Jewish Stages

Brenda Adelman's One-Woman Show

2010-02-08T10:32:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone,

I'm so excited and I wanted to share the news.

I've been invited to open the Leeds International Jewish Theatre Festival in June with a performance of my one-woman show, My Brooklyn Hamlet.
Someone who saw me perform my show in Vienna in 2007 referred me to the artistic director there.
Thank you to whomever that was!
I'll be doing a second show there and they have introduced me to a theatre producer in London. Hopefully I'll be able to do a few performances in London too.
For those who have seen My Brooklyn Hamlet-you know I incorporate Shakespeare into it and it is such a dream of mine to be performing Shakespeare in England!
That said-I am booking my show for 2010 and I would love to bring it to this community. I'm especially interested in performing at Universities this year.

It's a one-woman show, low tech, with a simple stage.
I also lead workshops on the power of forgiving the unforgivable.

To find out more go to http://www.forgivenessandfreedom.com

or http://www.brendaadelman.com

Have a beautiful day,

Brenda
My Brooklyn Hamlet:

Her father killed her mother and married her aunt.
A one-woman show about the power of forgiving the unforgivable.
http://www.brendaadelman.com

Are you on Facebook?
Become a Fan at Forgiveness and Freedom Coaching or
Friend me at Brenda Adelman

Journalist seeks help in writing about Jewish theater

2009-09-14T13:24:00.000-07:00

Despite having had a few plays produced or workshopped in and submitting to competitions, I feel like a "novice" compared with my playwright colleagues in AJT.

But in one way I’ve been able to contribute to the organization and to Jewish theater in general--through my bread-and-butter trade. A few years back I did an article about AJT and Jewish theater for Naamat. I covered the Festival and conference this past year for myjewishlearning.com and just submitted an article to Hadassah about Theater J’s season (an earlier one focued on developments at Theater of the South).

I’m trying to interest Hadassah in a larger article about Jewish theater--both in Jewish venues and not. I've been telling them about plays of Jewish interest in general theaters. If they won't assign it, I'd like to pitch someone else. So, this is just a request for help, suggestions, and support should such an article come about. And if anyone is aware of a publication that might be particularly receptive to such an article, please let me know. Some day, I might be truly in your numbers as playwright. Till then, hope to aid the cause journalistically.

Please contact Tblankbarb@aol.com

The Jewish Pigeonhole

2009-09-14T11:00:00.000-07:00

A new Jewish play called The Retributionists, by Daniel Goldfarb, opens tomorrow. I mention the play in particular because The New York Times had a fascinating article about the play a few weeks ago, called At Ease in His Own Pigeonhole.

In it, Goldfarb talks about the difficulty of being a modern playwright labeled specifically as a Jewish playwright. According to the article, the younger generation (my generation, in fact) of Jews is no longer comfortable with seeing themselves onstage. Jewish culture is no longer a draw for young Jews.

During the Jewish theater conference, I noticed that some of our speakers (among them Israel Horovitz and Donald Margulies) clearly were uncomfortable with classifying themselves as Jewish playwrights. They, too, seemed worried about being pigeonholed, about being assigned to a genre which they could not escape.

Oddly, the playwright most comfortable with the association was Itamar Moses, another in the younger generation of playwrights. Although he did not write specifically Jewish plays, his closing speech embraced the idea that his plays are shaped by Jewish ideas.

I struggle with this question personally, as well. Many of my plays have Jewish themes, though some do not. But do I embrace the genre, if it is a genre? The problem with genres is that, to the uninitiated, they are defined by stereotype. Jewish theater is defined by Fiddler on the Roof or plays about the Holocaust, and anyone writing another sort of drama might well wish to step away.

In some ways, it reminds me of the dilemma that Vonnegut writes about regarding the science fiction genre. Vonnegut resisted being termed a science fiction author. As he said: "I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled 'science fiction'... and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal."

Personally, I felt in many ways my play Doctors Jane and Alexander would have been more reviewed had it NOT been included in my Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas. After all, it was about a Jewish family (my own), but in its themes it could have applied to anyone.

