'October 7' play to make West Coast debut at UCLA on anniversary of Hamas attacks (2024)

“October 7,” a play drawn from interviews with survivors of Hamas’ 2023 terror attack on Israel, will make its West Coast debut via a staged reading at UCLA on the one-year anniversary of the surprise assault.

The one-night-only event, programmed by The Dortort Center for Creativity in the Arts at Hillel at UCLA, will take place at the UCLA Fowler Museum’s Lenart Auditorium on Monday, Oct. 7. The 7 p.m. reading, directed by Jeff Maynard, is free and open to the public (RSVP required) and will be followed by a Q&A with members of the cast and creative team.

“October 7” is written by Phelim McAleer and based on interviews conducted by McAleer and Ann McElhinney. The Irish journalists, who have been married for 23 years and reside in Venice, Calif., were in Ireland when the attacks occurred.

In November, they traveled to Israel for their first time and interviewed around 20 people over a three-week period. Fourteen of their interview subjects, representing a range of ages, occupations and religions, are represented in the play.

“Some people were able to tell their story straight away, and [others] needed more time,” McAleer told The Times. “But then they’d reach out a few weeks later, saying they were ready to talk. And then people would say, ‘I have this friend of a friend who has a great story,’ and introduce us, so we were able to have different perspectives.”

“October 7” is based on interviews conducted by journalists Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney.

(Peter Duke)

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The couple, who have collaborated on numerous books and documentaries, set out with the express goal of creating a “verbatim play,” a genre of documentary theater that dramatizes a story through sources like interviews, court testimony, case evidence and public remarks.

Notable verbatim works include “The Laramie Project,” about the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard; “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” Anna Deavere Smith’s retelling of the L.A. riots through the voices of dozens of residents and officials; “Is This a Room” (and HBO film adaptation “Reality”), based on the FBI interrogation of former Air Force intelligence specialist and government whistleblower Reality Winner; and forthcoming Off-Broadway transfer “Fatherland,” about a son who tipped off the FBI about his father’s involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection. McAleer previously created the controversial verbatim play “Ferguson,” about the shooting of Michael Brown by a Missouri police officer.

“October 7” had its world premiere in May at New York City’s Actors Temple Theatre. The producers of that Off-Broadway run hired private security in addition to NYPD protection, concerned by student protests against the war in Gaza proliferating on college campuses, as well as rising incidents of anti-Semitism. However, the writers said the month-long run proceeded without major incidents. Only minor tweaks have been made to the script ahead of its West Coast debut.

“I was very intrigued by the fact that an Irish Catholic couple felt strongly enough to go to Israel and interview people and write this verbatim play,” said Perla Karney, artistic director of The Dortort Center for Creativity in the Arts at Hillel at UCLA. “This is a very important story, and once I saw it, I wanted to bring it to the UCLA campus.”

Salma Qarnain and Jeff Gurner in the world-premiere of “October 7” earlier this year.

(Aaron J. Houston)

Karney is also arranging for a security presence at the event. UCLA, where the staged reading is taking place, was the site of pro-Palestinian demonstrations this spring, including an encampment that was attacked by counterdemonstrators in April — the slow response to which led UC President Michael V. Drake to launch an investigation into the university’s planning, its actions and the response by law enforcement.

“The people protesting on college campuses, they’re the same age as the kids who were just hanging out at a rave,” said McElhinney, referring to the attack on the Nova Music Festival that killed over 400 attendees. Half of the play’s characters are tied to the music festival: a vendor, an organizer, numerous attendees and a doctor who treated partygoers at a nearby hospital.

McAleer and McElhinney are currently “in active talks” to bring the piece to other campuses, including in the northeastern U.S. and Ireland, McAleer said.