CHICAGO -- Last chance to catch The Last Survivor, Eleanor Reissa's Holocaust drama at Skokie's Northlight Theatre, which ends its scheduled run Apr. 19. The play began previews Mar. 18 and opened Mar. 25.

Based on the harrowing experiences of the author's family, Eleanor Reissa's drama depicts a Jewish family torn apart by Nazi hate, with one son smuggled out of the country before the rest of his family is forced into concentration camps. The play, told from the perspective of the survivor's daughter, depicts a woman torn between her sense of duty to her aging father, and a pressure to deny her faith.

J.R. Sullivan directs David Darlow, Jackie Katzman, Guy Adkins, Tony Dobrowolski, Mary Ernster and Si Osborne. Designing the show are Karen Kopischke (costumes) and Michael Philippi (sets & lighting).

Survivor was recommended to Northlight by Chicago actor/director Mike Nussbaum, who played the father in a 1996 workshop of the show at L.A.'s Mark Taper Forum. Reissa directed and choreographed Broadway's Yiddish revue, Those Were The Days, and Off-Broadway's country Western comedy, Cowgirls.

* Upcoming at Northlight will be THE WOUND AND THE BOW. Russell Vandenbroucke adapts and directs Sophocles' Philoctetes, about a man, exiled due to a festering wound on his foot, suddenly wanted again by the Greek army that cast him out. (Prev: May 6; opens May 13; Runs to June 7).

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One of the nation's largest not-for-profit theatres, Northlight boasts 6,600 subscribers -- a 75 percent increase of 1996-97! Part of the increase is due to its new location, at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts on Skokie Boulevard in Skokie.

For tickets and information on shows at Northlight Theatre, 9401 North Skokie Blvd., call (847) 673-6300.

-- By David Lefkowitz and Lawrence Bommer
Chicago Correspondent