The Sparks Fly Upward is a musical drama that follows three German families in Berlin, two Jewish and one Christian, through the Holocaust. Between 1938 and the end of the war in 1945, the Jewish families, with the assistance of the Christian family, struggle to outlast Hitler. Throughout the story, the three families turn to the Book of Job for reassurance and enlightenment. The suffering of Job, and the contest between good and evil represented in his story, are reflected in the lives of the German Jewish community, and their non-Jewish neighbors, who face the immediate question of man’s obligation to man in times of moral and political crisis. The story is told completely through music and lyrics.
