I Was A Stranger Too

I Was a Stranger Too

by Cindy Cooper

Stories of immigration—of fleeing, or rescue, of sanctuary and of fear—propel an American woman, the memory of her mother's rescue from the Holocaust fresh in her mind, to help asylum seekers in the U.S.

“This play is gorgeous, with a depth of character and a beautiful economy of words. The engagement of Jewish history and ethics in allyship with new immigrants hits exactly the sweet spot of the JPP’s mission.”

— David Winitsky

Development History:
Rimon: The Minnesota Jewish Arts Council, Research Grant
Theatre Unbound, Minneapolis, MN
New Circle Theatre Company, Playwrights Unit
Play Readings With Friends

JPP Development:
2022 Jewish Playwriting Contest

Cynthia L. Cooper (Cindy) writes plays united by a passion for socially relevant topics, stylized staging, and a dramatic-comedic mix. A two-time Jerome Fellow, her plays have been seen in NY at Primary Stages, The Women’s Project (How She Played the Game), Wings (Slow Burn, Strange Light), New Circle Theatre Company (Entrepreneur), Chain Theatre (Heaven Scent, Sandbox) Lincoln Center Clark Studio (Beyond Stone), Promenade, Town Hall (Louis Braille), Anne Frank Center USA (Silence Not, A Love Story), EST New Works, Center for Jewish History (At the Train Station in Munich), Ronald Feldman Gallery (A Refugee Lives to Survive), Remember the Women Institute (The Box, All Databases Are Incomplete, Here Lived), WOW Café, Culture Project (Words of Choice), Jewish Heritage Museum (The Spoken and the Unspoken, also Actors’ Temple), and in Chicago, Minneapolis, DC, Philadelphia, Boston, Reno, LA, Richmond, Cape Cod, San Francisco, Florida, Oregon, Alabama, Maryland, Texas, Montreal, Budapest, Jerusalem, Helsinki, London, more. Her plays are in 17 publications including by Smith and Kraus, The New Press (Frontlines), Applause, Henry Holt, Heinemann, and others. She has won awards from Pen & Brush (twice), Samuel French Off-Broadway Play Festival, Malibu International Playwriting Festival, Nantucket Theatre, City of Providence, Barn Theatre, White Bear Arts, Quixote Foundation and others. She teaches playwriting, including at New York State Summer School of the Arts. She is also a journalist, often drawing upon her background as a lawyer, and the author of eight books, including Mockery of Justice, which was made into a CBS-TV movie. She spends time as an activist, for human rights and gender parity in and out of theater.