About
The Tasters
ONE TABLE. THREE CHAIRS. FOUR GIRLS.
Hitler's Tasters is inspired by true events. Three times a day, every day, a group of young women have the opportunity to die for their country. They are Adolf Hitler’s food tasters. And what do girls discuss as they wait to see if they will live through another meal? Like all girls, throughout time, they gossip and dream, they question and dance. They want to love, laugh, and above all they want to survive.
Written by Michelle Kholos Brooks, Hitler's Tasters has had staged readings in Los Angeles, Pasadena, Houston, and eventually New Jersey, where it won the 2017 Women Playwrights Series, Susan Glaspell Award. This culminated in the world premiere at Centenary Stage in April 2018, and paved the way for the New York premiere at IRT Theater in October 2018. The New York production was a pivotal moment for the play: an all-female team drove the hugely successful production. Subsequent productions with this team include: North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in July 2019, Chicago, IL; 59E59 Theaters East to Edinburgh Festival in July 2019, New York, NY; and Greenside Venues Olive Studio in August 2019, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest international arts festival in the world. At the Fringe, Hitler's Tasters was named Best of Fringe by The Stage and was a 2019 Sell Out show. In March of 2020, Hitler's Tasters made its L.A. debut at the Electric Lodge, only to be shutdown after 2 performances due to COVID-19. After a forced hiatus, Hitler's Tasters returned on the scene for a 2021 Summer Tour: a virtual run at Edinburgh Fringe with Pleasance Theatre; The John Drew Theater at Guild Hall in East Hampton, NY; and at Pendragon Theatre in Saranac Lake, Adirondacks, NY; and Off Broadway at Theatre Row.
Stay tuned for exciting plans for Hitler’s Tasters in 2023!
Meet The Team
Michelle Kholos Brooks (Playwright) is an award-winning playwright with productions staged internationally. Awards and distinctions include the Susan Glaspell Award for Hitler’s Tasters, the Reva Shiner Comedy Award for Kalamazoo, co-written by Kelly Younger. Hitler’s Tasters was also named ‘Best of Fringe’ at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe by The Stage UK. The filmed stage version of Hitler’s Tasters was listed as a Must-Watch by the LA Times and selected for The Kilroys: The List 2020. Hostage was a finalist for the Woodward/Newman Drama Award, The Fratti-Newman Political Play Contest and a Showcase finalist for the National New Play Network. Chair received second place in the Firehouse Theatre Festival of New American Plays.
Plays have been produced and/or developed at Arena Stage, the Skylight Theatre (World Premiere, Hostage) Centenary Stage (World Premiere, Hitler’s Tasters), Pacific Resident Theatre, Adirondack Theatre Festival, Bloomington Playwright’s Project (Rolling World Premiere, Kalamazoo), The Colony Theatre (World Premiere, Family Planning) Florida Repertory Theatre, Boston Court Theatre, The Road Theatre Company, Wordsmyth Theatre, The Barrow Group, Bay Street Theatre, Venue 9 Theatre, Wings Theatre, Laurel Grove Theatre Company, Drama West, Vox Humana Theatre Ensemble, iTheatre Collaborative, New Light Theatre Project, 59E59th St. Theatre, Olive Theatre; Greenside at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Adobe Rose Theatre, The Electric Lodge, Pendragon Theater, and Guild Hall.
Publications include Dramatists Play Service, Room literary magazine and The Daily Beast. Brooks earned a B.A. from Emerson College and an M.F.A. in Fiction from Otis College of Art and Design. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America, The Playwright’s Center and Pacific Resident Theatre. In addition, she is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
Sarah Norris (Director) is a theater artist and producer based in New York. Her work has been seen around the country including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, and around the world in Scotland, Australia, England and Ireland.
Select producer and production credits include: Playwrights Horizons (I Am My Own Wife Off-Broadway and Tony Winning Broadway transfer), Disney Theatrical Productions, Bisno Productions (Hughie on Broadway w/ Forest Whitaker; My Report to the World w/ David Strathairn). She served as the Artistic Director of Access Theater from 2016-2018, creating an Artist
Residency program and Access Association Series program, which provided subsidized and free performance space to NYC artists including Primitive Grace (Paul Calderon & David Zayas), Elevator Repair Service, and Bedlam. Most recently, she joined the team at Pendragon Theatre (upstate New York), working as the Artistic Producer.
She is the Founding Artistic Director of New Light Theater Project, an Off-Broadway company dedicated to an ensemble of artists, that has mounted over 30 productions including: The American Tradition (TimeOut NY Critics Pick; Best of Theater - Slant Magazine; "The gleefully anachronistic show...has a rambunctious punk-rock energy that’s all too rare on our increasingly sanitized stages" - The New Yorker); Hitler's Tasters (featured around the country and Edinburgh, Scotland); Imagining Madoff (featured in This Week in Arts - NY Times; "Engrossing and philosophically lively" - The New Yorker); Breeders ("Both ridiculously and strangely moving!" - Jesse Green, NY Times; TimeOut NY Critics Pick; "An unexpected marvelous new comedy" - Huffington Post); A Burial Place (featured on NY1); and countless other productions.
As a theater director, select credits include: Everything is Super Great (TimeOut NY Critics Pick), This Wrestling Place (w/ Executive Producer Ben Folds), Picture Ourselves in Latvia (Best of Theater, The L Magazine), Hitler's Tasters (Best of the Edinburgh Fringe; featured in the Chicago Tribune, LA Times and the BBC). Other highlights include: Guild Hall of East Hamptons, Pleasance Theatre (Edinburgh), Greenside Theatre (Edinburgh), Bottom Dog Theatre (Ireland), Adelaide Fringe Festival (Australia), 59E59 Theaters, LAByrinth Theatre, Working Theater, Electric Lodge (LA), Chicago Dramatists, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, The Flea Theater, Zeiders American Dream Theater, Calliope Stage, Forestburgh Playhouse, and Pendragon Theatre.
Sarah served on the Artistic Advisory Board of The Artist Co-Op, worked with Theatre Communications Group (TCG), and currently serves on the Program Evaluation Working Group for NNPN (National New Play Network) and is a volunteer with i-Mentor.
Member of SDC and AEA.
Founding Artistic Director of New Light Theater Project.
MFA in Directing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
BA in Theatre from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
Josh Gladstone (Associate Producer) served twenty-one seasons as the Artistic Director of the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall in East Hampton, NY where most recently he presented Hitler’s Taster’s return to the stage last Fall. He’s delighted to join the team to help bring this gorgeous play back to its next well-deserved Off-Broadway run. Over the course of two decades at Guild Hall, Josh produced and presented hundreds of performing arts programs and hosted thousands of artists. Some highlights of Josh’s producing work for the Drew include Questlove’s Conversations on Creativity; All My Sons starring Alec Baldwin and Laurie Metcalf; Clever Little Lies starring Marlo Thomas; Tony Walton’s production of Tonight at 8:30 starring Blythe Danner; At Home At The Zoo starring Michael Urie and Sophie von Haselberg; and Susan Stroman Presents! – a live retrospective starring
Matthew Broderick, Brad Oscar, Tiler Peck, Terence Mann, Tony Yazbeck, Nathan Lane and Mel Brooks. This past summer he also produced Love Letters starring Mercedes Ruehl and Harris Yulin; Joy Behar’s Crisis in Queens starring Steven Weber, Annabella Sciorra, and Brenda Vaccaro; Bob Balaban’s 2020 starring Isaac Mizrahi, Edie Falco, Sandra Bernhard and Susie Essman; along with a developmental run of Mike Birbiglia’s Broadway-bound new solo show The Old Man and The Pool.