Victor Talmadge
He is an actor, director, playwright, and educator. He has worked extensively on stages throughout the United States and, as a Mitzvah Project Teaching Artist, brings his own family’s Holocaust stories to life.
As an actor, Victor performed on Broadway in the world premiere of David Mamet's, November; played “The King” in the Tony Award-winning production of the Broadway National Tour of The King and I, as “Scar” in the Los Angeles production of The Lion King and boasts extensive film and television credits, as well.
As a playwright, The Gate Of Heaven, was awarded The Nakashima Peace Prize and was the first live theater produced at The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and has been subsequently performed at several major regional theaters.
He is currently Professor of the Practice and Director of Theater Studies, Mills College at Northeastern University.
“My mother was one of only eight relatives, amongst hundreds in my extended family living in Poland prior to WWII, to have survived or escaped the Holocaust. After fleeing to Lithuania, she was one of the lucky 2,000 Jews saved by Japanese consular official, Chiune Sugihara.
My great Uncle, David Olère, an artist, was the only survivor of Auschwitz to pictorially document the gas chambers. (He was one of the few Auschwitz Sonderkommando to have survived.)
I am one generation away from these events. They are all too real for me. I am honored to be part of The Mitzvah Project, bearing witness, so that history does not repeat itself.”
- Victor Talmadge
Photos of Victor
