Imagine This A 2008 British Musical
This was the official website for the 2008 musical, Imagine This. Content is from the site's archived pages as well as other outside sources.
Although the characters in the musical are fictional, the situation is based on real events in Warsaw during the Second World War. The content below is from outside reviews.
This show closed on 20 December 2008.
Imagine This
The action takes place inside a former train depot in the Warsaw ghetto in 1942. A Jewish theatrical family seeks refuge there and prepares to put on a play, hoping that the audience will use their imagination to forget the miserable conditions for a while. The story of Jewish resistance against the Romans at the desert fortress of Masada has parallels with their own desperate situation.​
MAIN CHARACTERS
The following are the main characters in the musical:
The Warshowsky family:
Daniel Warshowsky: Head of a Polish theatre company ; married to Hannah
Rebecca: Daniel's daughter ; Leon: Daniel's 10 year old son
Sarah: Daniel's sister ; Max: Sarah's husband
Adolph: Father of Daniel and Sarah
Other members of the theatrical company are:
Izzy: a comic from Berlin ; Otto: a German film actor ; Lola: a chorus girl ; Jan: the son of a Rabbi ; Jacob: a young Polish actor
Other main characters:
Adam: a young Polish resistance fighter
Captain Blick: the leader of a group of Nazi soldiers who patrol the ghetto
The main roles in Masada (the play performed within the ghetto) are as follows [the actors playing the roles are shown in brackets]:
Eleazar [Daniel]: the leader of a group of Jewish rebels
Tamar [Rebecca]: Eleazar's daughter
Aaron [Jan]: a Jewish rebel who is captured by the Romans
Silva [Adam]: Roman general
Caesar [Adolph]: Roman emperor
Pompey [Izzy]: a slave who hides his Christian beliefs
Rufus [Otto]: Caesar's tribune (representative) in Judaea
Production
A Beth Trachtenberg, Anita Mann, Leigh Mason, Jean Mason, Finefish Entertainment, Marlynn Scully, ICW Prods. presentation, in association with Theater Royal Plymouth, of a musical in two acts with book by Glenn Berenbeim, music by Shuki Levy, lyrics by David Goldsmith. Directed by Timothy Sheader. Musical direction, James McKeon. Choreography and movement direction, Liam Steel.
Creative
Sets, Eugene Lee; costumes, Ann Hould-Ward; lighting, Tim Mitchell; sound, Terry Jardine, Nick Lidster; hair and wigs; David H. Lawrence; fight direction, Renny Krupinski; musical supervisor, Phil Bateman; orchestrations, Chris Walker; production stage manager, Maggie Mackay. Opened Nov. 19, 2008. Reviewed Nov. 18. Running time: 2 HOURS, 30 MIN.
Cast
Daniel, Eleazar - Peter Polycarpou Rebecca, Tamar - Leila Benn Harris Adam, Silva - Simon Gleeson Jan, Aaron - Steven Serlin Izzy, Pompey - Michael Matus Max, Jeremiah - Sevan Stephan Sarah, Naomi - Sarah Ingram Adolph, Old Man - Bernard Lloyd Lola, Salome - Cameron Leigh Otto, Rufus - Gary Milner Blick - Richard Cotton Leon - Nathan Attard Jamie Davis Alexander Kalian Jacob - Marc Antolin Hannah - Rebecca Sutherland
With: Rachael Archer, Stuart Boothier, Oliver Brenin, Michael Camp, Joel Elfernik, Bob Harms, Paul Iveson, Roy Litvin, Aoife Nally, Grant Neal, Vincent Pirillo, Carrie Sutton, Gemma Sutton, Lucy Thatcher. Musical numbers: "The Last Day of Summer," "Imagine This," "Masada Prologue," "Rufus' Letter to Caesar," "Free," "When He Looked Into My Eyes," "Salome's Lament," "Hail," "No More," "Free" (reprise), "Rebels' Prayer," "Masada," "I Am the Dove," "Hail" (reprise), "Far From Here, Far From Now," "To Touch a Cloud," "The Last Laugh," "Don't Mind Me," " Writing on the Wall," "I Surrender," "Far From Here, Far From Now," (reprise) "Passover Prayer," "The Choice," "To Touch a Cloud" (reprise), "Imagine This" (reprise).
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Reviews
What to say about … Imagine This
Mark Espiner The Guardian
Friday 21 November 2008
A West End musical about the Holocaust has horrified the critics, but will you choose to play devil's advocate? Here's how to hone your stance using the reviews
The Nazis' persecution of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, set to songs in a high-kicking musical? Even you with your huge experience of boundary-pushing avant-garde experimentalism were taken aback by the bravado of Imagine This, even if it did remind you fleetingly of Mel Brooks' The Producers. Unlike that comedy caper, this show had not been on your theatre to-do list. But the sheer incongruity of form and content - and the media buzz around it - means you simply must have something to say about it.
The reviews you've picked up on are almost unanimously appalled, but now that John McCain has left the stage perhaps it's time to don the costume of The Maverick and take the opposing view.
"In comparison with cynical take-the-money-and-run jukebox musicals or the slavish theatrical recreation of old movies, Imagine This has a certain integrity about it," you declare, hoping no one else has read Charles Spencer in the Telegraph. "There are big soaring anthems," you add, "a strong love interest, and a plot that undoubtedly grips. The production values, though far from extravagant, are effective enough, and though there are no star names, the performances are impressive."
Having stunned your friends with your free-thinking, it's time to subvert your stance. This show, you say, "bums a ride on the Holocaust". If anyone is aghast at your choice of words, say the celebrated director Peter Hall coined that phrase, which perfectly fits "shows and films like this", that have "the glibbest, and most suspect way of endowing second-rate art with an air of moral significance". Now let your real distaste show, too, as Michael Billington does in the Guardian by saying that "the romantic sentiment and uplift inherent in the musical sit uneasily with a story of not just heroic resistance but starvation, suffering and the death of more than 100,000 Polish Jews".
The plot, though, is "refreshingly bold" (Times) in the way that it tries to dovetail two stories. It works with the play within a play idea where the Ghetto's theatre company attempts to put on a musical about Masada, the fortress in AD73 Judea where 900 Jewish zealots committed mass suicide rather than surrender to the Romans. There's an incongruity here too, though, you observe, since it's hard to believe that "the Nazis would sanction a show about Masada even though they are assured 'It's got singing, dancing and all the Jews die in the end'." (Guardian).
That last line proves your point that the script has a "clunkiness" that "never goes" which you learned from Benedict Nightingale in the Times. Then continue: "I won't tell you how this turns out, only that it comes with a lot of stuff about dark eyes burning through me and how deep eyes somehow knew me. The lyricist, David Goldsmith, may have the chutzpah to rhyme nature with nomenclature, but he can be pretty slushy too," you say. And as for the line "Never look a gift whore in the mouth", directed at the fur-coated informant played by Cameron Leigh - well, that was just "screaming for red pencil", as Michael Coveney said in his WhatsonStage review.
And the music? No distinctive Polish folk rhythms but instead the "pap world of internationalised pop" (Guardian).
You've had enough of discussing this piece now and bring all arguments to a close. In short, you say, this "manipulative and morally dubious show" (Telegraph) had you "grinding your teeth in despair" (Guardian) and ultimately it's "something nobody should have imagined" (Times).
Don't say: War(saw), what is it good for?
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Imagine This, New London Theatre, London
Michael Coveney
Sunday 23 November 2008
Could it get worse at the New London than Gone with the Wind? It could. And it just did. Imagine This is a Holocaust musical that makes Springtime for Hitler look like The Sound of Music. You can have bad taste and call it laughter in the dark, but it's something else when Peter Polycarpou's ghetto leader Daniel staves off the evil moment with a string of Jewish jokes, such as the one about the boy who tells his mother he's playing a Jewish husband in the school play. He's pleased. She's not. "Tell them you want a speaking part," she fumes.
Laugh? I nearly died, whereas the Warsaw Jews actually did, just like the zealots who fled burnt-out Jerusalem and defied the Romans by committing mass suicide on the rock at Masada. The presentation of the play runs parallel with the violence in the ghetto, some of which is deeply unpleasant.
Before the interval, the Nazi chief interrupts with good news as we make our way to the bars. What could it be? We don't have to come back? The drinks are free? No, it's a promise of bread and jam and a free train ride if we only take one suitcase. As the resistance fighter Adam (who doubles as a Roman waverer) knows all about Treblinka, the outcome, as they say, is never in doubt.
The Masada play takes us to Rome where Bernard Lloyd's Caesar issues the massacre instruction and his general declares that the soldiers must be hailed, or the zealots will be nailed. Hailed or nailed, what's it to be?
One hates to be inhospitable, but the show comes from America with minimal creative provenance. The music has some predictable and over-used harmonic shifts, a catchy rhythmic lilt to the title song, a brow-beating intensity to "Masada", and that's it. Did no-one think to put a klezmer band on stage or research the songs of the ghetto?
I liked Simon Gleeson's febrile, attractive Adam, but Leila Benn Harris's Rebecca is an annoying "West End" performance. The excellent Michael Matus has a comic turn as a sacrificial victim and Polycarpou consolidates his leading man status with dignity, passion and a fine baritonal tenor voice.
Director Timothy Sheader arranges some impressively tough-to-watch sequences, such as the slow-motion suicide pact and the elisions between backstage on the show and full occupation of Eugene Lee's imposing warehouse design of steel girders and broken windows. The show looks good. But do me a favour, spare me the schmaltz.
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Review: ‘Imagine This’
David Benedict Variety
NOVEMBER 19, 2008
Criticizing "Holocaust," playwright Dennis Potter dismissed the argument that the 1978 miniseries was moving. If you couldn't make the murder of 6 million Jews moving, he retorted, you shouldn't be working in television. "Imagine This," the heartfelt new musical set during the last days of the Warsaw Ghetto, is no different.
Criticizing “Holocaust,” playwright Dennis Potter dismissed the argument that the 1978 miniseries was moving. If you couldn’t make the murder of 6 million Jews moving, he retorted, you shouldn’t be working in television. “Imagine This,” the heartfelt new musical set during the last days of the Warsaw Ghetto, is no different. The inevitable final scenes of Timothy Sheader’s skilled, uncynical production have both restraint and power, but not enough to overcome the preceding obstacles thrown up by its writers’ handling of the highly sensitive — and hard-to-sell — subject.
Book writer Glenn Berenbeim has saddled the proceedings with a difficult double structure: It’s a tuner-within-a-tuner.
Set amid the Jewish ghetto’s barely tolerated theater troupe, the story takes place largely on the night in 1942 before they’re shipped out to what they believe is a sunny labor camp. The group’s director Daniel (a quietly touching Peter Polycarpou) persuades them that, as a gesture of hope, they should stage a musical about Masada, the besieged hill fortress where, in year 70, a Jewish community of 960 refugees held 10,000 Roman soldiers at bay before committing collective suicide.
Plot parallels abound, and not just in the links between Romans and Germans wielding fatal power over the oppressed.
Quick-witted Daniel has saved and hidden non-Jewish political firebrand Adam (Simon Gleeson) among his actors. Daniel’s previously dutiful daughter Rebecca (Leila Benn Harris) and Adam fall in love, a development made plain when Rebecca, now acting as defiant Jewish girl Tamar, sings “When He Looked in My Eyes” about the handsome Roman general played, yes, by Adam.
So far, so “West Side Story.” But that show’s meshing of book, music and lyrics is so tight that when the hero and heroine fall for each other in a mere six lines of dialogue, auds believe them because the dramatic setup is so vivid and the writing so distinctive. Not so here.
For all the good intentions, tension barely surfaces all night. The problem is not just that almost everyone knows the ultimate ending but that the schematic and predictable writing barely elicits a single surprise.
With two plots to populate, an entirely committed cast struggles to lift their roles beyond stock types of the cowardly clown, the actress who’ll sell herself to keep a fur coat, the suffering wife. None but Daniel, however, is afforded stage time sufficient to allow auds to connect with and care for them.
Writing problems extend to the score. Even though one character sings ironically of “a penchant for schmaltz,” David Goldsmith’s lyrics are largely free of it. But, like the music by Israeli composer Shuki Levy, they lack the spark of individuality.
Levy is most at home supplying power ballads of love and defiance. But for all their carefully repeated chord patterns, or rather because of them, they feel generic. His use of wistful regret is not exactly a distant cousin to “Sunrise, Sunset” from the superior “Fiddler on the Roof,” while his minor key uplift moments echo “Close Every Door” from “Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
That the songs sometimes hit home is largely due to Chris Walker’s strong orchestrations for a 14-piece band and, particularly, the richness of the multipart vocal arrangements; this is definitely a show at its best when ditching individual hackneyed characters to focus on the entire community.
Tim Mitchell’s immensely versatile and evocative lighting works wonders with Eugene Lee’s unchanging but arresting set of a dilapidated train shed. Helmer Sheader also encourages Liam Steel’s boldly stylized choreography to escape the literal confines of the script. Yet the earnest attempt at scale is the show’s undoing.
There is a fundamental mismatch between the need for the bombast of a hit musical and the opening number that introduces us to a sweetly struggling theater troupe with almost no resources. The resulting Masada musical they stage has such wildly overblown production values and sentiments that the evening tips over into being “Les Misbegotten.”
Sadly, we’ve been here before, and better. Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 movie “To Be or Not to Be,” another actors-defy-the-Nazis-drama, scored highly by daring to be genuinely funny. More pertinently, Joshua Sobol’s 1984 play “Ghetto” used documentary evidence and songs from the Vilna ghetto to tell an almost identical but more powerful tale.
The sincerity of the tragic climax and its, for some, tear-jerking, hopeful coda may attract audiences eager to honor Jewish history. But even those able to overlook its longueurs and weaknesses are being asked to watch a feel-bad show just as a recession starts to bite.
More Background On ImagineThisTheMusical.com
ImagineThisTheMusical.com was the official website for Imagine This, a 2008 British stage musical that sought to combine two narratives of Jewish courage: the defiance of the Romans at Masada and the struggle for survival within the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. Although short-lived, the production became one of the most discussed and polarizing theatrical events in London’s West End during the late 2000s. The website chronicled its creative ambitions, cast, and production details, later serving as an archive preserving one of the boldest attempts to merge musical theatre with Holocaust-era storytelling.
Origins of the Musical
The musical Imagine This was conceived by Glenn Berenbeim, an American writer whose earlier screenwriting work had focused on historical and moral questions. He collaborated with composer Shuki Levy, best known for his television scores (Power Rangers, Inspector Gadget, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe), and lyricist David Goldsmith, whose credits included musical adaptations for the stage. The creative trio aimed to tell a story of hope and imagination in the face of despair.
The idea germinated in the early 2000s, amid renewed interest in Holocaust remembrance and theatrical depictions of resistance. Berenbeim’s book framed the Warsaw Ghetto not just as a place of suffering but as a setting where art itself became an act of defiance. The show would use a “play within a play” device: Jewish actors in the ghetto staging a musical about the ancient Jewish revolt at Masada in AD 73.
By mirroring the two stories—Romans oppressing the Jews of Masada, and Nazis persecuting Warsaw’s Jews—the creators sought to underscore the timeless nature of resistance and the power of imagination as survival.
The Website: Digital Home of a Controversial Vision
ImagineThisTheMusical.com was launched to coincide with the West End run at the New London Theatre (now the Gillian Lynne Theatre) in 2008. The site served as an official resource for audiences, scholars, and press. It offered:
Cast and creative team biographies
Production notes detailing the set design, costumes, and musical numbers
Press and reviews links
Background on the Warsaw Ghetto and Masada narratives
Photo galleries and ticketing information
After the show closed, the website eventually became an archival reference, preserving materials that might otherwise have vanished. Much of the surviving content is accessible today through the Internet Archive, making it a digital time capsule for one of the West End’s most debated musicals.
Setting and Storyline
The narrative unfolds inside a derelict train depot in the Warsaw Ghetto, 1942. A Polish-Jewish theatre troupe led by Daniel Warshowsky hides there with family and friends. Hoping to uplift spirits, Daniel directs a play about Masada, where Jewish zealots chose death over Roman enslavement.
Key Characters
Daniel Warshowsky – Head of the theatre troupe, symbolic of artistic resistance
Rebecca – Daniel’s daughter, who plays Tamar in the Masada story
Adam – A Polish resistance fighter hiding among them, paralleling the Roman general Silva in the play
Captain Blick – Nazi overseer of the ghetto
Sarah, Max, Adolph, Izzy, Otto, Lola, Jan, Jacob – Members of the troupe portraying counterparts in the Masada play
This dual structure—a story within a story—allowed the writers to draw direct parallels between ancient and modern oppression. As the characters perform, their onstage narrative of freedom and sacrifice increasingly reflects their real-world fate.
Production and Creative Team
The show premiered at the Theatre Royal Plymouth before transferring to the West End’s New London Theatre in November 2008.
Director: Timothy Sheader
Musical Director: James McKeon
Choreography: Liam Steel
Set Design: Eugene Lee (known for Wicked and Sweeney Todd)
Costumes: Ann Hould-Ward (Beauty and the Beast)
Lighting: Tim Mitchell
Sound: Terry Jardine and Nick Lidster
Musical Supervision: Phil Bateman
Orchestrations: Chris Walker
The production starred Peter Polycarpou as Daniel, Leila Benn Harris as Rebecca, and Simon Gleeson as Adam, supported by a cast of twenty-plus performers. With elaborate sets and atmospheric lighting, the show transformed the theatre into a war-ravaged ghetto, with stark visuals of steel girders, shattered windows, and flickering lamps—an environment both claustrophobic and poetic.
Musical Numbers and Style
The score featured more than twenty songs blending Broadway-style ballads with choral ensemble pieces. Key numbers included:
The Last Day of Summer
Imagine This (title song)
Masada Prologue
Free / Rebels’ Prayer
When He Looked Into My Eyes
The Choice
I Surrender
Passover Prayer
Composer Shuki Levy favored cinematic orchestrations and soaring anthems. Critics noted echoes of Les Misérables and Fiddler on the Roof in its sweeping harmonies and themes of collective resilience. The title song, “Imagine This,” functioned as both a plea for empathy and an invocation of the creative imagination that sustains hope.
Reception and Controversy
When Imagine This opened in November 2008, it faced one of the most polarized receptions in recent West End history.
Critical Reaction
Major British outlets reacted sharply:
The Guardian’s Michael Billington found the tonal balance “deeply uneasy,” arguing that “romantic sentiment and uplift sit uneasily with starvation and death.”
The Times’ Benedict Nightingale acknowledged the ambition but called the dialogue “clunky” and the concept “manipulative.”
The Daily Telegraph’s Charles Spencer described it as a “morally dubious” attempt to attach the Holocaust to a conventional show format.
Variety’s David Benedict noted that despite technical polish, “the schematic writing barely elicits a single surprise” and the musical “asks audiences to watch a feel-bad show just as a recession starts to bite.”
Others, however, recognized its sincerity and integrity. Some reviewers appreciated its attempt to grapple with the question of whether art could provide dignity and solace in humanity’s darkest hours. A few audience members defended it as an honest, if flawed, experiment in confronting tragedy through theatre.
Audience Reaction
Audience responses were mixed but passionate. Survivors’ descendants and Jewish community members expressed discomfort at treating the Holocaust in a musical form, while others viewed the work as a tribute to those who found strength in art even in the ghetto.
Some ticket-buyers were drawn by curiosity, others by controversy. Attendance fluctuated, and despite loyal fans, the show struggled commercially, closing after just over a month, on 20 December 2008.
Artistic Intent and Themes
At its heart, Imagine This explored the transformative power of imagination. The theatre troupe’s decision to perform despite imminent deportation embodied a profound question: Can storytelling save the human spirit, even if it cannot save the body?
By juxtaposing Masada and Warsaw, the creators hoped to express continuity in Jewish endurance and the redemptive potential of art. The musical insisted that creating beauty in horror is not exploitation but affirmation—that imagination, even when doomed, is an act of survival.
Nevertheless, critics argued that the musical form—with its melodies, reprises, and emotional catharsis—was ill-suited to such atrocity. The tension between artistic ambition and ethical representation remains the show’s defining legacy.
Press and Media Coverage
In 2008 the production became a lightning rod for debate in British arts journalism.
The Guardian ran a discussion piece titled “What to say about… Imagine This”, examining whether theatre should portray the Holocaust through song and dance.
WhatsonStage, Variety, and The Stage all published contrasting takes—some condemning its perceived tastelessness, others admiring its earnestness.
