Paper Lanterns, Paper Cranes

This powerful drama illustrates the impact of war—and the nightmare of nuclear fallout—as experienced by some of World War II's most innocent victims: the children of Japan. Kyushu, a Japanese "street orphan," is admitted into a Hiroshima hospital in the mid-1950s. When it is discovered that she's losing her eyesight, the spectre is raised whether she is also a victim of "A-bomb illness." Despite her denial that she was in Hiroshima during the bomb blast, she is visited by a ghastly memory of the burned out city, the Cockroach Woman, and she resists all attempts by a Japanese physician and an American psychologist to help her. She falls more deeply into depression and hopelessness—until her chance meeting and eventual friendship with a young A-bomb patient named Sadako gives Kyushu the strength and desire to recover. Paper Lanterns, Paper Cranes is a winner of the IUPUI National Playwriting Competition. Multicultural cast.