Corresponding to the exhibit on the Cuban Missile Crisis, the stage reading offers a glance behind the scenes of these fateful days in October 1962.

Under the direction of Alexandra Schenke, a historian at the Amerika-Institut of LMU Munich with degrees in acting and film, students of the Amerika-Institut will simulate some of the tensest moments and exchanges of the crisis. The stage reading, conceived in collaboration with Dr. Andreas Etges, is based on excerpts from speeches and letters by John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev, and Fidel Castro, secret recordings of Kennedy’s crisis team and other primary sources.

Reimagined and respoken, they will be brought to life on stage within a framework of classic theater and multimedia elements, providing a special experience of this historical event 60 years later.


Photo: Meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council © Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston