“Giver what causes you pain? If you gave some of it to me, maybe your pain would be less.”
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
By Lois Lowry
Adaptation and Direction: Elise Thoron
Performed by Aurea Tomeski
This Newbery-Award winning, best-selling book for young readers has become the gold standard for the genre. Told with deceptive simplicity, this is the provocative story of a boy who experiences something incredible and undertakes something impossible. In the telling, audiences question every value that they have taken for granted and reexamine their most deeply held beliefs.
The Story
At the age of twelve, Jonas, a young boy from a seemingly utopian, futuristic world, is singled out to receive special training from The Giver, who alone holds the memories of the true joys and pain of life. In the process, Jonas is forced to question everything in his ideal world: a world without conflict, poverty, unemployment, divorce, injustice, or inequality.
In Performance
This Literature to Life Award winner marked the first young adult novel on the Literature to Life roster. Adapted by Elise Thoron, this piece features sixty minutes of solo-performance focusing on the relationship between the young Jonas and his mentor, The Giver. As Jonas trains to become the Receiver of Memories, the buried truth about the world that he was born into becomes hauntingly clear to both Jonas and the audience.
Appropriate for: elementary / middle / high school, college, and community audiences