Musicals, Books & Readings

A jam jar of melody and lyrics, songs linked by stories of a 50's- 60's childhood/teenhood in the big small town in Northern New England where David Schein grew up.  In Queen City Songs Schein sings another side of the "good old days," when children hid under their desks in case the  Russian's  dropped "the  big one," when friends who were different got beat up, a boy had to fight to prove he was a "Man," and the Catholic and  Jewish kids were not invited to Dancing School "where chosen children learned to rule."  Schein takes his audience in a musical and photographic walking tour of his town, showing the schools,  houses and backyard settings that shaped the lens through which he sees the world. 

45 minutes

David Schein spent over a  decade working in Ethiopia with street-kids in One Love AIDS/HIV Awareness Theater.  Now many are grown up with children of their own. The Adoption is a novel loosely based on stories of the children he worked with,  Tracking the coming of age of brothers and sisters, across the cultural divide and set in Ethiopia, Chicago, Dubai/ and China through twenty years of the most rapid development Africa has ever known, The Adoption is contemporary and international, tracking the lives of kids growing up today in tomorrow’s world, a coming of age story in a world where borders are collapsing and Ethiopian children beg pennies from eco-tourists to use at internet cafés to FB their cousins in Las Vegas. 

Hour long reading

My Murder and Other Local News is a collection of long form poems written in Chicago by David Schein between 1994 and the year 2000. The poems chronicle dramatic events in the middle age of a “normal” life – the chance witness of a killing, his father’s death, the birth of his daughter and Schein’s heart attack. Originally written for the page, Schein has performed My Murder and Other Local News as a theater piece in Vermont, Chicago, California and Europe.  

1 hr. performance 

published by Fomite Pressa

For sale $15 

contact Dafschein@gmail.com