La Jolla Playhouse's "Here There Are Blueberries" will open on Broadway in November, marking the 38th production the Playhouse has transferred to New York since 1984.
The documentary-style play, which premiered at the Playhouse in 2022, begins previews Monday, Nov. 2, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in Manhattan, according to the Shubert Organization. Opening night is Monday, Nov. 9. The Broadway run is a limited engagement.
Tickets go on sale Tuesday, Sept. 8.
Co-written by Moises Kaufman and Amanda Gronich and directed by Kaufman, the play is a co-production of La Jolla Playhouse and Kaufman's Tectonic Theater Project. It tells the true story of a photo album containing 116 photographs anonymously donated to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2007. The photos showed Karl-Friedrich Höcker, an adjutant to the Auschwitz commandant, and others laughing, singing and enjoying bowls of fresh-picked blueberries at a recreation center near the camp, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. As many as 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed at Auschwitz between 1940 and January 1945.
After its La Jolla premiere, the play ran off-Broadway in 2024 as a co-production with New York Theatre Workshop. It was a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and won the 2025 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play.
The Broadway creative team includes sound design by Bobby McElver, a UC San Diego Theatre and Dance faculty member.
Co-producers Brian and Dayna Lee said in an Aug. 27 statement that the play reveals how ordinary people become complicit and why remembering history remains a vital responsibility.
The Playhouse, founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, will also see its 2025 world premiere musical "The Heart" running off-Broadway at Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels Theatre starting Thursday, Oct. 8.
Modernism and Architecture Week returns Oct. 2
Closer to home, the Museum of History and Culture La Jolla is hosting its fourth annual La Jolla Modernism and Architecture Week from Friday, Oct. 2, through Sunday, Oct. 11.
The museum, formerly the La Jolla Historical Society, adopted its new name in August after 62 years. Executive director Lauren Lockhart said in a Fox 5 San Diego report on the renaming that the change reflects the organization's evolution. "Our mission isn't changing — our name is catching up with the work we've been doing for more than a decade," Lockhart said.
Highlights of the 10-day series, according to the museum's event page, include:
- Friday, Oct. 2: Modernism Cocktail Party, 5–7 p.m., featuring music, wine and a tour of a private modernist residence. Location to be announced. Tickets are $100.
- Saturday, Oct. 3: La Jolla Modernism Home Tour, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Self-driving tickets are $125; Platinum Bus Tour tickets are $225.
- Sunday, Oct. 4: UC San Diego modernist masterpieces campus tour, $45.
- Thursday, Oct. 8: Modernism 101 lecture at the La Jolla Woman's Club, $25.
- Saturday, Oct. 10: Scripps Institution of Oceanography history tour, 9:30 a.m. reception, 10 a.m. program, $45.
All proceeds benefit the museum's exhibitions and public programs. Tickets are available at mhclajolla.org/la-jolla-modernism-home-tour.
On Saturday, Sept. 26, MHC La Jolla opens a new exhibit on the science of historic preservation at its campus at 780 Prospect St. The gallery is open Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m., with free admission.
