Sunday, October 26th

By Olia Toporovsky, Abraham Gomez-Delgado, and Pablo Vergara

New York, NY — The Fifth Paragraph is a multimedia theatrical experience written and performed by Olia Toporovsky, Abraham Gomez-Delgado and Pablo Vergara. Blending storytelling, original video art, and live music, the piece explores the journey of a ten-year-old Jewish girl leaving Soviet Ukraine right before the collapse of the Soviet Union — a personal immigration story that echoes the experiences of thousands of Soviet Jews who fled persecution. The play will take you on a visual, emotional and musical journey through immigration, antisemitism, friendship, family and complexity of identity.

Originally developed with support from the Blueprint Fellowship and premiered at the Tank and Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, The Fifth Paragraph returns with a renewed urgency and heart, fueled by a recent Arts Against Antisemitism grant from COJECO. This is made possible with PATH funding through the Mayor’s Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. At a time when antisemitism and hate are on the rise, it feels more important than ever to share stories that remind us of our shared humanity.

“I tell my story in a child’s voice so that people leave the theater with both understanding and feeling,” says Toporovsky. “It’s a story about what it means to be othered, to escape, to arrive — and how those stories live on in our bodies, identities and communities.”