‘Here There Are Blueberries’ @ Seattle Rep

In 2007, an archivist at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum discovered a mysterious photo album on their desk — filled with Nazi-era photographs. The pictures depict Nazi officers smiling, relaxing and socializing — images far from familiar visual narratives of the horrors of the Holocaust.

Moisés Kaufman, the founder of the Tectonic Theater Project and a Holocaust survivor descendent, was absorbed by the photos when published alongside a story in The New York Times. “I didn’t know if there was anything new to say [about the Holocaust]. But when I saw those New York Times photographs, I knew there was something new here.”

The story was ripe for Tectonic Theater Project, whose award-winning work (“The Laramie Project,” “I Am My Own Wife”) draws from real-life stories while pushing the theatrical form forward. Since its premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in 2022, the critically acclaimed “Here There Are Blueberries” was named a 2024 Pulitzer Prize Finalist and called one of the “10 Best Plays of 2024” by The Wall Street Journal. Now, this fast-paced mystery is coming to Seattle Rep.

After sold-out performances in Los Angeles and New York, Tectonic Theater Project’s “Here There Are Blueberries” invites Seattle audiences to step inside the archival mystery, engage with evidence, inquiry, and discovery, and reflect on the haunting persistence of history. Like previous Tectonic works, “Here There Are Blueberries” was devised collaboratively with designers and actors. This groundbreaking play asks questions of the audience from the moment they step into the theater — about complicity, truth and our own humanity.

In an era of misinformation, “Here There Are Blueberries” feels especially powerful. The play emphasizes the scientific method of discovery and functions as an ode to researchers, museums and the pursuit of truth. “There’s great nobility in what archivists do,” says Kaufman. “They spend their lives searching for details that might help us survive one another and learn.”

If you crave theater that grabs you, join Seattle Rep for “Mary Jane” and “Appropriate” — two Tony-nominated, critically acclaimed plays.