And yet...I stubbornly call my science fiction work science fiction and proudly identify as a Jewish writer. There is a pride in being connected to great works from the past, even as I wince when being connected to work I am less fond of. And truth to tell, much of my work is Jewish. Why play games with wording? I resent the need, if there is a need. My ideas are often based on Jewish ideas. My experiences are the experiences of an American Jew. So my work is Jewish and it is American. Doctors Jane and Alexander is even more than that. It is a science play, it is a documentary play, it is a found text play, it is a family drama, it is a comedy, it is a play with music, it is an autobiography. Why reject any of it? Each is a genre of sorts and each informs the play.

And each is a pigeonhole that limits me some audience member or critic that says - you know, I just don't like that sort of play. And each is a doorway to a fan of the genre. So does it help me or hurt?

I don't know. It is.

Edward Einhorn

AJT's Days of Creation: Highlights from the 2009 Conference

2009-08-24T12:39:00.000-07:00

Seventy to eighty Jewish theatre practitioners from all over the world representing approximately 40 theatres -- from as far away as Budapest, Israel, Canada to all over the United States at the conference.

The Theatre Festival by UTC#61 Edward Einhorn, Artistic Director, featuring 18 plays from Jewish text-based midrashic drama, to solo shows (also with young and emerging artists), to Israeli theatre, ontological-hysterical Jewish theatre, comedies, solo performances and more at Theatre 3/Mint Theatre on 8th and 44th Streets near Times Sq with audiences totaling over 5,000 people and lasting three weeks.

Major keynote speakers: Israel Horovitz international playwright and screenwriter, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Donald Margulies with an introduction by theatre scholar Ellen Schiff, and emerging young playwright Itamar Moses.

AJT playwrights had a showcase of member playwright short-works at the Marymount Manhattan College Theatre. (*SEE BELOW FOR PLAYWRIGHTS AND THEIR CONTACT INFO)

A multicultural Jewish theatre panel with Adam McKinney from DNA Works Dance Theatre - an African-American Jew; Mia Katigback a Filipino Jew and founding member of the National Asian American Theatre Company (starring in Jewish-Chinese play Leah’s Train by Karen Hartman and American Korean play American Hwangup at the Ma-Yi Theatre); Stacie Chaiken from Los Angeles and founder of What’s the Story?; moderated by David Chack, AJT president, and founder of ShPIeL a multicultural theatre and performance incubator based in Chicago.

Judith Malina from the monumentally groundbreaking and social justice theatre the Living Theatre sat with David Herskovits (Artistic Director of Obie Award winning experimental theatre Target Margin Theater), Yoni Oppenheim (theatre director/dramaturg specializing in Jewish, Israeli, & Arab theatre and Ibsen), and Andy Horwitz, moderator, from the Foundation for Jewish Culture.

Comedy playwriting legend Murray Schisgal (Luv, Jimmy Shine, Tootsie - film with Larry Gelbart, The Love Song of Barney Kempinski, and many more) Jeffrey Sweet (playwright, theatre historian, journalist), Broadway producer Amanda Lipitz (Legally Blonde, The Search Elle Woods) and Rachel Shukert (writer, playwright, performer Have You No Shame and Other Regrettable Stories, Bloody Mary, and Johnny Applefucker), moderated by Rich Orloff, AJT member playwright (HA!, Incredible Sex, Judgement Day)

Solo performers included: Ray Jessel a life-long TV & Musical Theatre writer and producer; Diane Flacks Toronto-based writer/performer for theatre, tv, radio and film; performed in New York at LaMama Theatre with her second solo show, By A Thread Stephen Axelrod "Blue Collar Bay" about a self-styled "Tough Jew" which ran off- Broadway at the Soho playhouse. International artist Noa Baum - Israeli storyteller, an actor with the Khan Theater of Jerusalem. Pal Bernstein a theater artist whose plays and performance works have been produced extensively in the U.S. and in Europe, about building repeatable, yet open-ended performance, recently returning from Hungary where he premiered VITA NUOVA HRABAL. Nicole Raphael, performing professionally in title roles like The Diary of Anne Frank and Romeo and Juliet and artistic director of The Mesaper Theatre. Steve Greenstein’s Voices from the Holy Land...And Not So Holy Land, a solo play about the hard realities in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. David Gale … Chutzpah à go-go, fresh from a successful run at the Minnesota Jewish Theater, Canadian Emmy winning writer/performer David Gale and his partner in rhyme Randy Vancourt perform highlights from their musical comedy revue celebrating and satirizing Yiddishkeit in small town America.

