By Shelley Mitchell

Talking with Angels: Budapest, 1943 is a solo performance piece, running at NYC’s Theaterlab, March 6–30, that intertwines two extraordinary events that took place during the Nazi occupation of Hungary.

At its heart is Gitta Mallasz, a courageous young woman who impersonated a Nazi officer to shelter more than 100 Jewish women and children in a Schindler’s List-style sewing factory—an act of defiance for which she was later honored as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem.

But as the title suggests, the play also explores an inexplicable supernatural event. From June 1943 to December 1944, Gitta’s Jewish friend, Hanna Dallos, began speaking in voices that were not her own—delivering “channeled messages”of hope and guidance as they faced persecution, punishment, and deportation.

Despite the political lies and chaos surrounding them, Gitta, Hanna, Hanna’s husband Joseph Kreutzer, and their friend Lili Strausz meticulously recorded these otherworldly messages in their journals. Gitta, the sole survivor, later published them as Dialogue avec l’Ange—a book that has since been translated into 26 languages and has profoundly influenced artists and thinkers such as Juliette Binoche, Wim Wenders, Yehudi Menuhin, and Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.

My adaptation and performance, running at NYC’s Theaterlab, March 6–30, have been shaped by the talents of dramaturg Amy Marie Seidel (Here There Are Blueberries, Paradise Square, The Great Gatsby), director Molly Shayna Cohen, and opera singer and composer Litha Ashforth. Together, we have crafted a theatrical experience that is both intimate and transcendent, offering audiences a timely meditation on authenticity, resilience, and spiritual awakening.

When I first began working on this piece more than 20 years ago, discussions about channeled messages, synchronicity, or mediumship were far from mainstream. Today, platforms like YouTube feature influencers ranging from actress Mayim Bialik interviewing former Navy officer turned channeler Suzanne Giesemann to Tyler Henry delivering messages to celebrities from their dearly departed.

This cultural shift has prompted me to reexamine not only how I present this story, but also why I continue to perform it. What was once a radical and obscure narrative now speaks directly to a modern audience searching for meaning in uncertain times.

I love Talking with Angels because it’s an interfaith story—free from doctrine or dogma—yet deeply resonant across spiritual traditions. More than a play, Talking with Angels: Budapest, 1943 is a shared meditation, a cathartic experience for both performer and audience. Together, we explore the vastness of human potential and the mysterious unseen forces that guide us—both individually and collectively—toward wholeness and joy.

Shelley Mitchell is a Jewish-American actor, coach, producer, writer, mother, and grandmother based in Los Angeles. She has performed Talking with Angels: Budapest, 1943 over 400 times across the United States and internationally, including at festivals in Edinburgh, Dublin, and Amsterdam. As a transformational performance coach, she has worked with Aly & AJ, Tom Waits, Sam Corlett, Sarah Cooper, and Shia LaBeouf. In the corporate world, she serves as a presentation and media coach, working with CEOs, engineers, and industrial designers from Standard Bots, Vital Bio, Kingdom Supercultures, The North Face, and Union Bank. On screen, she appears in the award-winning films Sorry to Bother You and Green is Gold—both written and directed by her former students, Boots Riley and Ryon Baxter. Find out more at: www.talkingwithangels.com | www.shelleymitchell.org