BBC News and The Jewish Chronicle covered public reactions, with the latter featuring interviews with Jewish critics who wrestled with discomfort yet praised its courage.
In subsequent years, the musical found renewed analysis in academic discussions of Holocaust representation, often cited alongside Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Producers as examples of how musical theatre grapples with tragedy.
Legacy and Cultural Significance
Though it closed swiftly, Imagine This left an outsized mark on conversations about ethics in performance art. It became a case study in the limits of theatrical empathy—how far a musical can stretch before sentimentality eclipses sincerity.
1. Educational and Scholarly Interest
Universities and drama programs continue to reference the show when teaching adaptation theory and Holocaust representation. Scholars point to its “play within a play” format as an instructive mechanism for exploring historical trauma.
2. Influence on Future Productions
The controversy surrounding Imagine This arguably encouraged later artists to approach Holocaust subjects with greater nuance—e.g., The Pianist stage adaptation (2022) and immersive installations that emphasize silence and reflection over spectacle.
3. Preservation through the Website
Because the show’s run was brief, ImagineThisTheMusical.com became the principal repository of its materials: cast lists, song lyrics, and background essays. When the domain went inactive, the archived version gained historical value, especially for researchers tracing how digital marketing supported short-run productions in the early Web 2.0 era.
The site exemplified how official theatre websites in the late 2000s served not just promotional but archival and interpretive functions—offering audiences a paratextual experience that extended beyond the stage.
The Production’s Broader Context
Comparison to Other Works
Critics often compared Imagine This to:
“The Producers” (2001), Mel Brooks’s comic take on Nazi exploitation, which succeeded through overt satire.
“Cabaret” (1966), which balanced decadence and doom in pre-war Berlin.
“Ghetto” (1984) by Joshua Sobol, which also used songs from the Vilna Ghetto but maintained documentary realism.
Unlike those works, Imagine This eschewed irony, aiming for straightforward heroism and uplift. Its sincerity—ironically—was what divided audiences most sharply.
Timing and Economics
Opening amid the 2008 financial downturn, the show faced a challenging environment. With ticket prices high and audiences cautious, even strong productions struggled. Imagine This lacked the star power and marketing muscle of long-running hits like Wicked or Les Misérables, making recovery from negative press nearly impossible.
The Afterlife of Imagine This
Since its closure, Imagine This has acquired a cult following among theatre historians and collectors. Bootleg recordings and promotional materials circulate online, while archived reviews continue to draw commentary on theatre forums.
Composer Shuki Levy has expressed pride in the project’s moral core, despite its reception. Lyricist David Goldsmith has reflected publicly on the difficulty of balancing tragedy and entertainment, citing the show as a profound creative lesson.
No major revivals have been announced, though isolated workshops and readings have occurred in smaller venues and educational settings, often framed as discussions of theatre’s responsibility when portraying genocide.
The Website’s Continuing Relevance
Even long after the show’s closure, ImagineThisTheMusical.com remains significant for several reasons:
Digital Preservation – It retains first-hand information about cast, crew, and production details that would otherwise be lost.
Cultural Record – As one of the earliest West End productions with a robust online presence, it demonstrates how theatre companies used emerging digital tools for outreach in the late 2000s.
Research Value – Historians, critics, and students now use the archived site to trace the marketing and narrative framing of controversial theatrical works.
Moral Dialogue – By preserving statements from the creative team, it allows future generations to assess how artists justified their vision amid criticism.
In essence, the website became not just a companion piece to the musical but a primary document of cultural discourse—a testament to how online media extends a show’s life far beyond its stage run.
Imagine This and its official website, ImagineThisTheMusical.com, stand as a fascinating intersection of artistic ambition, moral debate, and digital history. The musical sought to affirm the enduring power of storytelling in humanity’s darkest chapters, while the website offered audiences a gateway into that vision.
Though critics condemned its tonal mismatches and audiences found it emotionally unsettling, Imagine This remains a reminder that theatre—like the imagination it celebrates—must sometimes risk failure to pursue truth.
Today, the archived site endures as a poignant relic of both early twenty-first-century digital theatre marketing and a creative team’s daring attempt to make audiences feel hope amid horror. In revisiting Imagine This, one encounters not merely a musical, but an enduring question: Can beauty born in catastrophe still illuminate the human soul?
