- Have you ever experienced a fear of missing out (FOMO)? Have you ever ended a long-term romantic relationship or friendship because you felt like you were missing out on something? Looking back at your experience, what did you think you wanted? Did you find it? How did the choice you made affect your partner or friend?
- Think of a story from your family that has been carried through generations. How have you carried this story forward? Take a moment to turn and talk and share with a partner how you do or do not connect with your grandparents' origins.
- What emotions or reactions come up for you from the title The Wanderers? What images, places, or stories pop into your head?
- Playwright Anna Ziegler includes several quotes as an introduction to the script of The Wanderers. The quotes are included below. Which resonates with you and why? Based on your reflection on the title above and reading these quotes, what do you predict the play might explore?
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- Many of the characters in The Wanderers use writing, storytelling, or performance as a way to express themselves, explore their identity, and to make meaning of their family stories. Have you ever found clarity about something in your personal life through a creative or artistic endeavor? Was it purposeful or were you surprised? Did you share the experience with anyone? Why or why not?
- What was Schmuli’s perception of himself at the start of the play? In what ways might his perception of himself have changed by the end of the play?
- What came up for you, as an audience member, when Abe discovered the truth about his communications with Julia?
- Read the quotes Ziegler chose to include at the top of the script (below). Having seen the play, why do you think she chose them? Do you think they would help an actor in the play or a director prepare? If you read them before the show, how do they resonate differently now?
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“L’chi Lach to a land that I will show you Leich L’cha to a place you do not know” - Debbie Friedman
“Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” - Mary Oliver
“There is always a suspicion ... that one is living a lie or a mistake; that something crucially important has been overlooked, missed, neglected, left untried and unexplored; that a vital obligation to one’s own authentic self has not been met, or that some chances of unknown happiness completely different from any happiness experienced before have not been taken up in time and are bound to be lost forever.” - Esther Perel
“The poet appears to have found his subject —the labyrinth of self-deceit into which we are led by, among other things, language itself, by the difficult reformulation of one’s own story.” - Margalit Fox, J.D. McClatchy, Poet of the Body, in Sickness and Health, Dies at 72,” The New York Times