Visions in Theatre

By David Chack
President, Association for Jewish Theatre

I write this in the wake of the shooting that was done at the Holocaust Museum by a white supremacist. 88-year-old James von Brunn who killed African-American security guard Stephen Johns, known to his friends as “Big John”, as he was helping von Brunn enter the museum.

At the same time the members of the Association for Jewish Theatre were having our final meeting and lunch at the Center for Jewish History. As I was leaving, Yoni Oppenheim got a call from his girlfriend saying there had been a shooting at the Holocaust Museum.

I mention all of this because what we do as creators does not happen in a vacuum. Our work provides a most valuable service, in this age when an African-American is elected president and when racism and anti-Semitism are no longer tolerated in this country. As leaders in Jewish theatre and performance we are deep in the cultural shift that, like a tectonic shifting of the plates of the earth, is creating massive cultural seismic change.

Through doing what we do we promote ethnic heritage and values. We promote cultures tradition, transmission and transformation over a 4,000 year span. Diversity and multiculturalism are in our bones with Middle Eastern roots, African, Iberian, West and East European, and Asian. We also embody identity values e.g. women’s rights, gay rights, civil rights for Blacks, spiritual growth, economic rights, environmentalism and other liberation movements.

Therefore whenever we perform a piece of theatre from Jewish heritage we take a stand against hate, violence, and cultural myopia. Every audience member, and even more, the entire community is positively changed and affected. Like throwing a pebble in a brook -- the ripples move out farther and farther. But, as Paul Simon asks in his Ecclesiastes-like song And the Leaves That Are Green Turn to Brown, do “… they ever make a sound?”

Let’s give them voice and be inspiring! As we move into the future we need to hear your stories, your anecdotes, the numbers of shows you do in a season and what they are, your audience statistics, your experiences about the ways that demonstrate you are changing the world. Evvie Orbach made it clear, when she received her award for Superb Achievements at our AJT General Membership Meeting, that the reasons she does theatre is for Tikkun Olam – to repair the world.

I ask all of you to help me and send me your stories about how you are repairing the world, how
you find the sparks of light in every piece of theatre you do, how you are changing peoples lives in an ongoing way and having an impact on their heritage, identity, cultural connections, community building and their ability to find meaning for their lives.

Please help me so we can all celebrate the tremendous and very important work we all do.

Thank you,

David
President, Association for Jewish Theatre