The Secret Poetess of Terezin by Lenka Lichtenberg

Juno award-winning Lenka Lichtenberg discovered two notebooks of poems written by her grandmother in the years 1942-1945 in Theresienstadt, a WWII concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. The poems became the lyrics for the songs on Thieves of Dreams and also inspired Lenka to create a multimedia performance.

First developed in 2021 for Toronto’s Luminato Festival, the show has been building momentum ever since, including recent performances in the US, Europe and South America.

Through collaboration with esteemed Theatre Director Leah Cherniak, Lenka has transformed the piece into a powerful solo show – The Secret Poetess of Terezin. Recently performed in the Czech Republic, Ms. Lichtenberg and her grandmother’s no longer secret poems, continue to move from strength to strength.

The Secret Poetess of Terezin wins over audiences with its intensely personal yet still universal narrative: passionate stories of love received, embraced, rejected, and lost; of relationships evolving and dissolving under the pressure of monumental historical events.

The songs, along with spoken word pieces, videos and visual projections, offer an immersive and intimate performing arts experience.