Interview With Playwright for Grief: A Love Story
Larry is a retired management consultant and lecturer. He is the founder and principal emeritus of CFAR, a management consulting company, and of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations. He is the author of several books on organizational psychology. Larry wrote the music and lyrics for Grieving Aaron and co-wrote the text with Beth Criscuolo, the director of Grief: A Love Story. The musical was performed once at the Venice Island Theater in Philadelphia on April 29, 2022.
Larry's upbringing in Washington Heights, New York City, was shaped by his parents' experiences as Holocaust survivors who immigrated to the United States after the war. His siblings, a testament to their resilience and creativity, include his brother Norbert Hirschhorn MD, an award-winning physician, researcher, and published poet, and his sister, Linda Hirschhorn, a composer, performer, and cantor.
Grief: A Love Story draws its inspiration from Larry’s childhood milieu, an orthodox Jewish neighborhood, in Washington Heights in the 1950s.
FAQs
Why did you write this play?
Larry: My son Aaron died in a boating accident in 2021. Soon after he died, I wrote poems about my grieving, which I published as a book titled Grieving Aaron. The summer after the publication, I began to compose music. I don’t know how, but I soon discovered that I could connect the poems and the songs to tell the story as a musical of how my wife and I grieved from the moment we learned of Aaron’s death to a moment of reconciliation when we look at photos of Aaron. This play, in a manner that I could never have anticipated, continues this artistic journey.
What happened with the musical?
Larry: I was happily introduced to Beth Criscuolo, a wonderful theater director. Together, we wrote the script of the musical Grieving Aaron, which incorporated my songs and poems. I produced the musical for one performance at the Venice Island Theater in Philadelphia in March 2022.
Who Attended?
Larry: Over 200 people attended, including family and friends. It was a fantastic experience for me as an artist, a mourner, a husband, father, and grandfather, and a member of a loving community. (See the link below for a video of the musical performance).
I imagine the play is connected to your grieving experience. Can you tell me about that?
Larry: Well, the title of the play is Grief: A Love story. I don’t want to give away the story. But the play incorporates some of this recent experience of losing a child with an evocation of my own childhood milieu.
How would you characterize that milieu?
Larry: It was a setting of Holocaust survivors and Jewish refugees from Germany and Poland. My family belonged to an orthodox synagogue, and I went to Yeshiva. The play dramatizes some of the challenges that survivors faced in coming to terms with their trauma, the loss of family, and the challenges of adjusting to America. The play addresses the psychological gap between American Jews and survivors.
Can you tell us about your writing?
Larry: I began writing it in the summer of 2022. I had an experience that I am sure is very common in creating any piece of art. The play’s conception and the script’s first version is entirely different from the final version.
Different in what way?
Larry: Well, for one thing, the main characters in the first version of the script are no longer the main characters in the final version! The dramatic ending for the play I first envisioned and treasured, is no longer in the script. It is like pouring wine into a bottle, and then changing the bottle! I had many readers of the script, most importantly Beth, who is once again my director, my family, many friends, and a dramaturg, Deborah Yarchun. Beth organized a reading of the play in March of 2023. It was an invaluable experience and helped me see the limitations of the last “shiva” scene.
What do you want audience members to take away from the script?
Larry: I want them to feel deeply connected to the milieu, the characters, and the setting of the post-Holocaust neighborhood in New York City. I want them to engage in the theological question of where God is after the Holocaust. I want them to think about the role of prayer and its limitations in helping people grieve.
The Musical
FAQs
Why did you write this play?
Larry: My son Aaron died in a boating accident in 2021. Soon after he died, I wrote poems about my grieving, which I published as a book titled Grieving Aaron. The summer after the publication, I began to compose music. I don’t know how, but I soon discovered that I could connect the poems and the songs to tell the story as a musical of how my wife and I grieved from the moment we learned of Aaron’s death to a moment of reconciliation when we look at photos of Aaron. This play, in a manner that I could never have anticipated, continues this artistic journey.
What happened with the musical?
Larry: I was happily introduced to Beth Criscuolo, a wonderful theater director. Together, we wrote the script of the musical Grieving Aaron, which incorporated my songs and poems. I produced the musical for one performance at the Venice Island Theater in Philadelphia in March 2022.
Who Attended?
Larry: Over 200 people attended, including family and friends. It was a fantastic experience for me as an artist, a mourner, a husband, father, and grandfather, and a member of a loving community. (See the link below for a video of the musical performance.
I imagine the play is connected to your grieving experience. Can you tell me about that?
Larry: Well, the title of the play is Grief: A Love story. I don’t want to give away the story. But the play incorporates some of this recent experience of losing a child with an evocation of my own childhood milieu.
How would you characterize that milieu?
Larry: It was a setting of Holocaust survivors and Jewish refugees from Germany and Poland. My family belonged to an orthodox synagogue, and I went to Yeshiva. The play dramatizes some of the challenges that survivors faced in coming to terms with their trauma, the loss of family, and the challenges of adjusting to America. The play addresses the psychological gap between American Jews and survivors.
Can you tell us about your writing?
Larry: I began writing it in the summer of 2022. I had an experience that I am sure is very common in creating any piece of art. The play’s conception and the script’s first version is entirely different from the final version.
Different in what way?
Larry: Well, for one thing, the main characters in the first version of the script are no longer the main characters in the final version! The dramatic ending for the play I first envisioned and treasured, is no longer in the script. It is like pouring wine into a bottle, and then changing the bottle! I had many readers of the script, most importantly Beth, who is once again my director, my family, many friends, and a dramaturg, Deborah Yarchun. Beth organized a reading of the play in March of 2023. It was an invaluable experience and helped me see the limitations of the last “shiva” scene.
What do you want audience members to take away from the script?
Larry: I want them to feel deeply connected to the milieu, the characters, and the setting of the post-Holocaust neighborhood in New York City. I want them to engage in the theological question of where God is after the Holocaust. I want them to think about the role of prayer and its limitations in helping people grieve.