Celeste Rita Raspanti (born 10 September 1928) is an American playwright who has published and produced several full-length and one-act plays. Raspanti was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

to an Italian immigrant father and Italian-American mother. She has a special interest in the Holocaust, which she first brought to the stage with ''I Never Saw Another Butterfly'', a play based on the real-life story of

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

survivor Raja Englanderova and stories from the

Theresienstadt concentration camp Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination camp ...

. (A well-known book of drawings and poetry produced by children at Terezin has been published under the same title.) Subsequent plays on this topic include ''No Fading Star'' and ''The Terezin Promise''. Raspanti has been acclaimed for enriching her stories with firsthand information of the camps from visits, oral histories, and her friendship with survivors - most notably, with Raja Englanderova, the protagonist of '' I Never Saw Another Butterfly''. Celeste Raspanti first became interested in writing when she won a high school essay contest in 1943. A former nun and retired college professor, she also publishes articles in academic and professional journals. Raspanti resides in

St. Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

External links

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Where Does a Play Begin?
''by Celeste R. Raspanti *
Celeste Raspanti plays published by Dramatic Publishing Company
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References

1928 births Living people Writers from Chicago American writers of Italian descent 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights American women dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women {{US-playwright-stub

See also

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References