Paper Lanterns, Paper Cranes
by Brian Kral

A powerful drama about the impact of war--and the nightmare of nuclear fallout--as experienced by some of the Second World War's most innocent victims: the children of Japan.

A winner of the IUPUI National Playwriting Competition.

Multicultural Cast of 12-15 (6-9F, 4-6M, with roles for children and adults).

Some doubling is possible.

Kyushu, a Japanese street orphan, is admitted into a Hiroshima hospital in the mid 1950's.

When it is discovered that she's losing her eyesight, ths 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.