large standing stone outside his thatched-roofed cottage is perhaps the finger of God summoning Padric back to life in order to complete the work that must be done before Padric's soul will be freed to meet its maker. Padric, a carver of stones, is overcome by the vision to bring forth "the mists of legend" and his Irish heritage from the imposing stone sentinel.

"LEARNING TO DANCE IN THE RAIN" tells the story of a mother who is forced to say goodbye to her own mother and to let go of her son who is permanently disabled by mental illness. It chronicles the grandmother's gift of love to her grandson when she enables him to be the only person who can release her from her suffering to thereby regain his own sense of self-worth.

SARAH ALDEN RIPLEY was the whetstone for 19th Century Transcendentalists RALPH WALDO EMERSON, HENRY DAVID THOREAU, and NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. Together, they shared the environs of Concord's Old Manse. Their spirits are trapped within this historic house built in 1770 and they cannot be released until their "secrets" are shared with a living audience.

The theme of this play is TOLERANCE.ANNE MARBURY HUTCHINSON lived from 1590-1643. She was the daughter of Reverend Francis Marbury, mother of fourteen children, midwife and herbalist, and she was tried twice for heresy in Massachusetts. She believed that good works were the keys to salvation.Although she was excommunicated from the Puritan Church and was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, she managed to evade the gallows noose through her superior verbal acumen and Scriptural knowledge. The entire action of the play, (except for Anne's final courtroom rebuttal speech), takes place in Anne's prison room during early March of 1638. "Apparitions" who pass through Anne's prison room are: Goody Hawkins, Mary Dyer, Faith Hutchinson, and Elizabeth Cotton.

In 450 A.D. Ireland, the Druid CHIEF DUBTACH of Leinster simultaneously fathered a son [BACENE] by his wife, CONDLA, and a daughter [BRIGID] by his bondmaid BROCESA. Condla insisted that the pregnant Brocessa be sold and sent away to Connacht. Irish law demanded that the children of slaves be returned to their original owners upon reaching the age of eight. After the King ordered Dubtach to give 15 year-old Brigid her freedom, she took her vows to become a Sister in Christ. Along the Great Road on her return to help her mother in Connacht, Brigid met other Sisters and discovered how miserable and isolated the women were. She vowed to help them by creating a monastery community for women. Brigid's dream of a monastery (convent) for women is glimpsed within the context of the play's dream sequence. Women in Brigid's community would establish scriptoriums , hospitals, communal farms, and nurture art and music [women would sing Gregorian chants].

""FAUSTINE"" begins in 1996 at All Soul's College at Oxford University, England, where Faustine White, L.L.D. is a graduate student working on a comparative study ""SCIENCE VERSUS RELIGION"". With this controversial topic, she?s summoned the Devil's attention and forced herself to explore problems existing at the threshold of the 21st century, where technologies have outpaced human sociological development. The Devil forges a contract with Faustine for her soul. In Faustine's fantastic adventure, Faustine drinks a magic potion prepared by a gaggle of Walpurgis Night witches, then travels to a swank London nightclub, where ""The Seven Deadly Sins"" provide the floorshow. She travels through time and comes to see the importance of the media, of science and religion in helping to shape our image of ourselves in our world.

The African mytho-drama WAGADU tells the story of a West African father (BANTU) and his son (BAMAKO) who search for the spiritual salvation for their drought-stricken tribe. Their quest is triggered by Bamako's dream commanding him to search out the four Wagadus--in the west, in the north, in the east, and in the south of Africa.

Vocal music based on the Bible [Torah portions], Jewish liturgy, Jewish holidays, and Israel.

FELIX & FANNY provides a look into the loves and career frustrations of the musician-siblings, Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn. This two person dramatic play explores the sexist and anti-Semitic German society of 1821-1847 that prevented Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel from developing concert skills like her illustrious brother Felix, who published many of Fanny's compositions under his own name.

"THE WETBACK" tells the story of Ernesto Sanchez, a 16 year-old undocumented farm laborer accused of murdering his employer's son. The story is presented as a juvenile hearing in two-act dramatic form that takes place over the course of a single day in July of 1976 against the backdrop of the United States Bicentennial.

In 1840 Leipzig, Germany, after four years of being refused the hand of Friedrich Wieck's daughter, Robert Schumann was finally forced to take legal steps--required by Saxony law -- in order to win a court dispensation giving him permission to marry his beloved virtuosa interpreter of his music, Clara Wieck. In the ensuing courtroom battle, Clara's two male counterparts --her father and her lover -- project their contrasting visions for Clara upon her being.