Budapest, Budapest — Interview with Toby Singer and Ali Viterbi 

Becca Myers: Budapest, Budapest is rooted in historical events and real people—how did you first come to this story, and why did you feel it had to be a musical?

Toby Singer: I first came to this story through the lens of Hannah Senesh. She was a figure in my Jewish upbringing—sort of in the air culturally for me for a very long time. I’d long thought that dramatizing her life into a musical was something I wanted to do. And then I finally got into the weeds of research and thought: “this would be a great musical, I should write this”. And then almost immediately, my brain was cracked open by the discovery of this man, Rudolf Kastner. 

Ali Viterbi: Toby and I linked up because he sent me a cold email. We had a mutual friend who thought I might be a good fit for this project. I’d always been obsessed with musical theater, but I’d never written a musical. So when Toby reached out, it felt really b’shert. I got to read his original draft and I just fell in love—first with Toby’s music, and then with the story of Rudolf Kastner. Like Toby, I knew Hannah Senesh from Jewish Day School, Jewish summer camp, synagogue. But how had I never heard the name of the person who saved more Jews than any other individual in the entire history of the Holocaust? I went down a huge research rabbit hole and became captivated, and scared by, and intimidated, and horrified, and completely under the spell of this man. 

Toby Singer: It became very clear that the story I was interested in telling wasn’t necessarily Hannah’s story, but was mediated by the story of Rudolf—this idea of two different ways of fighting back, of showing resistance. That’s where it began—discovering his story embedded within Hannah’s.

Ali Viterbi: We realized his story was a compelling vehicle for telling a complicated story about the impossible choices of war—what does resistance look like? Hannah is still an important part of that story, but her story is known. This musical is about shedding light on the parts of history that are less known.

Becca Myers: What research did you do to bring this history to life? Was there a discovery that fundamentally changed how you understood the world of the show?

Ali Viterbi: There’s one book in particular that has been a real grounding for both Toby and me in how we think about Rudolf Kastner—Kastner’s Train: The True Story of Rezso Kastner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust by Anna Porter. We also read the diary of Hannah Senesh—her life and diary was posthumously compiled by her mother and others, and it covers her life from when she moves to British Mandate Palestine almost up until her death. Those are the two seminal books, but it takes you down a lot of different rabbit holes. So we’re essentially reading everything there is to read about Tel Aviv in the 1950s and Budapest in 1944.  

Toby Singer: I think leaning into the community around Kastner was a really big breakthrough, particularly in the last stretch of time we’ve been working on the piece. It coincided with a really important movement toward centering the war story and the aftermath—and Hannah being this kind of presence throughout. That’s been really exciting.

Ali Viterbi: What I’ve found really exciting is becoming enamored with Kastner’s relationship with his wife and his mistress—both of whom played important roles in the saving of those 1,684 Jews—and the ways in which his story eclipsed theirs, while also how incredible and awful these two women were in their own right. When I learned about them in the context of researching Kastner, that’s when I thought: this is the story. What does it mean to fall in love and be cared for in a time of war?

Becca Myers: What does Budapest, Budapest mean to each of you personally? Has that shifted as you've been writing it?

Toby Singer: I was working on a slew of musicals in the few years before I started working on this show, and I loved what I was writing and who I was working with—but they weren’t my heart. This show, when I wrote it originally, was the first musical that felt authentically like me—musically, and in terms of what I wanted to share with the world. That was a very important moment for me, and has shaped how I spend my time since then. 

Ali Viterbi: I feel like the world is exploding, it’s on fire, and I don’t know how my little watering can is going to put out the fire. But this show is about the fact that there are a lot of different ways to do something, and they’re all going to be flawed. Nothing alone is going to put out the fire. But if a million people do their own little watering cans in different ways—like Rudolph Kastner and Hannah Senesh, very different people with very different tactics—neither of them put out the fire alone, but they did something. And doing something feels better than doing nothing. That’s what it means to me right now. 

Toby Singer: In terms of how it’s shifted—the show has become frighteningly prescient, and I hate that, and I also feel grateful that I have something to work on that speaks to it. The feeling of insignificance, of helplessness—working on this gives me a certain type of participation in the great work of our time: of figuring out how we’re all going to get through this.

Ali Viterbi: And as a new parent, thinking about what resistance means in conversation with bringing life into this world—how the stakes feel different—that was a surprise. This show is also about parents and children. What do you sacrifice as a parent? What do you have control over when you’re raising a child? And what do you have absolutely no control over in a completely chaotic world, especially a world at war?

Becca Myers: This show is historical, but it also speaks to the present. What do you hope audiences take from Budapest, Budapest and carry with them into today's world?

Toby Singer: When I wrote it originally, I wrote it almost as a call to action for myself—something that would inspire me to take action, because I felt paralyzed at that particular moment. And I still feel paralyzed frequently, looking around, feeling helpless and small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. That has always flowed into the background of this piece, particularly musically. I want people to feel bolstered by it and by the story.

Ali Viterbi: Toby wrote these beautiful lyrics in what is now one of the opening songs of the show: “We all want to make a difference, fight back, show resistance—but when push comes to shove, what will they do when they’re coming for you?” I get chills even saying that, because that feels like exactly the world we’re living in. They are coming for us—as Jews, as Americans, as people who believe in democracy and the rights of citizens and immigrants. We are facing choices today—not in the same way Rudolph faced those choices, but we are facing them. Are we going to be Hannah Senesh and parachute into the unknown, not knowing who we’ll save, but knowing that the martyrdom will make a difference? Are we going to be Rudolf—and negotiate with our captors and murderers to eke out a bit of safety for the people we love? Or are we going to do nothing? I think this show is frighteningly relevant to today, and to the choices that every person needs to ask themselves right now: what makes effective resistance? And what is the cost?