The story
The opening · Times Square
Joseph Shapiro falls from a parapet in Times Square. His phone keeps playing his mother Rebecca’s recording of Tumbalalaika in Russian. Around him, people stop and stand motionless, listening. For a moment, strangers share a song whose words many of them do not understand.
Felicia is there. An awkward encounter becomes a moment of connection: Rebecca’s voice reaches people Joseph has never met.
At MASA, a student notices that Joseph seems troubled. Rebecca died more than three years ago, but she appeared in a recent dream asking him to bring her songs to people. He does not understand Russian or Yiddish. His class suggests a concert in her memory for their year-end assessment. When he insists on singing in the original languages, they refuse and leave. The Martini twins return with one condition: their own versions, entirely in English.
Through translation, arguments and rehearsals over pizza, the students discover stories that need more than a concert. They decide to create a whole school musical. Twelve young people rebuild the songs in English. Aviva protects their roots. Yuki pushes them forward. Joseph has to learn to let go.
Their school musical reaches a live Times Square championship. Winning matters. So does who they become along the way.
Behind the songbook is a family separated by war. Rebecca’s mother, Sonya, comes from Odessa. She meets an Austrian engineer working in Russia on a three-year contract; they marry in Moscow in the early 1930s. In 1932 he moves from Austria to Berlin for a good job. Rebecca is born in Germany in 1933, growing up with her mother’s Russian language and songs.
At about six, Rebecca is sent to safety in the Netherlands. The Olsen family takes her in and later conceals her Jewish identity under Nazi occupation. Her parents are sent to a death camp. In May 1942, her foster father, Jan Olsen, joins roughly a hundred non-Jewish neighbors wearing homemade yellow stars in solidarity with persecuted Jews. Police cordons prevent their planned march. Jan keeps his star. His wife sews it beneath the lining of a music box he gives Rebecca for her birthday. She keeps her little treasures inside, unaware of the hidden star. “Don’t lose this box,” he tells her. “It holds the memory of you, of your family.”
Erik Olsen, five years older, falls in love with Rebecca, but life takes them apart. In 1947, aged fourteen, she leaves to live with a relative in America. Erik marries a woman from his own town. Rebecca marries in America, has Joseph, and is widowed when he is eight. Erik calls when Jan dies, then again before a brief business trip to New York. At their one reunion after so many years, over dinner, he tells her what his mother sewed into the box.
Rebecca works as a librarian throughout her working life. A few times a year, in her free time, she sings at homes for older people, Jewish Community Centers (JCCs), and other Jewish organizations and communities in Brighton Beach and elsewhere in Brooklyn. She accompanies herself on guitar, singing in Russian, Yiddish and occasionally Danish. She asks for no payment, but accepts it when freely offered. Her songs and the kindness that saved her become Joseph’s inheritance. He knows her voice; he does not know the secret inside the box. Through the Sharpies, that inheritance reaches people far beyond the family.
Jewish memory, teenage humor, and the everyday work of caring for one another.
Meet the SharpiesStep into the storyThe story
The opening · Times Square
Joseph Shapiro falls from a parapet in Times Square. His phone keeps playing his mother Rebecca’s recording of Tumbalalaika in Russian. Around him, people stop and stand motionless, listening. For a moment, strangers share a song whose words many of them do not understand.
Felicia is there. An awkward encounter becomes a moment of connection: Rebecca’s voice reaches people Joseph has never met.
At MASA, a student notices that Joseph seems troubled. Rebecca died more than three years ago, but she appeared in a recent dream asking him to bring her songs to people. He does not understand Russian or Yiddish. His class suggests a concert in her memory for their year-end assessment. When he insists on singing in the original languages, they refuse and leave. The Martini twins return with one condition: their own versions, entirely in English.
Through translation, arguments and rehearsals over pizza, the students discover stories that need more than a concert. They decide to create a whole school musical. Twelve young people rebuild the songs in English. Aviva protects their roots. Yuki pushes them forward. Joseph has to learn to let go.
Their school musical reaches a live Times Square championship. Winning matters. So does who they become along the way.
Behind the songbook is a family separated by war. Rebecca’s mother, Sonya, comes from Odessa. She meets an Austrian engineer working in Russia on a three-year contract; they marry in Moscow in the early 1930s. In 1932 he moves from Austria to Berlin for a good job. Rebecca is born in Germany in 1933, growing up with her mother’s Russian language and songs.
At about six, Rebecca is sent to safety in the Netherlands. The Olsen family takes her in and later conceals her Jewish identity under Nazi occupation. Her parents are sent to a death camp. In May 1942, her foster father, Jan Olsen, joins roughly a hundred non-Jewish neighbors wearing homemade yellow stars in solidarity with persecuted Jews. Police cordons prevent their planned march. Jan keeps his star. His wife sews it beneath the lining of a music box he gives Rebecca for her birthday. She keeps her little treasures inside, unaware of the hidden star. “Don’t lose this box,” he tells her. “It holds the memory of you, of your family.”
Erik Olsen, five years older, falls in love with Rebecca, but life takes them apart. In 1947, aged fourteen, she leaves to live with a relative in America. Erik marries a woman from his own town. Rebecca marries in America, has Joseph, and is widowed when he is eight. Erik calls when Jan dies, then again before a brief business trip to New York. At their one reunion after so many years, over dinner, he tells her what his mother sewed into the box.
Rebecca works as a librarian throughout her working life. A few times a year, in her free time, she sings at homes for older people, Jewish Community Centers (JCCs), and other Jewish organizations and communities in Brighton Beach and elsewhere in Brooklyn. She accompanies herself on guitar, singing in Russian, Yiddish and occasionally Danish. She asks for no payment, but accepts it when freely offered. Her songs and the kindness that saved her become Joseph’s inheritance. He knows her voice; he does not know the secret inside the box. Through the Sharpies, that inheritance reaches people far beyond the family.
Jewish memory, teenage humor, and the everyday work of caring for one another.
Meet the SharpiesStep into the story