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING SPONSORS: Marymount Manhattan College, 92Y Tribeca, New York University Tisch School of the Arts, the Museum of the City of New York, the Center for Jewish History, The Shapiro Fund, The Forward, The Village Voice, nytheatre.com, Jewish Week

FEATURED AJT PLAYWRIGHTS AT THE 2009 CONFERENCE:

DISPLACED WEDDING
(Yiddish title: A Khaseneh in Fehrenwald)
BY H. LEIVICK
English translation by
ELLEN PERECMAN AND GERSHON PERECMAN
Ellen Perecman eperecman@nyc.rr.com
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

AN ANSWER TO THEIR PRAYERS
BY HANK KIMMEL
hankkimmel@mindspring.com
............................................................................................................................................

THE GIRL ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE
BY HENRIK EGER
Eger@aol.com; www.henrikeger.com

THE GIRL ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE
BY HENRIK EGER
Eger@aol.com; www.henrikeger.com ………………………………………………………………………………………………………

A LIGHT TO THE NATIONS
BY NORMAN FEDDER
fedder@ksu.edu
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
THE JEW DOG
BY MICHAEL HARDSTARK
mikehardstark@hotmail.com
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

HENRIETTA SZOLD: WOMAN OF VALOR
BY JOANNE KOCH AND SARAH BLACHER COHEN
JKoch@nl.edu
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
A WOMAN OF VALOR
BY JUDITH ESTRINE
judithestrine@nyc.rr.com
……………………………………………………………………………………………………

PASS THE HORSERADISH
BY SUSAN SHAFER
sshafer@mindspring.com
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

MEESTER AMERIKA
BY JENNIFER BERMAN, ARTIE BRESSLER, AND MICHAEL COLBY
Michael Colby Ludlow29@aol.com
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

LONG BEACH '44: A DRAMATIC COMEDY
BY SIDRA RAUSCH
sidra.sings@comcast.net
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE JEWS
BY LAWRENCE GOODMAN
goodman.lawrence@gmail.com
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

SOME THINGS YOU KEEP
BY ALIX SOBLER
alix_sobler@yahoo.com
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
MATCHMAKERS
BY ROBERT M. BARR
robertmbarr@earthlink.net; www.actorbobbarr.com/Site/Home.html ……………………………………………………………………………………………………

MY MUSIC
BY HARVEY OSTROFF
heo@shaw.ca
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

THE WAY TO SUMMER
BY NADINE BERNARD
ndf3@cornell.edu
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

BESHARET
BY CHANA PORTER
chanaporter@gmail.com

Visions in Theatre

2009-08-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

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

The Funniest Man You Never Heard Of

2009-08-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

By Ralph Meranto

In a conference packed with talks, interviews and panel discussion with famous writers and theatre professionals, it was an unexpected treat to learn the life story of a brilliant writer who seems to have been overshadowed by the Hollywood giants helped to make funny.

Hank Rosenfeld’s talk, “The Wicked Wit of the West A Tribute to Irving Brecher” on June 9th at The Museum of the City of New York was a charming tribute to one of the last great MGM roundtable screenwriters.

Irving Brecher wrote vaudeville and radio shows for Milton Berle, punched up The Wizard of Oz, and created “The Life of Riley” on radio, in the movies, and as the very first television sitcom.

Born in the Bronx in 1914, Brecher took a job at age 19 as a ticket taker at a Manhattan movie theater, where he learned from a critic for Variety that he could earn money writing jokes for comedians. Knowing of Milton Berle’s reputation as joke-stealer, he ran an ad in Variety claiming to provide “Positively Berle-proof gags. So bad not even Milton will steal them.” The ad resulted in a phone call from Berle himself, who later hired the young writer.

