In commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
Starring:
Noah Budin, Andrew Rothman, Tim Welsh and Margi Herwald-Zitteli
Two former Lithuanian yeshiva students – best friends – find each again in 1948, in a Montreal park. Their friendship had been severed years earlier as the two held incompatible views of God and secularism. The men, now Holocaust survivors, meet to resume their quarrel.
The Cast of “For the Life of Him” (Credit: Elaine Siegel)
For the Life of Him
by David Finkle
Directed by Eric van Baars*+
and featuring: Curt Arnold, Dana Hart*, Jacqi Loewy*, Brian Marshall*, Michael Mclntosh*, Tracee Patterson*, and Tom Woodward*
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2013 at 2:00 p.m.
DOBAMA THEATRE
2340 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights
Writer/biographer Daniel Freund wants to make literary icon Harris Persky (Pearlstein and Son, Day of Rest, Rifka Remembers When) his next subject. But he hasn’t bargained for the complexities of getting a living person between hardcovers. Over the course of four years, he
“For the Life of Him” (Credit: Elaine Siegel)
will grapple not only with the irascible and not entirely cooperative Persky, but also with Persky’s closest associates: his ex-wife, two sons and sister and his boyfriend. Turns out, delving into another’s life can mean becoming inexorably involved with it and finding there’s more to the story.
DAVID FINKLE writes about the arts and has for some time. Among the outlets for which he’s covered theater, books, movies, dance and art: The New York Times, The New York Post, Vogue, The New Yorker and The Nation. For many years, he was chief drama critic at TheaterMania.com. He is a member of the New York Drama Critics Circle. His first book of short stories, People Tell Me Things, was published in 2012 and is available through Amazon.com. David Finkle will attend the reading and be part of an audience talk-back with local playwright/theatre critic Christine Howey.
*Member, AEA, +Member, SDC Stage Directors and Choreographers
Dobama Theatre, 2340 Lee Road
(at the Heights Library)
The Cast: Don Edelman, Mitchell Fields*, Carly Germany*, Stuart Hoffman, Laura Perrotta*, Tom Woodward*, and Margi Herwald-Zitelli
Abigail Gersten, a Jewish attorney and First Amendment absolutist with a history of defending unpopular clients, meets her match in Professor Bernard Cooper, a Holocaust denier being harrassed by the federal government. Her decision to represent Cooper not only threatens her stature in the Jewish community; it shakes her faith in what’s true. As events spin out of control, she must weigh what’s legal versus what’s right.
Before becoming host of NPR’s popular news quiz show Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me!, Peter Sagal was a playwright of renown. His plays Denial, Most Wanted, Kim’s Sister, What to Say, Real Time and Mall of America have been staged from New York to L.A. Among his writing honors: the Laurie Foundation Theater Visions Award, the O’Neill Center’s Charles MacArthur Fellowship, two Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellowships, and (his alma mater) Harvard University’s McCord Arts Prize.
*Member, AEA, , +Member, SDC Stage Directors and Choreographers
Holly Holsinger, Matt O’Shea, Laura Perrotta*, Kyle Primous*, Li Stebner,
Ryan Vincent, and Jimmy Woody
SUNDAY, MARCH 10, 2013, 2 p.m. (EDT)
Cleveland Public Theatre, in the James Levin Theatre
6415 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland, OH
Two families in an unnamed Middle Eastern Country both have keys to the same house. What happens when they try to live in it together? The fathers play historical chess; the mothers cook together, even though one uses mint and the other dill; the lovers dare to imagine a future; and war mad children play doctor and murder. But when one girl’s dreams of flight are (literally) shot down, the betrayals and realignments which follow make us question our very definition of peace. The playwright will lead the post-show discussion.
Hosted by Lakeland Community College
7700 Clocktower Drive, Building D, Kirtland
*FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC*
The cast: John Busser, Liz Conway, Amiee Collier, Aaron Elersich, Mitchell Fields*, Carly Germany*, Trey Gilpin, Stuart Hoffman, Jeremy Jenkins, Annie Kitral*, Diane Mull, and Daniel Simpson
THE DOGS OF PRIPYAT is an adult fable that explores one consequence of the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986. Residents in nearby towns (the Exclusion Zone) were forced to evacuate – but they had to leave their pets behind. This is a story about bonding and survival – and a groundbreaking parable for our time.
Leah Napolin is best-known for her play YENTL, her adaptation of a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer that ran for a season on Broadway in 1975 and was subsequently made into a movie by Barbra Streisand. Other works for the stage include: LOST ISLAND, TRASH AND TREASURES and ARISTOPHANES’ RETREAT. THE DOGS OF PRIPYAT was her exploration of what might have happened to the animals who were forced to deal with the aftermath of radiation poisoning. They did, in fact, survive.
DOGS won the prestigious John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award and has been adapted for the musical theatre.
Cast of “The Dogs of Pripyat” (Credit: Elaine Siegel)