In 1937, he moved to Hollywood to work on scripts for MGM. He was an uncredited script doctor on “The Wizard of Oz,” leading Groucho Marx to call him “The Wicked Wit of the West.” In Berle tradition, Rosenfeld borrow that title for his biography of Brecher and his AJT talk. It was Groucho himself who championed Brecher giving him the distinction of the only man ever to write two Marx Brothers movies by himself. Brecher was also nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

His career is interesting, because he knew so many giants yet reveals his own fears and failings. Rosenfeld portrays a man who, despite decades in a vicious industry, stayed generous of spirit, clear-eyed and, most important, funny. His book is the product of 6 years of splitting pastrami sandwiches and hanging on Irv’s every word.

During the writers’ strike of 2007, Brecher, made a video which can still be seen on Youtube. In it, he urges the writers not to settle saying “since 1938, I have been waiting for the writers to get a fair deal; I’m still waiting.” He added: “As Chester A. Riley would have said, ‘What a revoltin’ development this is’ But he only said it because I wrote it.”

Brecher died in 2008 at age 94, but luckily Rosenfeld lives to tell his tale.

On being a playwright at his 6th AJT conference

2009-08-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

By Rich Orloff

During the playwrights’ lunch at this year’s AJT conference, one of the playwrights said to the group, “Let’s be honest. The main reason we’re here is to sell our plays.” It was a brave comment, as artists aren’t supposed to admit such things in public. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that, at least for me, the comment wasn’t true.

Don’t get me wrong: I’d like every Jewish theater in the world to produce my Jewish-themed plays, and I wouldn’t complain if they decided to also produce my non-Jewish-themed plays as well as my e-mail messages and my shopping list. I’m delighted that several AJT theaters have decided to produce my comedy OY! over the last few years, which I doubt would have happened if I hadn’t become an AJT member.

However, the main reason I continue to attend the AJT conferences is simply that I’ve gained enormous affection and appreciation for its members. Playwrights don’t often get to hang out with artistic directors; they and we have different agendas. Because of the AJT conferences, I’ve gotten to know several artistic directors not only as people with the power to produce my plays, but also simply as people.

My favorite event at each year’s conference is when the artistic directors sit in a circle and talk about their previous and upcoming seasons. I’ve not only learn their tastes, but I’ve also learned the myriad of factors which influence their decisions: the size and composition of their audiences, the pressures from their boards, their financial concerns, and their limited resources.

It’s not just an intellectual education, either. One can hear in their voices the pleasures of their artistic triumphs and their frustrations at the gap between their dreams and the realities. Given all their pressures, I’ve grown to appreciate whenever an AJT theater produces a play by “Rich Who?”

For the last three conferences, I’ve moderated the Playwrights Forum. I’ve had a chance to listen to excerpts from almost fifty Jewish-themed plays: about Israel, the Holocaust, our heritage and contemporary concerns. I’ve been entertained, engaged and moved. I’ve also been bored, lectured to, yelled at, and confused. Each forum has given me a greater sense of what I want to accomplish as a playwright and how best I can serve our community.

Because this year’s conference was in New York, an unprecedented number of playwrights gave talks or appeared on panels. I got a peek inside the minds of Murray Schisgal, Israel Horowitz, Donald Margulies, Jeffrey Sweet, Itamar Moses and Rachel Shukert. (That’s over 150 years of playwriting experience.) Informal conversations with other AJT playwright members gave me a greater sense of what made them tick and provided opportunities to both kvell about our accomplishments and kvetch about our frustrations. (Okay, so we kvetched more than we kvelled. It goes with being a playwright.)

The education I’ve received as an AJT playwright member has served me not only in marketing my plays to Jewish theaters but also in how I deal with artistic directors and theaters of all kinds. Also, I think the organization is simply haimish. I’m already looking forward to what I’ll learn and what fun I’ll have at the next conference.

I’ll also bring along a few copies of my plays, just in case someone’s interested.